Often referred to in medieval grimoires, Shemhamforash is a corruption of Shem ha-Mephorash, (Hebrew, literally, "name of extenstion") an epithet of the 72 letter name of God derived from the book of Exodus by medieval kabbalists. The name is believed to be the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton 'missing' from the time of the destruction of the Temple in the first century. Before that, various claimants on the title of the Hebrew Messiah (including Jesus and Sabbatai Zevi) claimed knowledge of it.

The name is drawn from Exodus by arranging three verses of Exodus (each containing 72 letters) to create 72 three-letter 'names of God.' The number 72 was significant to the kabbalists because it was the sum value of the name YHVH when arranged in a tetraktys.

When the prefixes "Yah" (as in 'Yahweh") or "El" (as in "Elohim") to each, the names of 72 archangels are derived. (It is one of these three leter names that Kabbalah-Center devotee Britney Spears has tattooed on her neck.) Curiously, several of the names derived are names of God of holy words in other cultures.

The recitation of the Shem ha-Mephorash is used in the legendary ceremony to create a golem.

The three verses of Exodus are:

And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:
And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them , but it gave light by night to these : so that the one came not near the other all the night.
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land , and the waters were divided.

The verses in Hebrew

The 72 names: Click for enlargement

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