What Are the "Reins" in the Old Text? Kilyah Means the Kidneys, Your Innermost Self.

You were taught, if you read an old English text, that Yahuah tries the "reins." Most people have no idea what that means; "reins" sounds like the straps on a horse. But the word underneath is a plain body part. It is Kilyah, the kidneys. And in the old tongue the kidneys stood for the deepest, most hidden part of a person, the place of the innermost thoughts and feelings that no one else can see.

The word, in the oldest writing we have

Before English, and before the Square Script, it was written in an older form of the letters, the Paleo Script. Here it is in all three forms:

What the word actually means

Kilyah means kidney. Plainly, the organ. In the offerings, the text speaks of the fat and the two kilyah of an animal. But because the kidneys sit deep and hidden inside the body, the old tongue used them as a picture of a person's innermost self, the secret thoughts, the hidden desires, the part of you buried too deep for anyone else to reach. Where we might point to the gut or the heart of hearts, the old text points to the kidneys.

Read it in the text

Tahilim (Psalms) 16:7 says: "I will bless Yahuah, who has given me counsel; my kilyah also instructs me in the night seasons." The innermost self, the kidneys, teaching a man in the dark of night, in the quiet where only he and Yahuah are. That is the deep, hidden place the word points to.

Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) 17:10 says: "I, Yahuah, search the heart, I test the kilyah, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings." Yahuah searches the heart and tests the kidneys, the innermost hidden self. Nothing buried is hidden from Him.

Tahilim 7:9 says: "...for the just Alahym tests the hearts and the kilyah." Again the heart and the kidneys together, the whole inner person, laid open before Yahuah.

What "reins" did to it

When kilyah became "reins," it went dark for the ordinary reader. "Reins" is an old English word for kidneys, but almost no one knows that now, so the verse turns into a puzzle, or worse, people picture horse straps. The vivid, bodily truth, that Yahuah reaches into your deepest, most hidden inside and tests it, got hidden behind a dead word. What should hit you in the gut became a footnote nobody reads.

How this connects to the Turah

Here is the thread, and it connects back plainly. The Turah, Yahuah's instruction, is not satisfied with the outside of a person. It reaches for the inside: "love Yahuah with all your heart," "you shall not covet," commands about what happens in the hidden self where no human eye can check. Kilyah is the word for exactly that hidden place. When the text says Yahuah tests the kilyah, it is saying He judges whether the Turah has reached all the way in, past your outward acts, into the secret thoughts. Reduce it to "reins," and you miss how deep the Turah goes. Restore kilyah, and you feel it: His instruction is aimed at the deepest room in you.

Let us be honest about what is proven

Proven: kilyah means kidney, and the older text uses the kidneys as a figure for the innermost, hidden self, the seat of secret thought and feeling (Tahilim 16:7; Yirmiyahu 17:10; Tahilim 7:9). The consonants are preserved; the reading Kilyah is restored.

Not overclaimed: we are not claiming ancient people had our medical knowledge of the kidneys. This is a figure of speech, the deep inner organ standing for the deep inner person. That is how the text uses it, and that is all we are claiming.

Now sit with it

You were handed a dead word, "reins," and most likely skipped past it. But kilyah is your innermost hidden self, and the text says Yahuah tests it.

Go read Yirmiyahu 17:10 for yourself and sit with what it says He searches. Then ask the question they never put to you:

If Yahuah tests the deepest, most hidden room inside you, the part no one else can see, what would He find there right now?

Words in this teaching (how to say them)