Page 36 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

CHAPTER 1 THE STRUCTURE OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE
CHAPTER 1 THE STRUCTURE OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE 15 15

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chacham, a wise woman chachamah (with an additional hei at the end of the
word).
References to the letter hei as implying fertility abound in the book of Genesis.
When God breaks the news to Abram (without hei) that he will have children,
the Bible recounts: “And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him,
saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of a
multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram but your name shall
be Abraham … [with hei] … for a father of a multitude of nations have I made
thee” (Gen. 17:3–5). Likewise, with regard to Abraham’s wife, “And God said to
Abraham, As for Sar’ai your wife, you shall not call her name Sar’ai, but Sarah
shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her …”
(Gen. 17:15–16).
Finally, when Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for his son, Isaac, the

Bible describes the future wife of Isaac : “The maiden was very fair to look upon,
a virgin, whom no man had known” (Gen. 24:16). However, the word “maiden,”
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naarah, which in standard Hebrew ends with hei (refer, for example, to the book
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of Esther 2:4, 7, 9) is misspelled as naara (with the last letter, hei, missing,

though pronunciation of the word is unchanged). This is no coincidence, since
the same “misspelled” format appears several times in the same chapter. Obviously,
the narrator intended to emphasize that the girl was a virgin (fertility not yet dem-
onstrated), and therefore omitted the hei. This interpretation is corroborated in
Deuteronomy 22, which explicitly deals with the virginity of a newly wed wife.
The word “maiden” appears therein both with the hei (22:19) and without (22:15,
16, 20, 21, 23–29), dependent on the relevant context.

Incidentally, does not the shape of the letter hei (ה) reflect its meaning (the
apparent sign of fertility—namely, pregnancy)?
How does a combination of letters in a root generate the underlying meaning
common to all words sharing these letters? We will take as an example two letters:
The ר (named resh, the Hebrew equivalent of R), and the letter פ (named peh,

the Hebrew equivalent of P and F). The first letter is pronounced nearly as the
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Hebrew word for “head” (rosh ), while the second is pronounced and written
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as the Hebrew word for “mouth” (peh ). Whether or not this association with

parts of the body is coincidental, it is obvious, as judged by the formerly specified
criteria (for example, reshit is the first word in the Bible, where resh heads a word)

that resh is associated with features of wholeness, completeness, order, existence of
meaning. Conversely, the peh represents segregation, division, partition, disarray,
loss of meaning. Put metaphorically, the resh stands for products of the head, like
a thought or a feeling, which are experienced as whole (as single indivisible units),
while the second letter represents their outwardly expression (through the mouth)
as a stream of separate words and sentences, which may be chaotic.