The primary word in Hebrew for worship is the word shachah (shaw-khaw) which means to prostrate oneself, fall down, crouch or do reverence. It means also to recognize the authority of another person and pay reverence. But it means also to follow God's precepts and not to worship any idol or graven image. Not bowing before other gods means to belief in the One God and not bowing in submission to an idol and as Jesus said no one can serve two masters When the ancient Hebrews crawled on their knees under the curtains of the entrance they showed that they had not taken their submission away from God.
   The emerald proclaims that the sin leads to death and the fleshly man has no hope in the Sanctuary of the Living God as he adores and worships other gods in the world outside the courtyard and recites the same hail as sounded in the amphitheaters of the great dragon in ancient times, AVE CAESAR, MORITURI TE SALUTANT – Ave Caesar! those marked by death hail you! This was the homage the slaves paid to their torturers and such a soul doesn't crawl on her knees under these holy curtains. Our ancient sisters and brothers rejected such idolatry by using Ave Maria as their continuous prayer in stead of the hail Ave Caesar! Today such graven images are still worshipped by numerous souls under other disguises, both in the exterior world as well as the interior one.

In the exterior world such a disposition appears as submission to excessive worldly luxuries, to presumptuous political leaders, super heroes, athletes, film stars or other prominent figures on various levels of human society, or as adoration of dead things like a car or even one's golf club, or in as few words as possible: atheistic materialism.

Thus these exterior idols become fetters for the soul and blindfold her regarding the presence of God in the created world and replace Him, but this is only the outward appearance of an actual danger within where all kinds of ideas and images become the playing ground of the deceitful incitements of the powers of darkness which the soul consider her own in her forgetfulness, laziness and ignorance.
   All these graven images attract the soul's spiritual awareness from God within to themselves and thus she is completely cut of from all spiritual communion with God  and thus from the source of divine life which He intended to be the spiritual nourishment for the soul's substance and a way to eternal life “before the world was made” (Ep 1. 4). This fact Maximums the Confessor has explained with such admirable clarity in his works. There he points to the fact that the actually sin of Adam consisted in denying “the bread that came down from heaven” before the fall. This prominent spiritual director says,


And as was maintained above this tragic fall repeats itself daily in every human heart denying this heavenly manna. Thus God gives us His sacred images concealed in the Sanctuary of the Tabernacle to follow like a golden chain, images which we are only able to scrutinize in the light of Christ's incarnation, but veiled in the Old Covenant. Thus the priests of Aaron were strictly forbidden against penalty of death to nourish themselves on the blood of the sacrifice, the foreshadow of the divine life which our Lord and Redeemer gave us participation in by His death on the Sacrificial Hill of the Cross.

It is thus precious for the soul to receive the sevenfold protection of the Holy Name of Jesus already in the beginning walking from the entrance to the altar of burnt offerings. It is this truth which Clement of Alexandria referred to above when he spoke of the Tetramorph as a sevenfold protection hidden in the name of Jesus. As important as this precious truth is regarding the soul's progress on the Sacred Way, it is an invaluable help in this dark northern quarter of the Tetramorph as thus the soul becomes a skilled swordsman in her warfare against the spirits of evil in the air and human presumptuousness.
    Thus the soul is able to escape from the dens of the enemy of her salvation, the serpent still nestling in her heart in her sensuous disposition. By these temptations God teaches her to seek continuously refuge in the center of the Tetramorph in the virtue of the remembrance of God. This means involuntarily that the soul seeks continuously refuge in the Holy name of Jesus and judges all her inclinations, fantasies and thoughts in His light. Thus she is able to conquer the three giants of her hearts as Jesus Himself conquered them in the desert as a pattern for us to follow in the live of grace (see Mt 4. 1-11). Thus she can avoid the seven pits of death.

The source of all evil – Satan's center point of power – is the pride, the pride of those trusting in themselves. The danger from below – the nadir – consist in lethargy and indifference as to God´s command of sanctification, that the black angels of evil convinces the soul in its struggle that such an endeavor is too sublime on her behalf. The danger from above – the zenith – appears as the arrogance of the fleshly ego of the lower self enkindling smugness. The danger from left or north consist in the ice cold winds of deceptions that can freeze the soul in her efforts. The danger from right or the south in the hot southern winds can enkindle fanaticism and intolerance against other human beings. The danger from behind or west that the soul begins to belief that everything is dependent on her own endeavor. The danger in front or from the east that the soul´s temptations can blow her out of the Sanctuary.

But when the soul makes it her habit to seek refuge in the power of the Holy Name she learns to dwell in God´s might giving her warmness in the ice cold winds of the northern quarter of the tetramorph. Thus the Holy Spirit leads the soul next to the altar of burnt offering were she can warm herself by its fire and study the first letters in the spiritual alphabet written by His fiery runes on the writing pad of her heart.