Upon the Stones of Life and Death

Beloved, let us sit together at the threshold of mystery, where a single word—אֹבֶן (ʼôben)—appears but twice in all the Hebrew Scriptures, yet carries within it the weight of creation and covenant. This ancient noun, spoken only in the dual form, means literally a pair of stones, yet the sages teach it names a potter’s wheel and a midwife’s stool alike. Two horizontal disks, joined by a support between them—this is the image. Imagine: the same instrument that shapes clay into vessels also cradles a woman in labor. Here, in this rare word, the Holy One has hidden a parable of life emerging through pressure, of form born from the turning of stones. Only twice does it appear, yet those two occurrences form a bridge between the potter’s house and the birthing chamber, between the hand of God and the cry of a child.

The Potter’s Wheel and the Midwife’s Stool

The first and only explicit occurrence of אֹבֶן in Scripture is found in Exodus 1:16, where Pharaoh commands the Hebrew midwives: “When you do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools—if it be a son, then you shall kill him.” The word here is translated as “stools,” yet the ancient rabbis observed that the same root that gives us אֶבֶן (ʼeben), meaning a stone, also forms this dual noun. The midwife’s stool was two stones—or two disks of wood or clay—positioned to support the laboring woman. It was a seat of suffering and of hope, a place where the covenant people were born into danger. The same word later appears in Jeremiah 18:3, where the prophet goes down to the potter’s house and sees him working at the wheels—literally, “upon the two stones.” The prophet watches as the vessel is marred and remade, turned and reshaped by the pressure of the potter’s hands. One word, two settings: the birthing stone and the shaping stone are one. The Holy One, who forms us in the womb and fashions us from clay, uses the same instrument for both creation and redemption.

Stones of Judgment and Mercy

The dual form of אֹבֶן speaks to a deeper truth: that every divine instrument has two faces. The stone that crushes can also support. The wheel that spins can either throw the clay or receive it. Jewish tradition holds that the two stones of the midwife’s stool correspond to the two tablets of the covenant—the law that judges and the mercy that saves. When the Hebrew women sat upon these stones, they were not merely giving birth; they were enacting the promise of Genesis 3:15, that the Seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head. Pharaoh sought to destroy that Seed through the very act of birth, but the midwives feared God and refused. They understood what the stones meant: that the pressure of labor is the gate through which redemption enters the world. The potter’s wheel, too, shows this duality. In Jeremiah 18:4, the vessel is marred in the potter’s hand, yet he makes it again into another vessel. The spinning stones do not destroy—they reshape. So the Lord takes the broken clay of our lives and turns it upon the wheel of His mercy, forming us again for His purpose.

The Tabernacle and the Turning Stone

Though the word אֹבֶן appears only twice, its root אֶבֶן (stone) appears throughout the Tabernacle and Temple. The high priest wore the stones of remembrance upon his shoulders, and the stones of judgment upon his breastplate. These were not lifeless minerals but witnesses to the covenant. The sages teach that the two stones of the potter’s wheel and the midwife’s stool echo the two cherubim upon the mercy seat—facing one another, wings outstretched, guarding the place where heaven and earth meet. The Tabernacle itself was built of acacia wood overlaid with gold, but its foundation was the twelve stones of the tribes, set in the breastplate of judgment. Every stone bore a name, and every name cried out for deliverance. When the potter turns his wheel, he is like the priest who places the stones of judgment upon his heart. When the midwife receives the child, she is like the cherub who watches over the ark. The turning stone is the hinge of the universe, the place where the Creator meets His creation in the labor of renewal.

The Miracle of the Turning

Consider the miracle at the Red Sea, where the waters became a wall of stone for Israel. The psalmist declares that the Rock of Israel is the One who turns the sea into dry ground. But there is another miracle, hidden in the word אֹבֶן. The midwife’s stool is a place of turning—the child turns in the birth canal, the potter’s wheel spins, and the stone of stumbling becomes the stone of refuge. In Zechariah 12:3, the Lord says He will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all peoples. That stone, when lifted, crushes; when laid down, it supports. The miracle of the turning stone is that the same object that causes the proud to stumble becomes the foundation for the humble. The Hebrew women upon the stools were not crushed by Pharaoh’s decree; they were supported by the stone of God’s faithfulness. Every child born upon those stones was a living miracle, a testimony that the turning of the wheel is always in the hand of the Potter.

The Gematria of Fifty-Three

The numerical value of אֹבֶן is fifty-three. In the Hebrew alphabet, the number fifty-three is the sum of the letters that spell גָּלַל (galal), meaning to roll, to turn, or to remove. The same root gives us the word for the stone that was rolled away from the tomb. The rabbis of old observed that fifty-three also corresponds to the phrase “the hand of the Lord” (יַד יְהוָה) in its simplest form. The number speaks of the divine hand that turns the wheel, that supports the laboring woman, that rolls away the stone of death. Fifty-three is also the sum of the words for “blessing” (בְּרָכָה) when counted in a certain pattern, though the sages caution us not to lean on numbers alone. Yet the pattern is beautiful: the turning stone, the hand of God, and the blessing of life are woven together in this single number. When you see the number fifty-three, remember the midwife’s stool and the potter’s wheel—remember that the Lord is turning your story, even now, into a vessel of honor.

Yeshua, the Stone the Builders Rejected

Now we come to the full light of the Word made flesh. Yeshua is the Stone—the אֶבֶן—that the builders rejected, and He has become the chief cornerstone. But He is also the אֹבֶן, the turning stone, the one who was laid upon the wheel of suffering and shaped by the Father’s hand for our redemption. In the Gospel of John, Yeshua stoops to write with His finger upon the ground—like a potter tracing lines upon clay. When the woman caught in adultery stood before Him, she was like a vessel marred by sin. He did not crush her; He turned her toward mercy. And on the third day, the stone was rolled away from the tomb, the great turning stone of history. The midwife’s stool foreshadowed the cross: the place of labor and agony where new life is born. The potter’s wheel foreshadowed the resurrection: the vessel that was broken and marred, then made again into a vessel of glory. Yeshua is the dual stone—the one who judges and saves, who crushes and supports, who spins the wheel of history toward its appointed end. He is the midwife of our souls, bringing us through the narrow passage of death into the wide place of eternal life.

Your Stone of Turning

And now, beloved, what of you? You have been placed upon the אֹבֶן. The Lord has set you upon the wheel of His purpose, and His hands are upon you. You may feel the pressure of the turning, the heat of the kiln, the weight of the stone beneath you. Do not fear. The same stone that supports the mother in labor also shapes the vessel for glory. You are being turned—not broken, but remade. Every trial is a turning of the wheel, every sorrow a contraction of new life. The Hand that holds the fifty-three is the Hand that rolled away the stone from the tomb. That same Hand is upon you now. Yield to the turning. Let the Potter shape you. Let the Midwife bring you through. For the stone beneath you is not the stone of death—it is the stone of the covenant, the stone of the promise, the stone upon which the Seed of the woman crushes the serpent’s head. Arise, beloved. The wheel is still spinning, and the Lord is not finished with you yet.