Page 97 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW
76 76 COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW

these individuals—King Balak and the prophet Balaam—is a culture of
randomness. This is shown in the advice of Balak to Balaam to change
the location where the curse was to be delivered by the latter, after the
king had realized that on an earlier occasion, Balaam had blessed the
people of Israel instead of cursing them. Even the appearance of God
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to Balaam is described as, “And the Lord has occurred [va-yikar ] to
Balaam” (Num., 23:16). This “occurrence” of God never reappears any-
where in the Bible—and obviously not when God conveys his messages
to the Jewish prophets. The “occurrence” of God to a prophet appears

only here, and for only one purpose: to reflect and emphasize the mode
of thinking in the kingdom of Moab—where all, including Balak and
Balaam, regard everything as occurring by sheer accident.
• It is worth noting that the book of Leviticus starts with, “And the Lord

called to Moses” (Lev. 1:1). However, the last letter of “call,” the alef, is
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smaller than the rest, and if omitted would mean va-yikar, implying
God accidentally encountered Moses. Of course, the alef bestows upon
this word its true meaning here—namely, a real and intended call (see
details in subsection 16.1.1).
• Recall the book of Esther , where God is hidden, not mentioned at all.
Appropriately, “occurrences” appear in abundance in the book of Esther.
Thus, when Esther sends one of her servants, Hathach, from the palace
to meet her uncle, Mordecai, she orders him to learn “what is this and
why is this” (Esther 4:5)—she never orders the servant to learn what
has occurred to Mordecai. The latter, Mordecai, tells Hathach every-
thing that has occurred to him, obviously attentive to the culture of the
place (Esther 4:7). Similarly, when an unfortunate chain of events befalls

Hamman (the central foe of the Jews, of Amalek seed, who had earlier
designed a Holocaust for the Jews), he tells “his wife and all his lovers
all that had occurred to him” (Esther 6:13). This is again in conformance
with the prevailing culture of randomness, where all is coincidental.
• In the book of Ruth , the Bible wishes to convey, in an allegoric and
ironic way, that things do not happen by chance. So, when the story of

the first encounter of Ruth and Boaz is related (the latter would later
become the great grandfather of king David ; there were also Obed and
then Yishai [Jesse] in between), the Bible, in a sense of defiant irony,

describes, “And an occurrence has occurred to her [to Ruth] to be at the
piece of land that belonged to Boaz” (Ruth 2:3). Unlike in most previ-
ous cases, where a single use of the word “occur” takes place, here the
Bible ironically emphasizes the nonrandom nature of the encounter by