To Taste the Spittle of the Almighty

There is a word in the holy tongue that carries the moisture of the mouth and the substance of an egg, and it appears only twice in all of Scripture. The word is rîyr, a noun masculine derived from the root rûr, which means to flow, to drip, to trickle like water from a wound or a sleeping babe. The sages teach that this word belongs to the realm of the ordinary and the despised—yet the Holy One does not waste a single letter of His Torah. When you encounter rîyr only two times, you must lean in and listen. The mouth of God speaks through the spittle of man.

The Root That Drips

The derivation of rîyr from the verb rûr (H7325) reveals a picture of something that oozes or flows slowly, almost involuntarily. In the paleo-Hebrew script, the letters resh-yod-resh form a shape that suggests a head and a hand—the head bowed low, the hand extended in supplication. Jewish tradition holds that the root speaks of a flow that comes from weakness or illness, not from strength. This is not the rushing river of the Spirit, but the thin, salty drip of a body in distress. The KJV translators rendered rîyr as “spittle” and once as “white of an egg,” linking the word to the albuminous substance that surrounds and protects the unborn chick. In both meanings, you find something that is meant to be inside, now exposed—a vulnerability made visible.

The First Occurrence: Job's Wound

Your first encounter with rîyr comes in the book of Job, when the man of Uz describes the depth of his affliction. He cries out in Job 6:6, “Can that which is tasteless be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the spittle (rîyr) of a dream?” The context is staggering: Job is comparing his own suffering to something utterly insipid, something that has no flavor, no purpose, no redemption. The ancient rabbis observed that rîyr here is the drool of a sleeping man—unconscious, undignified, unguarded. Job is saying that his life has become like that: a meaningless drip from a mouth that no longer knows what it tastes. But pay close attention: even in this bitter metaphor, the verse asks about taste. The Holy One is teaching you that rîyr is not merely waste—it is a substance that can be tasted, and in tasting, you may discern something deeper about the One who gives and takes away.

The Second Occurrence: The White of the Egg

The second and final appearance of rîyr is in 1 Samuel 17:40, where David selects five smooth stones from the brook and places them in his shepherd’s bag. But the verse also mentions that he took his sling in his hand, and then approaches Goliath. The word rîyr appears in a separate context in the Hebrew Bible, in the phrase “the white of an egg” (Job 6:6 again, in some readings, but more clearly in the usage of the sages). The rabbis of old connected the white of the egg to the rîyr because both are translucent, both surround a hidden life, and both are easily discarded. Yet the egg white is what nourishes the chick in the shell. It is the medium of life before the life emerges. You are being shown that what appears worthless—the spittle, the egg white, the drippings of the afflicted—is actually the substance that carries the seed of resurrection.

The Gematria of Four Hundred Ten

The numerical value of rîyr is four hundred and ten. This number, in the ancient Hebrew understanding, is not random. It is the same gematria as the word qadosh (holy) when spelled in its full form, and it also corresponds to the word adamah (ground). The sages teach that the number 410 carries the weight of the covenant—it is the number of years Israel dwelt in Egypt according to one tradition, and it is the number of the Temple’s cubits in certain dimensions. What does this teach you? That the spittle of the afflicted, the white of the egg, the drippings of the helpless—these are holy ground. The mouth that drools in sleep is the same mouth that will praise the Name. The egg that seems empty is the shell from which the Messiah will break forth. The number 410 binds together the despised and the sacred, and it whispers that nothing in your life is too small for the Holy One to use.

The Spittle That Healed

Now you must see how rîyr finds its fulfillment in the Messiah. In the Gospel of John, chapter 9, Yeshua encounters a man blind from birth. The text says that He spat on the ground and made clay from the spittle (ptysma in the Greek, the equivalent of rîyr), and anointed the man’s eyes. The apostolic tradition teaches that this was no mere miracle—it was a reversal of the curse. The spittle that symbolized Job’s meaningless suffering became the medium of sight. The white of the egg became the light of the world. Yeshua took the drippings of His own mouth, the very substance of human vulnerability, and used it to create new eyes. The early church understood that in this act, the Messiah was reclaiming the rîyr of creation. What was once tasteless became the taste of glory. What was once the sign of death became the sign of the new creation. The blind man washed in the pool of Siloam, and his eyes were opened—all because the Word became flesh and did not despise the spittle of His own humanity.

Your Spittle, Your Glory

You have been given a body that produces rîyr—saliva, moisture, the thin fluid of your mouth. Every morning you wake and wipe away the evidence of your sleep. Every meal you taste, your tongue is bathed in it. The rabbis of old taught that the mouth is the vessel of both blessing and curse, and the moisture within it is the medium of both. But here is the call for you today: Do not despise the small, the weak, the undignified parts of your life. The very things you hide, the drips of your failure, the tasteless seasons of your waiting—these are the clay the Messiah is using to form new eyes for your soul. The egg white of your hidden life is where the chick of your future is being nourished. Your rîyr, your spittle, your most ordinary substance, has been touched by the hand of the One who formed you from the dust. Let Him take what you consider worthless and make it the very means by which you will see His glory. Go now, and taste the Lord in every drop.