Memphis meaning

Meaning

Perpetual Beauty

Place Of Flags (i.e. Fascism)

Place Of Miracles

Place Of Expansion

Etymology

From the Egyptian term men nefer, perpetual beauty.

From the verb נוף (nup), to wave like a flag, or מפה (mappa), flag, or נוף (nop), to be a flagged height.

From מופת (mopet), miracle or wonder, associated with יפה (yapa), to be beautiful.

From מפתיה (mepateha), "opening her", from פתה (pata), to be wide open or spacious.

Related names

• Via nefer: Nefertiti

• Via מפה (mappa): Muppim

• Via יפה (yapa): Japhia, Joppa, Mephaath, Puah, Zaphenath-paneah

• Via פתה (pata): Japheth, Pethuel

The Egyptian city of Memphis is mentioned eight times in the Bible (Isaiah 19:13, Jeremiah 2:16, 44:1, 46:14, 46:19, Ezekiel 30:13, 30:16, Hosea 9:6), and all but Hosea spell this name נף (Noph). Hosea speaks of מף (Moph).

By the time the prophets wrote, Memphis had known periods of great honor and utter decline. Situated just south of where the Nile begins to breach into its formidable and fertile delta, it had been the capital city of Egypt for a millennium, from the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt to the decline of the Old Kingdom in the 22nd century BC. It briefly became again Egypt's capital in the 14th century, during the reign of Tutankhamen, and in the 8th century, just around the time of the prophets of Israel. Its signature religion — Memphite-theology, which emphasized the unification of Egypt, the supremacy of the creator Ptah and the divine triad — was restored as well.

Even when Memphis was not the capital or home of the government, it remained an important city, economically, artistically and theologically. Many of the waves of nationalism and liberation movements from various conquerors arose from Memphis, which helps to explain why today it is an uninhabited ruin.

The reputation of this city and the Greek version of the name may have additionally helped the formation of the adjective κομψος (kompsos), refined or befitting a gentleman, but also the verbs μεμφομαι (memphomai), to find fault, λαμπω (lampo), to shine upon (hence our word "lamp") and hence αντιλαμπω (antilampo), to reflect.

Memphis, Tennessee, was named in 1819, as part of the Egyptomania that descended upon the American colonies upon Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798. Knowledge of Egypt was extremely limited at that time. The Rosetta Stone had been found in 1799 but wasn't deciphered until 1822, and only then could people begin to read ancient Egyptian texts. Whatever was known, or suspected, about ancient Egypt existed mostly by merit of Masonic traditions (whose Rite of Misraim began to emerge from the Scottish Rite around 1800).

The name Memphis is the English transliteration of the Greek version of the Egyptian term men nefer, which means Perpetual Beauty (hence also the familiar name Nefertiti), and which morphed into men nepi, then mempi and finally Μεμφις (Memphis). The Hebrew version(s) of this name, however, is at best a play on its original name. Hebrew scribes loved their wordplay, lavished puns on personal names (from Amraphel to Onesimus), and took broad liberties when incorporating the existing names of cities in their allegories. The famous "tell it not in Gath" (2 Samuel 1:20), for instance, makes use of the verb נגד (nagad), to tell, as well as the term Gittite (Winepress), so that hearing something in Gath (or Gethsemane) is like hearing something on the grapevine. The prophet Micah uses this same expression (Micah 1:10) but adds to it several cities and their associated activities (Beth-le-aphrah, Shaphir, Zaanan, Beth-ezel, and so on).

To the Hebrews, Memphis was נף (nop) or מף (mop), while the letters נ (nun) and מ (mem) also function as prefixes — the nun tends to create a passive or reflexive voice; the mem mostly indicates agency or origin. The name of the name of letter פ (peh), namely פה (peh), means mouth. This implies that in Hebrew, the name Memphis relates to mouth the way the noun מדבר (midbar), desert, relates to דבר (dabar), meaning Word, or Logos in Greek.

But the Hebrews were what Bach was to music, and a name that meant only one thing was a poor name indeed. The word-playing Hebrew scribes appear to have meant to imply that they considered the first letter "m" of the (Hellenized) name Memphis the prefix of place or agency, so that to them, the name Memphis was Me-Mopet, or the Place Of Mops, or in modern terms: The Muppet Show — as the bard said: "All the world's a stage" (which was an observation made long before Shakespeare):

However, the plural construct of our word for flag, which would be מפת (mopet), is also strikingly similar to the word מופת (mopet), miracle or wonder, which in plural frequently occurs with a (so-called) defective spelling: מפתים (mopetim), and which most often refers to the signs and wonders which God performed in Egypt: "But I will harden Pharaoh's heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 7:3).

It's not at all clear where this second מפת (mopet) comes from but many commentators relate it to the verb יפה (yapa), to be beautiful. In Aramaic (much more than in Hebrew), this verb emphasizes a being put together beautifully, a well-assembled or well-joined whole of many cooperating parts:

But, our mystery noun, this second מופת (mopet), now meaning miracle or wonder or "beautiful assembly", may also derive from the verb פתה (pata), to be wide open or spacious, which is also where the name Japheth derives from, and Japheth's son Javan embodies Greece.

Japheth's sons peopled Eurasia, whereas Ham peopled Africa and Shem the Levant, but just like Japheth would dwell in the tents of Shem (Genesis 9:27), so Egypt (particularly after the Bronze Age Collapse), became much more attached to Europe than to Africa. In the Greek period, Egypt became Greek, and in the Roman period, it became Roman.

In Hosea 2:14 occurs the participle form מפתיה (mepateha), which means "I am going to open/enlarge her", i.e. open her to kindness, or make her able to receive generosity or conceive of progeny. In Hebrew, the verb for to conceive (getting pregnant) is הרה (hara), which for obvious reasons relates to הר (har), mountain or hill. In Greek, however, the verb κυω (kuo), to be or become pregnant, connects to the noun κυων (kuon), dog. These words and their connections were wrought in mankind's early pastoral period, and appear to indicate that Greek shepherds saw the social position of their women relative to the children as akin to that of their dogs relative to the sheep.

Hosea's term מפתיה (mepateha) comes from the verb פתה (pata), which is also thought to be the source of Jesus' enigmatic exclamation εφφαθα (ephphatha), which he utters in Mark 7:34:

It was not at all unusual in antiquity that a signature quality of a city would become proverbial or indicative of said quality. This is how the world begat Frankfurter frankfurters, Hamburger hamburgers, Danish Danish and Eau-de-Cologne from Cologne, sandwiches from Sandwich, dollars from Joachimsthal (that's the same "thal", valley, as in Neanderthal), jeans from Genoa (in Italy), suede from Sweden and china from China. And of course gypsies from Egypt, charlatans from Cerreto (in Italy, known for its quacks), dalmatians from Dalmatia, canaries from the Canaries, turkeys from Turkey and pheasants from the river Phasis. Since deep antiquity, paper was named after Byblos, parchment after Pergamum, gauze after Gaza, copper after Cyprus, and peaches (and Pharisees) after Persia. The name Canaan probably derives from the Semitic word for merchant, and hence simply means (Global) Market. The familiar words "romance" and "romantic" derive from the toponym Rome (via the ethnonym Roman).

In antiquity, a city's grandeur coincided with the measure of its connectedness, because if a city was indeed great, then everybody wanted to be there and the city's greatness was manifested in the international diversity of its visitors, tradesmen, ambassadors and dignitaries. King Solomon's city of Jerusalem was such a global hub, and was in all but name the very capital of the world, as it was said that "men came from all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom" (1 Kings 4:34, hence also Acts 2:5-11 and Revelation 21:24). Something quite similar yet strikingly different occurs in Homer's description of Troy, where instead of a shared language and desire for wisdom, a linguistic diversity and a military alliance is emphasized:

"Numerous here are the allies spread out in Priam's great city, men from many lands, all speaking different tongues. So let each man give the signal to those he commands, marshal his own citizens, then lead them forth" (Iliad 2.803-806, translation by Peter Green, 2015).

It appears that while to the Egyptians and Greeks of recent antiquity, the city of Memphis was proverbially beautiful, to the Semites, the city of Memphis was mostly a city of flags and banners. Flags and banners are marks of collective identity, and mostly tend to emphasize people's origins and clan, which is exactly how animals see the world: in terms of familial allegiance (Psalm 73:22, Ecclesiastes 3:18, 2 Peter 2:12, Jude 1:10). In recent antiquity, people began to look for ways to rise above humanity's inherited animal intuitions and create something new, something transcended. The signature difference between the globalization effort of the Hebrews and that of every other nation in the world is that while the Hebrews continued to appreciate their tribal identities (Numbers 2:2), their earthly tribal flags were wholeheartedly submitted to a unifying heavenly State (hence Genesis 1:26, and thus Matthew 6:33, Philippians 3:20, Revelation 21:2), and its "flag" of non-partiality (Romans 2:11, Acts 10:34, James 2:1-9): that is the flag of information technology, which guarantees the free exchange of information, which in turn leads to the perfect law of liberty (James 1:25). Knowing and abiding by that perfect law of liberty (ελευθερια, eleutheria, freedom-by-law), in turn results in science and technology (Exodus 31:1-11), and that in a world of pure knowledge (John 8:32), in which there are no tribal identities, no masters and slaves, not even genders (Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11) and only freedom (Galatians 5:1).

In our article on YHWH, we explain that the Hebrews were unique in the world in that they associated their deity not with tribal or military might but rather with information technology and science (Psalm 12:6, 1 Kings 4:33, Isaiah 1:18, 1 Thessalonians 5:21), so that by the study of nature, the nature of God could be known (Romans 1:20), which is unity (Deuteronomy 6:4). God's nature, which is unity, is the only possible source of global unity, so that only the knowledge of and obedience to the perfect law of freedom leads to global unity, and so that humans can partake in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4, Hebrews 12:10), which is unity (John 17:21-24, Ephesians 4:3-6).

Hence, long before Moses and Jethro organized the tribes of Israel and ultimately placed each of them under their own banner, even before the Ten Commandments were received, and right after Israel had walked out of Egypt and crossed the Sea of Reeds and had been secured in their basic physical needs (food and water), and security from their proverbial arch-nemesis the Amalekites, Moses built an altar and named it YHWH-nesi, meaning YHWH Is My Banner (Exodus 17:15). And that's the quality that sets Israel firmly apart from the other nations. The so-called Hebrew Republic is governed by a senatorial body, which only submits to the conversation at the heart of heaven (Revelation 14:2-5), which collectively is omniscient but which comprises a myriad of perspectives that are local and limited (compare Genesis 1:14-19 and 15:5 to Daniel 12:3 and Philippians 2:15).

In a very precise parallel, the Bride of the Song of Solomon exclaims, "He has brought me to his banquet hall, and his banner over me is love" (Song of Solomon 2:4). And the word for "love", namely אהב ('aheb), has nothing to do with feelings because God would not command anybody's feelings. Examine Paul's celebrated ode to love in 1 Corinthians 13, and see that love is not about feeling but about knowing, not about missing and yearning but about completing and perfecting, not about a child's naivety but about an adult's maturity, not about being swept away but about bearing and enduring all things. God's commandment "You shall love YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (Deuteronomy 6:5) commands to approach, study, appease and ultimately merge in nature and intent with the Creator. Of course that comes with a lot of feelings, but those are effects, and certainly neither causes nor means. The same approach works wonders when faced with an enemy (Matthew 5:44), whose animosity may very well be rooted in his primitive fear for anything strange and other, and whose careful and kind and generous approach may turn him into the best of friends. This takes considerable skill, and not everybody has that skill and gets subsequently plundered and abducted by the enemy they clearly underestimated and carelessly approached (2 Kings 20:12-19). Those who are wiser than Hezekiah in these matters, and actually manage to forge true peace among nations, are rightly blessed and called Sons of God (Matthew 5:9).

The world, however, consists entirely of precisely the opposite of the Hebrew Republic — all forms of governments other than that of the Hebrew Republic are nothing but variations of the same underlying and beastly belief in power and domination. Jesus called the Hebrew Republic the narrow gate to life, and all the others the broad road to destruction (Matthew 7:13). The word for broad is πλατος (platos), which also describes the broad plain across which the armies of Gog and Magog march upon the Beloved City (Revelation 20:9). The Beloved City is signified by love (not a feeling), which is the signature quality of the Hebrew Republic, whereas the Platonic Republic is signified by the domination of whoever is in charge. Hence the Platonic Republic is signified by competition and hence the survival of the fittest and hence (and this is crucial) the systematic termination of the less fit.

Because there are no factions in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:13), Christ destroys all dominion (1 Corinthians 15:24). And this in turn means that he ends the systematic slaughter of society's weak. This means that society must stop being a perpetually stampeding herd, which routinely outruns the weak and old, and leaves these unfortunates to be picked up by whatever predator was in the mood for a snack. Instead, society must settle down and make it the highest priority to take care of the young, weak and old. Society is not smart enough to achieve that on its own, which is why it's so very fortunate that the world has shepherds, who have been working very hard for a very long time to build fences and stables and clear the fields from bloodthirsty beasts. See our articles on the names Jacob and Esau for a closer look at who are the shepherds (ποιμενες, poimenes), who are the herdlings and who are the predators of our world.

But all this means that the world is essentially divided into (1) a small but growing core in which rule-bound shepherds maintain domesticated herds, and (2) a huge but slinking wilderness where the only law is the law of the jungle. The point of our present story is that within this jungle, there are inevitably beings who are smart enough to understand principles like economy of scale and the efficiency of pooling resources. But the cardinal rule of the jungle is that the stronger party is stronger because the rest is weaker, and these jungle lords will only cooperate to secure their own position. In the jungle, houses will federate but always in submission to the strongest house.

When Jesus said: in my Father's house are many mansions (John 14:2), he described the Hebrew Republic, in which the strongest house is strongest because it shepherds, and a shepherd is not someone who bullies his flocks into submission but rather someone who listens to the needs of his flocks and "obeys" their voice and serves them the grass they crave even though the shepherd does not eat grass himself. This is how the prophet wrote, "In that day YHWH will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the one who is feeble among them in that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of YHWH before them" (Zechariah 12:8).

As said, there are always two parties in the world: (1) the stronger one, in which many houses are subjected to the most superior one, but who is inevitably divided against itself and must come to ruin as per the laws of physics (Matthew 12:25), and (2), the weaker one, who will ultimately inherit the earth, not by power and might but by God's spirit, which is the spirit of unity (1 Samuel 2:9, Zechariah 4:6).

The city of Rome, the Hebrews named simultaneously after רום (rum), to be high, and/or רמה (rama), to be deceived — and nobody in their original audience would have missed the wink to concubine Reumah who despite her elevation would always remain in the shadow of true wife Milcah, the true queen of Mesopotamia (Genesis 22:20-24), whose literary archetype would also be embodied by queen Esther, who replaced the unfaithful queen Vashti. Likewise, the great empire of Babel, the Hebrews named after the verb בלל (balal), to mix or confuse — and this not simply because of the great diversity of languages that were spoken in the empire, but rather the great diversity of theologies and reality models that never consolidated upon one model that was acceptable for everyone. Because that would not be broadly achieved until the scientific revolution, when mankind began to call upon the name of YHWH, in such baffling ignorance of previous achievements that they thought they were calling upon a stranger rather than a very old friend (compare Genesis 4:26 to 1 John 4:19 and Revelation 2:4). But until the Logos is widely recognized and freely interacted with, the governments of the earth must resort to oppression, law enforcement and propaganda.

Parallel to the story of the tower of Babel, the centralizing power house built by the sons of Joktan on the plain of Shinar, there is the family of Abraham, the refugee of Ur, who would be the father of many nations (Genesis 17:4) and a blessing to all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:3, see Ephesians 3:15), and whose progeny would ultimately inherit the entire earth (Galatians 3:7), simply by serving whoever needs serving and helping whoever needs help (Galatians 6:2, John 13:35).

The word for reed and thus papyrus, namely סוף (sup), is closely similar to the word for lip, namely שפה (sapa), as both have to do with root ספף (sapap), to create edges and limits. The Joktanites were famously of one lip (Genesis 11:1) but the Abrahamites were of one mind and many lips (1 Corinthians 2:16), and did not live on bread alone but on every word of God (Luke 4:4). To the Hebrews, the name Memphis meant Place Of The Lip rather than of the conversation. "This people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lips (שפה, sapa), but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by the precept of men. Therefore behold, I will once again deal marvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous. And the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the discernment of their discerning men will be concealed" (Isaiah 29:13).

To the Hebrews, Memphis was a place that pretended to be an enlightened Republic, but which was still very much a tyranny by the strongest house over the many weaker ones (see our article on Tyrannus). The prophet Jeremiah called Memphis the daughter of Egypt (Jeremiah 46:19), and the word for daughter, namely בת (bat) is closely similar to the word for temple, namely בית (bayit) — and this is not an accident: the word for son, namely בן (ben), looks like a noun derived from the verb בנה (bana), to build; hence 1 Peter 2:5.

And so, Isaiah said of Memphis: "The princes of Memphis are deluded; those who are the cornerstone of her tribes have led Egypt astray." And through Ezekiel YHWH declared: "I will cause to cease the idols from Memphis. And there will no longer be a prince in the land of Egypt" (Ezekiel 30:13).

To the Europeans, the name Memphis meant Perpetual Beauty, but to the Hebrews it meant Flag or Place Of The Flag, which was evidently the word for "fascism" before that word was coined in Latin. The word fascism comes from the Latin term fasces, which is the plural of fascis, which literally means bundle (and the smallest bundle is a bundle of three: see our article on Three Taverns).

The fasces was a bundle of rods bound tightly around an ax, which appears to have originated as a kind of elevated totem (what later would become a flag) around which soldiers would rally during battle. In later Roman times, the fasces became a signature attribute of Roman legal authorities, as the rods were to beat people with and the ax was for beheading them. In other words: the fasces was a symbol of violent law enforcement, and laws need to be enforced when there are people in society who don't like them. That these people may have good reasons to dislike certain laws is not a topic of concern for the fasces-toting dignitaries since their primary concern is to obey commands. There's always a bigger fasces, you see.

In our modern times, the word fascism has attained a negative ring because of its association with Hitler. But before Hitler sullied that word (and the swastika, which is the four-square symbol of global harmony and prosperity: the four-horned earth-altar we discuss in our article on the verb נופ, nop, see above), fascism was considered a very good idea indeed. It's why we have federations such as the United Sates of America, who are united so as to dominate smaller and weaker nations and federations — hence the fasces depicted in the left talon of the Great Seal's eagle, on the front of the throne of Lincoln's Memorial, and at the base of the Statue of Freedom. It appears that the American lumberjack trope (Paul Bunyan, specifically) at least in part caters to popular revolt with fascism, which in turn may have informed the formation of Superman (same color codes; the name "Superman" translates the German Übermensch).

Belief in violent law enforcement is deeply rooted in our western societies. We can't imagine it any other way. Also because decades of TV has convinced all of us that our societies are crawling with evildoers and terrorists. And this is because our societies embrace every possibly way to keep the general population uninformed of the fact that freedom is an acquired skill, and can certainly be acquired. Because this is why there are churches and synagogues and mosques: so that anybody can learn whatever it is that they specifically need, to be a free and mature human being, capable of making peace.

The famous separation of Church and State that so many people are very happy with is a complete scam, because its purpose was to remove learned people (of any plumage: in Christ there are no tribes or religions) from the seat of government and replace them with a pack of self-serving thieves who have no interest in a free population and instead spread propaganda and call it enlightenment, propagate slavery and call it freedom, cause destruction and call it progress.

The 2025 series called Mobland directed by Guy Richie is a surprisingly creative (and rather brutal, so viewer beware) innovation of the archetypal conflicts and narrative arcs that are presented in the Bible. The "mob" in the title Mobland comes from the Latin term mobile vulgus, the "moveable" common masses, and fits right into our above story on Memphis: Mobland is The Muppet Show for grown-ups, not another mere mafia flick, but rather the story of the powers that are really in control of the human κοσμος (kosmos). This is nothing new, as Hollywood has been doing this on a massive scale since Casablanca. What's new is that lately the UK started doing it too, and this with uncanny sensitivity to the narrative structures that make the Bible truer than anything else, truer than farthest reaches of science and rationality, and as true as the regularities that emerge when people move. The Bible is mind, and mind sells. That appears to be understood of late.

Spoiler alert:

As is clear, and by her own admission, Maeve is Mother Nature and Conrad (Con-Rad) is satan, the fallen archangel who sparked the war in heaven and shot his best mate Archy (a fellow, otherwise unnamed archangel) in the heart. Archy was in with the Mexicans (that would be a wink to Spain, and hence the Moors and hence Islam). Both these two embody whatever it was that also declared war on the budding British Empire (Richie Lionheart). And these two got bailed out by Kat (Catherina the Great), but via the cunning of Harry — the noun ארי ('ari), means lion, and Susa was the winter capital of Persia, where Esther became queen — who is the Suffering Servant, and embodies the Jews of Europe in our little allegory. Harry in turn promised Eddy (the Second Beast, son of the First) that should he make it up to the top of the Temple, he would surely shove him off (Matthew 4:5-7). All of this is of course not chronological: it's a mental fractal in which the story is told in terms of traumatic highlights, not according to a paint by number timeline. Time, as the man sang, is not on our side.

Bella is short for Isabella (of Alhambra fame) and her half-sister-in-law Seraphina is named after שרף (sarap), fire, with a grim fallen angelic twist (hence Seraph). Poor Valjon seems to relate to the Militärgrenze between the Ottomans and Hapsburg Europe, but fortunately his children (which, as everybody knowns, would include Nikola Tesla) are safe. Gina is short for Regina or Georgina (take your pick), the former meaning Queen and the latter being Lady Earth, the princess of the promise, the Bride To Be and a psychology major, which is a rather thoughtful touch. At the end of the first season, Harry's wife Jan demonstrably stabs Harry in the side (John 19:34).

The name Cotswolds is one of those many British names that are blatantly Semitic, or that obtained and maintained their English form due to their obvious proximity to familiar Hebrew terms: the name Britain clearly relates to the noun ברית (berit), covenant (see our article on the Phoenicians for more on that). York, and hence New York, relates to ירך (yarek), the body part that men use to swear oaths. Aberdeen is עבר דין ('aber din), meaning Hebrew Court. And the list goes on.

The "cots-" in Cotswolds is the same word that also drew the attention of certain people to the musical Cats, because no, that musical is not about what Europeans call cats but about transcendence (and see our article on Tigris for more on European cats; see our article on παρδαλις, pardalis, leopard, for more on the Beast from the Sea). The whole phrase is קץ כל־בשר בא לפני (qets kol basar ba lipnai), or "the end of all flesh has come before me" (Genesis 6:13), and remember that the word for flesh, namely בשר (basar), derives from the verb בשר (basar), to bring tidings of comfort and joy.

The "wolds"-part of the name Cotswolds is the same as "wood" and comes from a PIE root meaning to separate or distinguish — in Hebrew that would be בין (bin), whereas, as noted above, the noun בן (ben) means son of child and בנה (bana), to build; but see our articles on the verb βασκαινω (baskoino), to bewitch, and the name Silas. But, in the right kind of eyes, this "wolds"-part also corresponds to וילד (weyalad), to birth, to bring forth, to generate (noun ילד, yeled means child), as in: הרה עמל וילד שקר (hara 'amal weyalad shaqer), he brings forth trouble and births falsehood (Psalm 7:14, also see Job 15:35).