cogito

There’s an interesting post over at Asphaleia on the names of God in the Bible. It’s worth a read. Here is an interesting little tidbit from the post:

The Hebrew system of numerals was a simple one in which the first letter aleph indicated one, the second letter beth was two, and so on until the letter yodh (y) which was the tenth letter and indicated 10. So to say eleven, one would write yodh aleph, for twelve, yodh beth and so on. Problem is when you get to 15 and 16, by this system they ought to be yodh he and yodh waw respectively (i.e. 10+5 and 10+6). Unfortunately, this would make YH and YW, two of the short forms of YHWH, and the sacred name was too holy to be used as common numerals. So instead, for these two numerals, one would write instead heth waw (9+6) and heth zayin (9+7).

Update: After spending more time over at Asphaleia I must say that the post referenced above is just the tip of the iceberg. Marvin’s got a lot of interesting things to say. I recommend checking it out and have added a link to his blog on my sidebar.

Share This