Page 67 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW
46 46 COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW

justification on the selection of these words to describe, in Genesis and in the
Hebrew language, the start of darkness time and the start of light time, respec-
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tively. However, these words, as well as yom (day) and lailah 52b (night), release
no contents with respect to the time durations they represent. We may recall
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that a similar scenario was encountered with shanah (year): Although the word
implies, linguistically, “repetition,” we know not a repetition of what. This infor-
mation was hidden in the numerical values of the letters comprising the word, as
we have just realized (previous section).
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With yom (day) and lailah 52b (night), erev (evening) and boker (morning),
the words are mute about their relative durations!
But is that so?
Consider the relative duration of daylight time (defined by the interval between

sunrise and sunset) and darkness time (the rest of the twenty-four-hour cycle). We
will denote, these, for short, “day” and “night.” It is everyone’s experience that
day and night are, on average, of equal durations. Yet, they vary throughout the

year. We define certain “threshold” days, where the relative durations of “day”
and “night” reach unique points. Some of these days are used, in certain coun-
tries, to define the beginnings of certain seasons—in particular, the winter and

the summer.
There are four such threshold days:

• The fall (autumnal) equinox : Day and night are of equal durations. This
day occurs in the Northern Hemisphere on September 23 (±1 day).
Thereafter, daylight duration becomes progressively shorter.
• The spring (vernal) equinox: Day and night are of equal durations.
This day occurs in the Northern Hemisphere on March 21 (±1 day).
Thereafter, daylight duration gradually becomes longer.
• Winter solstice : Daylight duration is the shortest in the year. This day
occurs in the Northern Hemisphere on December 22 (±1 day).

• Summer solstice: Daylight duration is the longest of the year. This day
occurs in the Northern Hemisphere on June 21 (±1 day).

Variation of the day duration, throughout the year, is caused, as is well-known,
by the tilt of the earth by 23.45° = 23° 27', relative to the axis perpendicular to
the orbital plane around the sun. One may naturally ask about the average annual
daylight duration—or, equivalently, what percentage, on average, constitutes the
day and what percentage constitutes the night in the twenty-four-hour cycle.
An intuitive answer is 50%. But this is not the correct answer. Although daytime
and nighttime each constitute, on average, about 50% of the twenty-four-hour