At creation, Gaster's Exempla (1924), No. 156, tells, the lower waters of the tehom — the primordial abyss — tried to surge upward and swallow the heavens. To hold them back, God carved a stone. On it He engraved the Ineffable Name in forty-eight different forms. He set the stone over the mouth of the abyss. The waters subsided. The world steadied. The stone remained, silent beneath the dust, holding everything down.
Centuries later, King David began digging the foundations of the future Temple. He dug fifteen thousand cubits into the earth — and struck the stone. He did not know what it was. He tried to pry it out.
A voice called out. "Stop! If you lift that stone, the waters will flood the world." David did not listen. He pulled. The stone came up. The engraved Name vanished from its surface. The stone turned ordinary, clay-like, in his hand. The waters began to climb.
David prayed. Heaven did not answer. He was terrified. Then he made a desperate oath — "If anyone here knows how to write the Ineffable Name and refuses to, may he die by hanging!" Ahitophel, present in the court, took up pen and wrote the Name. The stone was re-inscribed. The waters returned to their place. The stone was lowered back into the earth.
This is the Even HaShetiyah — the Foundation Stone — which rabbinic tradition locates beneath the Holy of Holies, where the Temple would one day stand. The world rests on a Name held down by a rock. The Temple was never just a building. It was the lid of the deep.