In Hebrew the Shem HaMephorash (or Schemhamphorash) stands for ‘The Explicit Name’. It stands for an originally Tannaitic term in describing the hidden name of God in Kabbalah. Classical Jewish mysticism versions state the name is composed of either four, twelve, twenty-two, forty-two letters or the most common, seventy-two letters.

This seventy-two letter variant is derived from the book of Exodus, verses 14:19 – 21. By reading the Hebrew letters using a boustrophedon (ox-turning) method, in a bi-directional snakelike reading pattern, seventy-two three letter names were distilled from the text. Kabbalistic legends say that this seventy-two-fold name was used by Moses to cross the Red sea and that it would grant later holy men the power to cast out demons, heal the sick prevent natural disasters and even kill enemies. 

By adding the suffixes “El” or “Yah” the German kabbalist Johann Reuchlin repurposed the names of God to those of angels, somewhere in the sixteenth century. This was already a practice in some Kabbalistic circles, but Reuchlin populairst the practice. After him the him the names of God became the angels of God. 

These angels were the product of the will of God and like the original names, all serve a purpose to illuminate and enhance humanity’s spiritual return to God. The insertion of ‘El’ and ‘Yah’ made the names pronounceable and gave men through angelic individuation gateways to be closer to the nature of God. Some say to even become God, but that is a different interpretation as a whole. Something we can all decide for ourself, based on our faith, believe and place in the reality of nature.