Page 33 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW
12 12 COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW

and has to be contrived from the underlying tenets and philosophy of the Jewish
faith. We related earlier (refer to the introduction) to the pair of words “sin” and
“miss.” These share the same root, yet they appear to share no common meaning.
Likewise, the words “virtue” and “measure” are one and the same in Hebrew
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(midah). Only a thorough probe of Jewish basic tenets can lead one to the under-
standing of why these words are one and the same. These sequences of words and
others are explored in section 2.1.
Another peculiar feature of the Hebrew language is the numerical value attached
to each of its letters. These values are assigned to the Hebrew letters in an ascending
order, respectively with the letters’ positions in the Hebrew alphabet (however, the
numbers are not necessarily identical with the letters’ ordinal positions).
The numerical values of the Hebrew letters are displayed in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1. The Hebrew letters (letters in brackets appear only at the end of the word).
Letter Numerical value Name (English) Name (Hebrew) Pronounced as
א 1 alef ףלא A
ב 2 bet תיב B or V
ג 3 gimmel למיג G
ד 4 dalet תלד D
ה 5 hei אה H
ו 6 vav וו V
ז 7 zayin ןיז Z
ח 8 chet תיח German Ch
ט 9 tet תיט T
י 10 yod דוי Y (I)
( ך ) כ 20 kaf ףכ K or German Ch
ל 30 lamed דמל L
( ם ) מ 40 mem םמ M
( ן ) נ 50 nun ןונ N
ס 60 samech ךמס S
ע 70 ayin ןיע A
( ף ) פ 80 peh הפ P, Ph or F
( ץ ) צ 90 tzadi ידצ Tz
ק 100 kof ףוק K or Q
ר 200 resh שיר R
ש 300 shin ןיש Sh or S
ת 400 tav ות T