Page 74 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

CHAPTER 2 CASES OF DESIGN IN THE HEBREW LANGUAGE
CHAPTER 2 CASES OF DESIGN IN THE HEBREW LANGUAGE 53 53

Comments
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1. Another word for son, neen, is used in modern Hebrew to denote “great
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grandson.” However, the biblical neen invariably precedes neched (grand-
son), thus probably strengthening the acceptable interpretation that it means
son in the Bible (or, more generally, an offspring). Consider these examples:
“For I will rise up against them, says the Lord of hosts, and cut off from
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Babylon name, and remnant, and son [neen ] and grandson [neched ], says
the Lord” (Isa. 14:22); “that you will not deal falsely with me, nor with my
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son [neen ] nor with my son’s son [neched ] …” (Gen. 21:23); “He shall
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neither have son [neen ] nor grandson with his people” (Job 18:19).
2. The word “son” is displayed above in Hebrew with the last letter, nun, as it
would appear anywhere in a Hebrew word but at the end position. In fact,
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ben is written in Hebrew with a fi nal nun, differently than given in the
display above. We preferred to write the “son” in Hebrew as above to make
it easy for the reader to follow the phenomenon that we demonstrate in this
example.

Generations in the Structure of a Tree
A tree is always regarded as the epitome of successive generations in a human
family. A genealogical hierarchy is routinely referred to as “the family tree.” It

may therefore come as no surprise that the same relationships observed earlier for
successive generations in a human family is manifested also in the various parts of
the tree, as each successive part emerges out of the preceding one (in a time suc-
cession). Furthermore, it depends on it for its survival.
Observe this:

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• “Stem” (geza) ends with the letter ayin. This is the fi rst letter in “branch”
(anaf). 79
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• “Branch” (anaf) ends with the letter peh (P in English). This is the first
letter in “flower” (perach). 80

• Flower turns into fruit. Unlike the earlier examples, where the previous
“generation” survives to cohabitate with the later generation, a fruit is

a flower in a modified form. One replaces the other. Appropriately, the

two words share the same first two letters of their root, and it is only the
third letter that is different: the letter yod, the last in the Hebrew word
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for “fruit” (pri), replaces the letter chet, the last in the Hebrew word for
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“flower” (perach) (yod, coincidentally, also appears later in the Hebrew
alphabet). A comparable phenomenon is observed in another case, given