the Berasit Hebrew Dictionary

In the ancient world, many cultures developed or borrowed several different number systems. It is misguided to simply assume that the ancient Yeberi culture and the associated Ancient Hebrew language used 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.

Understanding the base numbers is important because depending on the value of the base numbers, the intended value of all compound numbers can vary quite dramatically.

• yeser could mean either “ten” or possibly “twelve” or “a dozen”.
• mah is typically translated as “hundred”, but it might actually mean “sixty”.
• alep is typically translated as “thousand”, but other values are possible, including “100”, “144” or even “360”
• sebeyetim seems to be a special case base number for multiplication by seven, possibly used as a figurative device only.

Twelve and sixty as base numbers would be in keeping with the number systems of their historical time period.¹⁾

The number 12 is an important concept in yeberi culture. It goes far beyond a symbol numeric value, “as part of the Israelite national founding myth: the number 12 was not a real number, but an ideal number, which had symbolic significance in Near Eastern cultures with duodecimal counting systems, from which, among other things, the modern 12-hour clock is derived.”²⁾ The Twelve_Tribes_of_Israel were the fundamental political, geographical and cultural subdivisions within ancient yeberi culture. From this standpoint it would make sense to assume that the numeric system would also reflect this importance, and therefore there is a strong basis for interpreting yeser as “twelve”.

Theoretically, this assumption should be testable. All we would need to do is find a passage in the text that include the number yeser within an enumerative list. In other words, is there a verse in the text where we actually count to twelve? try to find one

Most instances of yeser are not helpful in this regard, for they are simply references to groups in general. For example, in Genesis 18 Abraham pleads with ihoh to spare the city if “ten” good men can be found. This is a hypothetical situation and the exact number is irrelevant. The argument works equally well whether Ihoh and Abraham meant 10 or 12. The important point is that they both agreed on the meaning.

Similar ambiguity is found in Genesis 24, Genesis 31, Exodus 18, and many times throughout Exodus in the context of the Tabernacle. In each of these cases, a number is specified, but the text does not give us any indication of what numerical value that number implies.

Luckily, this is not always the case. There are a few instances where yeser does seem to correlate with a numeric value which can be substantiated.

Genesis 42 is one case where we can align yeser to an actual known value. Here we read that the “ten” brothers of Joseph went to Egypt to purchase grain. We can correlate this passage against Genesis 35, where we see the sons of Jacob listed: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. Twelve sons in all. Joseph had eleven brothers. Genesis 42 specifies that yeser of Joseph's brothers went to Egypt, but that Benjamin did not go to Egypt with his brothers. The math adds up, and in this case seems to indicate that yeser = 10.

Another example is Exodus 34:28, which ostensibly refers to “the ten commandments”. However, this is far less cut and dry than it may appear. This supposed list of ten commandments is never enumerated clearly Exodus 20:2–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21. Some scholars interpret the passage as giving only eight separate commandments, while others count as many as thirteen. Traditions differ in numbering the Ten Commandments. In Judaism the prologue (“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”) constitutes the first element and the prohibitions against false gods and idols the second. Medieval Roman tradition, accepted by Martin Luther, regards all these elements as one and preserves the number 10 by separating the prohibitions against coveting another’s wife and coveting another’s possessions. In the Greek Orthodox and Protestant Reformed traditions, the prologue and the prohibition against false gods are one commandment and the prohibition against idols is the second.³⁾ Unfortunately, this is not helpful in determining a numeric value for yeser.

There are quite a few passages in the text which enumerate a list of objects. Many of these instances consist of a list of children born to a certain person, with their birth order explicitly stated. Another example is the first instance and perhaps the most famous. It occurs in Genesis 1, where a list of events is delineated and counted.

The phrase “ahih beqer iom <counter>” occurs seven times in Genesis 1. The <counter> indicated is increased by one each time. This gives us a template for understanding counting in Hebrew.

Comparing this list to all the other uses of what appear to be the same root words, we are able to generate a more general list of numbers, and extend it past seven. Note that there are some spelling variations. The follwing table captures the most commonly used spelling of the ancient Hebrew root word.

Numbers traditionally interpreted as “teens” are formed by adding two numbers.

• ahed yeser is typically interpreted as “11” (see Genesis 37:9)
• sebey yeser is typically interpreted as “17” (see Genesis 37:2)

It should be noted that this is not the only possible interpretation of these phrases. We need to examine more examples in context.

- 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.

By now you may have noticed a pattern: