the Berasit Hebrew Dictionary

The ancient Yeberi culture and the associated Ancient Hebrew language did not use the same number system that we are familiar with today.

Yeberi culture was heavily influenced by the superpowers of the day, primarily the long series of Mesopotamian cultures including Sumer, Babylon, and Akkadia. These cultures used a base 60 “sexagesimal” number system. The second major influence was Egypt, which used a simplified version of sexagisimal based on the number 12. However, Egypt also used a base 10 system.

With these influences in mind, we'll explore the numbers that appear in the ancient Hebrew texts and try to determine what these numbers meant to the original authors.

Depending on which number system was used, yeser could mean either “ten” or possibly “twelve” or “a dozen”. Similarly, although mah is typically translated as “hundred”, it might mean “sixty”. These meanings would be in keeping with the number systems of their historical time period. (Speaking of time, the passage of time is one of the most frequent uses of numbers within the text. This important concept is examined at time.)

- analyze and compare the uses of 'mah' vs. 'sesim' to assess whether an interpretation of “sixty” for 'mah' is even remotely feasible. Then, based on those findings, assess 'alep'.

There is strong evidence that suffixes were used to perform arithmetic operations on the root meaning.

The use of suffixes indicates mathematical functions. As seen in the above table, the im suffix on numbers indicates multiplication (although the assumption that it is multiplication by ten might not be substantiated. It is probably more accurate to assume that the multiplication is by yeser, and to keep in mind that 'yeser' might equal 10 but more likely equals 12.

An interesting example is Genesis 4:24. Traditionally, the verse is rendered “If sevenfold shall be avenged Cain, then Lamech seven and seventy”

Transliterated, this reads “ki sebeyetim qem qin lemek sebeyim sebey”.

We see here the application of affixes to the root word 'sebey', to form 'sebeyim' and 'sebeyetim'. The 'sebeyim' form is the standard appellation of 'im' which consistently appears to indicate multiplication by yeser (either ten or twelve), and is therefore roughly synonymous to our “seventy”.

The form 'sebeyetim' is somewhat more mysterious. The phrase appears to be constructed out of three sub-words: 'sebey' + 'yet' + 'im'. We have the typical 'im' suffix, but first, we have what appears to be another suffix, 'yet'.

As it turns out, yet is actually another common word, and its meaning is “time”.

In similar fashion, the sit suffix indicates division. Division is quite simple. The sit suffix means to divide by the root. Therefore since 'hemes' is 5, 'hemesit' is 1/5.

Genesis 47:24 shows an excellent example of this division into fractions; “After the harvest you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh and four of the parts shall be as seed for the field” Here we see very clear contextual information referring to the process of taxation. One fifth of the seed goes to the government, and the remaining four fifths you get to keep. There are numerous examples in the book of Leviticus that refer to adding interest of 1/5th of the standard price.

A slightly different example occurs in Genesis 30:17; “Leah conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son”. In the example Issachar is Jacob's fifth son. At the time of his birth Issachar represented 1/5th of the set of Jacob's sons.

The Issachar example shows that although we tend to think of counting and fractions as quite different concepts, they are actually very closely related. This idea should be kept in mind when interpreting passages such as Genesis 1:23 where we see the same word hemesit applied to the days within a narrative.

Intriguingly, division is a primary theme of the ancient Hebrew texts. This is discussed in further detail under bera.