Page 188 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

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CHAPTER 12 THE COLORS
CHAPTER 12 THE COLORS 167
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3. Just like chachol, the word yarok, for “green,” is commonly used in modern
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Hebrew, yet it does not appear in the Bible as such. Yarok appears only once
in the Bible (in Job 39:8), but it appears as a noun, and it obviously has the
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same meaning as yerek —namely, “greenery” or “green vegetation.” The clos-
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est to mean the color green in the Bible is yerakon, and its meaning is irre-
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futably “green” due to its proximity to the biblical yerek. Furthermore, its
meaning as a name of color is inferred by the way it is used in the Bible: “Why
then do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and
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all faces turned [yerakon ]?” (Jer. 39:8). Note that “green” is similarly used in
English to describe a person who is unhealthily pale in appearance. Finally,
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the structure of the word yerakon is defi nitely consistent with other Hebrew
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words that describe colors like chivaron (whiteness) or admon (reddish).
4. One may write the first two colors in the basic set (red and yellow) either with

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the letter vav (waw) or without. Tzahov (yellow) always appears in the Bible
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without the vav. We likewise followed this rule. For red (adom), the Bible
occasionally uses this word with vav. Therefore, we opted to write it with
the vav too. Due to the small numerical value of the letter vav (6), deleting
it from colors’ names (or, conversely, including it) would not essentially alter
the basic results from the statistical analyses.
Interpolation and Extrapolation

To fill in the missing CNV entries in Table 12.3 (elementary colors not in the basic

set), an extended set of observations for all elementary colors was constructed using
interpolation and extrapolation. In applying these procedures, we assume that the
alternative hypothesis is true—namely, linear interpolation or extrapolation are

applicable and therefore applied. Only the two nearest points with known CNVs
Table 12.3. Observations in the basic set (underlined), observations with interpolated (or
extrapolated) CNVs, and argaman (magenta, not an elemenary color)

Hebrew word Color numerical value Wavelength Wave frequency
Color (for basic set) (basic set underlined) (interval midvalue) (interval midvalue)
Red Adom 51 682 443
Orange 82.06 608 495
Yellow Tzahov 97 578 520
Green Yerakon 366 533 565
Cyan 622.2 493 610
Blue Tchelet 850 462 650
Violet 1334 (extrap.) 410 735
Magenta Argaman 295 546 (Cal.)