Page 115 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW
94 94 COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW

5.3.2 The Hebrew Message of “Sky Symmetry”
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There are two words for sky (or space) in Hebrew: rakia (Gen. 1:7, 8) and
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shamayim (Gen. 1:7, 8). Genesis 1:8 explains that God separated the water
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under the sky from the water above the sky, and thence called the sky (rakia) by
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the name shamayim. Although both words are used in the sense of “there, where
the stars are,” the latter synonym entertains the more common usage to denote
“sky,” both in the Bible and in modern Hebrew. Thus, when God approaches
Abraham and ask him to count the stars (if he could), he says: “Look towards the
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sky [shamayim ], and count the stars if you could count them … so will be your
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offsprings” (Gen. 15:5). In fact, while rakia appears 17 times in the whole of
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the Bible, variations of the word shamayim appear 421 times! There is thus no
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doubt that shamayim is the more used word for what one observes when he or
she looks upward.
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In modern Hebrew, there is a distinction between shamayim, in the sense of
the place where the observed stars are, and chalal, as a common word for space in
general (in the modern sense of the word). It is obvious that this distinction could
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not have existed in ancient times, when only the shamayim, as observed from
Earth, could be a subject of discourse.
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The structure of the word shamayim is extremely peculiar. It is no different
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from that of yadayim (hands). As yadayim is the plural of yad (a two-letter
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word for “hand”), so shamayim could be interpreted as the plural of sham (also
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a two-letter word). That the word sham is the basis for the term “sky” looks
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appropriate, as sham means “there” in Hebrew. Therefore, shamayim implies
the plural of “there.” This seems appropriate. For our ancestors, the epitome of
“there”—namely, the whereabouts which is the absolutely inaccessible, a “there”
that can never be turned into a “here”—is the sky (or at least that would be
expected in ancient times).
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Yet there is mystery about this word, shamayim. It is not just a plural for
“there.” It is the plural of “there” in a symmetrical way. As explained in detail ear-
lier, this type of suffix, -ayim, added to a noun in order to turn it from singular to

plural, is characteristic to plural noun that conveys symmetry . The suffix -ayim, let

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us recall, is identical to the last syllable of shnayim (two). As shown in an earlier
section, a suffix like this is characteristic to plural nouns that commonly appear

in the plural as “two,” but also to plural noun of objects that typically show sym-
metry, like teeth.
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The word shamayim no doubt delivers a message of “symmetry.” In concrete
terms, it tells you that anywhere you point your finger in the sky is the same as

anywhere else. No point in the sky is any different from any other point; all direc-
tions are identical.