The alphabetic method of abbreviating the ex- pression of numbers is what is employed in the
562 NUMBER
later Hebrew inscriptions and books. On those coins which are with the greatest probability dated from the Maccabean period we find fully written numbers (¢.g. y27* or nnx) and also figures (x, etc.) In the Mishna it is stated that three chests, used in connexion with the cultus of the second temple, were inscribed with nde, ma, "ὋΣ (Shekalim, iii. 2). This usage grew as time went on, and instead of 7 or “n one wrote 1’, to avoid suggesting the name mm, Traces of this practice are found in Origen (cf. Strack, ZATW, 1884, p. 249; Nestle, ZDMG, 1886, p. 429f.), in the Cam- bridge MS of the Mishna (ed. Lowe), and in the Jerus. Talmud (Dalman, Jiid-Pal. Aram. 1894, p. 99). Other instances are read in inscriptions from Aden, which are now in the British Museum (cf. Chwolson, ΟἹ Heb. col. 126: 63 nov; col. 129: noir, i.e. 1628). But this alphabetic method of indicating numbers need not have been the only one employed bd the Hebrews in the course of centuries. They may have in earlier nee employed one of the lineo-acrostic systems which were in use among their eastern or western neighbours, and may have passed from this to the alphabetic method, just as the Greeks and the Syrians did. It is, indeed, almost more probable that the Hebrews copied than that they avoided the practice of their neighbours.
(c) From all this it results that the relation of numbers to Textual Criticism is as follows: the possibility is not excluded that the integrity of the numbers of the Old Testament has suffered, seeing that during an earlier or a later pod a species of figures was used in the MSS of the biblical text. When, for instance, we read in25S 9.415 ‘seven years,’ but in the parallel passage, 1 Ch 214 ‘three years,’ it is natural to suppose that a confusion has taken place between! and 3. Again, when ‘15,000 men’ is the reading of MT in Jg 8", but ‘18,000’ in Jos. Ant. V. vi. 5, there may be a confusion between 7° and m. Cf. a5()v, Gn 491% (Samar. av), with the Vulg. rendering ‘qui mit- tendus est,’ as if Jerome had found in his exemplar a form of που,
2. NUMBERS AND RHETORIC.—In the exegesis of the Bible, numbers come, further, under various view-points, which can be ranged under the wide category of the stylistic or rhetorical.
(a) A species of synecdoche consists in individu- alizing, putting forward an example in place of the whole class, og. ji? ‘the tongue,’ Ps 12*> [Eng. 39], or ps || oye] Pr 12)», A cognate phenomenon is specializing, t.e. the use of a definite number for a total which, in the mind of the writer, approxi- mates to that number. It is not enough to say with Hirzel (1.6. p. δ) that ‘the concrete expression is readily preferred to the abstract.’
(a) It may be said that this employment of a definite number is already present in the use of 1nx or nnx ‘one’ for ‘a’ or ‘some one’; e.¢. in Gn 228 ane is read by some Heb. MSS, and is supported
by Sam., LXX, Pesh. (pv); see other examples
from OT and NT, and from Arabic, et«., in Kénig’s Syntax, § 73, 29lde. The same tendency to specialize a total of objects led to the use of two definite numbers instead of one indefinite expres- sion. Thus we find ‘one (and, or) two’ in Dt 32”, Jer 34, Ps 62", Job 3315 40°; cf. the coupling of sing. with dual (Ec 21”, Jg 5” 15"), or of sing. with plural (Ee 2°); ‘¢wo (and, or) three’ in 2 Καὶ 93, Is 17% (‘ two or three berries’), Am 4° (cf. Hos 62), Job 33%, Sir 231° 268 50%, Mt 18%; Arab. jémén teldte, ‘two, three days’ (Spitta, Gramm. des Arab. Vulgardialects in qupten, § 1325); Syr. ‘two, three believers’ (Niéldeke, Syr. Gramm. § 240B); ‘bis terque’ in Cicero, et al.; ef. civdy Sinn, ἐχθὲς καὶ τρίτην ἡμέραν, Gn 3155, Ex 57! 14 9139. 86 Dt 443 1955, Jow 394 418 205,1S 47 etc., Ru 211, 1 Ch1l?;
NUMBER
‘three (and, or) four’ (cf. Ex 20° || Dt δ᾽), Jer 36%, Am 18-28, Pr 8015. 18 21-9, Sir 26°; Arab. telat arba'e hawdgdt, ‘three, four merchants’ (Spitta, ὃ 1326) ; τρισμάκαρες Δαναοὶ καὶ τετράκις (Odyss. v. 306) ; ‘ ter et quater’ (Hor. Carm. I. xxxi. 13) ; “Ὁ terque qua- terque beati’ (Verg. Aen. i. 94) ; ‘four—five’ Is 17%, Arab. telat arba’ hamas takdt, ‘three, four, five pieces’ (Spitta, /.c.) ; ‘five-six’ 2 K 13", ef. ‘he sent five and six times’ in the Tel el-Amarna letters (Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, Bd. v.), 21~™ [cf. 874]; ‘siz-seven’ Pr 6%, Job 5%; ‘seven-erght’ Mic 5°, Ec 112. In all these instances the addi- tion of a second number calls attention to the fact that the first number is not meant to be an exact sum, but one that in the opinion of the writer is approximately correct. ote especially the re-
acement of δύο in Mt 18! by δύο ἢ τρεῖς in v.™ Hens such an arrangement of numbers was em-
loyed in the so-called middah, a kind of riddle: Pr 615-19 30 105... Sir 2318 (δύο εἴδη. . . καὶ τὸ τρίτον, κιτ.λ.) 25 (ef. ve) ™ (ἐννέα. .. καὶ τὸ δέκατον, K.T.A.) 2658. 19 5025.