(a) The view that certain numbers, on account of their factors or coefficients, came to be used to express ideas, is not a plausible one. Yet Philo (de Plantatione, ὃ 29) says, ἑβδομὰς ἐκ τριῶν καὶ τεττάρων, while he derived ἐννέα from ‘eight’ and ‘one,’ finding the ‘eight’ ἐν οὐρανῷ and the ‘one’
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ἐν ὕδατι καὶ ἀέρι, τούτων γὰρ ula συγγένεια, τροπὰς καὶ μεταβολὰς παντοίας δεχομένων (de Congressu, § 19) ; cf. ἕν καὶ δύο καὶ τρία καὶ τέτταρα δέκα γεννᾷ (de Plant. 8 29). Let the reader recall the sentences from Augus- tine and Bihr quoted above (2, a, δ, 7). But Philo (de Profugis, § 33) did not attempt to derive a symbolical sense of ‘twelve’ from the possible components of this number, and it is incompre- hensible how a reference to the factors of twelve could be found in the distribution of the precious stones on the breastplate of the high priest (Ex 2848. 39)-) or in the arrangement of the twelve tribes of Israel, etc. (Nu 2°", 1 K 7%, Ezk 4881-84, Rey 21%), In any case, an analysis of numbers has nothing to do with their original sense, and such analyses reveal nothing regarding their con- nexion with the ideas entertained by God and embodied in the universe. Hence it is not clear that certain numbers owe their connexion with the sphere of ideas to the factors of which they are composed. But it may be said more readily that the number 80 which occurs in Jg 3” and in Jos. Ant. VII. vii. 8 (Σολομών.. τλεύσας ὀγδοήκοντα ἔτη) was chosen on account of its coefficient ‘ 40.’ In the same way we may explain the number ‘35’ (5 x 7) which in the traditions about the life of Pythagoras alternates with ‘ 40’ (Hirzel, l.c. p. 47).
(8) Still less is it to be supposed that such a simple number as ‘three’ was constructed upon the basis of an idea, for ‘three’ and ‘seven’ are both members of the continuous series of numbers which arose by the constant addition of ‘one.’ But Philo (de Mundi Opificio, § 3, 17£., 31, Leg. Allegor. i. 4, ii. 1: τέτακται ὁ θεὸς κατὰ τὸ ὃν καὶ τὴν μονάδα) describes the numbers 1-7 in such a way as to give rise to the thought that the relevant ideas were disclosed to man cones the numbers, and that the numbers are the archetypes, the first and purest representations of the Divine ideas, nay, the moving principles of the universe, as Aristo- bulus said, δι᾿ ἑβδομάδων πᾶς ὁ κόσμος κυκλεῖται (Euseb. Prep. Evang. Xi. xii. 16). On this path the friends of Haggada and Kabbala advanced further. ‘The Kabbala attaches itself to the symbolical seven years of Gn 41.’ Many Kabbalists found a connexion between the Heb. word saphar ‘ count’ (Gn 41>) and the term gephira. ‘Seven’ of the Sephiroth were, in their view, analogous to the seven years of plenty, so that Ensoph (ηὉ px), ‘the unending,’ ceased to produce more Sephiroth. But there were also ten m5, corresponding to the ten words by which God created the world (Gn 15), and ‘these ten words are ten principles or attributes of God’ (Kolb, Die Offenbarung, etc., 13, 16ff.). The right conclusion to draw appears to be, that while it cannot be said with certainty that the number ‘ten’ in Gn 1** is accidental, it may be denied with certainty that this number is meant to express ideas.
(c) There is yet another trace from which one can clearly see the value attached to numbers during the later stages of Biblical Theolo We refer to the so-called Gematria (x7~0"3, a Hebraized form of γεωμετρία used in the sense of ἀριθμητική), i.e. the art of indicating, by means of numbers, words whose letters by their numerical value (see above, 1, ὦ, ὃ ex.) give the sum named in any passage.
(a) This can be best explained by examples ; and we may begin with an instance which in all proba- bility occurs in the OT itself, namely Gn 14%, where the number 318 is the equivalent of nyydx, if the numerical values of the different letters of this name are added together: 1+ 30+ 10+70+7 +200=318. It would be a strange coincidence if the number of Abraham’s ‘trained servants’ stood in such a relation to ‘ Eliezer,’ the only name known to us of a trained servant of Abraham. Hence
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Rashi (ad loc.) said long ago, 125 wbx nox M37 tow Se xem. [Ὁ KM AA, te. ‘Our fathers said, Eliezer it was, alone, and this (318) is the Gematrical number of his name.’ Again, the author of the so-called Epistle of Ba as (ix. 8) saw in the 318 of Gn 14" an allusion to τ τ ιη, i.e. the crucified Jesus ; cf. Clem. Alex., Strom. vi. 11, § 84: φασὶν τοῦτον τὸν ἀριθμὸν εἶναι τοῦ μὲν κυριακοῦ σημείου τύπον. This way of explaining a word was already recognized in the 29th of the 32 her- meneutical rules of R. Eliezer ben Jose (see Konig, Einleitung, p. 516). Further, on ’Athbash, etc., ctf. especially A. Berliner, Beitrage zur Heb. Gram. aus Talmud und Midrasch, pp. 12-14.
(8) A slight variation from this method consists in the employment, not of a number but of a word in order to indicate another word whose letters have the same numerical value. This method is several times attributed to the OT writers by later exegetes. For instance, the numerical value of the letters of abe xa’ (Gn 49%) is 358, and the same numerical value belongs to the letters of mvp ‘Messiah’ (Buxtorf, Lex. Heb. s.v. ποῦ). What follows from this? That the whole passage was devised in order to furnish a test of Gematrical skill? No; but it is possible that the above- named equivalence was the source of the usual spelling o the word ‘ Shiloh’ in the OT (contrast ποῦ of the Samaritan Pentateuch). Further, the surprising circumstance that Moses married an Ethiopian woman (Nu 12!) engaged the ingenuity of exegetes till they discovered that the numerical value of n> (‘ Ethiopian’ f.) is the same as that of mx nD ‘a fair woman to look upon’ (Gn 124 ete.), namely 736, and hence nx (‘ Ethiopian *) was replaced by Onkelos by x772¥ (‘the beautiful’). Then, δέδια, που (Zec 3°), in respect of the numerical value οἱ its letters, is = 0537 ‘comforter’ (La 115, Sanhedrin 98b). Other examples will be found in Weber, System der altsynagog. Theol. p. 118 [Jiid. Theol. ee Grund des Talmud, ete. p. 121 f.], and Dépke, Hermeneutik der neutest. Schriftsteller, pp. 135, 179f.