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NASB | Judges 12:14 He had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys; and he judged Israel eight years. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Judges 12:14 He had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys; and he judged Israel for eight years. |
Bible Question:
Does anyone see any value in the “numbering” in the scripture? Or more specifically, with the numbers associated with the Hebrew letters? For example: The word “truth” in Hebrew is Aleph Mem Tav (First, middle, last letter of Hebrew). Aleph equals 1, Mem equals 40 and Tav equals 400. “I am the Aleph and the Tav; I am the Alpha and Omega” 40 is always associated in the Bible as a time of testing. 400 is the time the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt. 1 is the Messiah. (this one is far to long to express completely here any further) Another I’ve heard lately is that the word covenant in Hebrew equals 612. That is 1 less than the 613 laws in the Torah. When the Messiah came, he completed the Torah by being the one law that was lacking. That being, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just like I have loved you; that you also love one another.” John 13:34 Not that the Torah was missing this law (see Lev. 19:18), but that it was not elevated to its proper place, at the top both in theology and actions. Ultimately Jesus was “love” in the flesh, and loved us so much to be the end (purpose) of the Law. Any way, I have never bought into the numbering game, but some things I’ve read recently are quite interesting at the least. Also, this was done even before the time of Jesus. (not that this adds credence.) Anyone study this more in depth, enough to answer? MJH |
Bible Answer: Jewish mysticism called Kabbalah puts a lot of stock in the numeric values of Hebrew words. The practice of counting the values of letters in words is called Gematria. The only place I know of that suggests attempting gematria in the Bible is in Revelation regarding the number of the beast. Ray Summers in "Worthy is the Lamb" shows some theories theories on this name and number. You can search in side a version on Amazon pages 175-177: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0805413146 The real value there would have been numerically with a text would be in being able to count the number of verses, numbers and letters in a book to know if it were copied correctly. Addison G. Wright, S.S. in "The Riddle of the Sphinx Revisted: Numerical Patterns in the Book of Qoheleth" (CBQ vol 42,1980) showed the value of the phrase in Ecclesiastes translated "Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity" as 216. This is number of verses in the book minus the epilogue. Neither of the two verses containing this phase is preserved in the Dead Sea Scroll fragments but you can see from the fragments available the primary difference in the Dead Sea scroll and the Masoretic text was of spelling. One of the most common differences was the holem vowel letter being present in the Dead Sea Scrolls as a "vav" that wasn't in the Masoretic text. The word for "all" is one of these words and the value of a "vav" is 6. If this letter was originally present then the value of the phrase is 222 which is the number of verses in Ecclesiastes. Without a text being transmitted perfectly down to the letter then the claims of Kabbalists and those doing "The Bible Code" are without merit. "The Bible Code" was already discredited by the failed prediction made for a Israel and Palestinian treaty. If you want a bibliography on numerical patterns in different books of the Bible see "Numerical Literary Techniques in John: The Fourth Evangelist's Use of Numbers of Words and Syllables" by M. J. J. Menken. You might look at the article on Gematria in the Jewish Encyclopedia. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com Also you might do a google search fpr "On the Number of Verses, Words and Letters in the Bible" by Menachem Cohen of Bar-Ilan which is on the site http://cs.anu.edu.au . |
Up | View Branch | ID# 140446 | ||
Questions and/or Subjects for Judg 12:14 | Author | ||
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MJH | ||
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Searcher56 | ||
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DocTrinsograce | ||
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Morant61 | ||
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EdB | ||
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Michael Draves |