The Hebrew Letter Meaning Theory

The Hebrew-letter-meanings theory assumes that Hebrew words are spelt based on the meaning of their letters. However, that is not how any language works! Rather, Hebrew words are spelled according to how they are pronounced. The Hebrew word ab, “father”, is spelled with the letters Aleph and Beth because it was pronounced as “ab”, and not because of the meanings of those letters.

The Hebrew-letter-meanings theory also overlooks the reality of how languages develop. Like other ancient languages, Hebrew was a spoken language long before letters were invented to express the language in writing. In other words, long before the letters Aleph and Beth were invented, the Hebrew word ab, “father”, already existed, and it was already pronounced as “ab”.

The names of the Hebrew letters do have meaning, since they were directly derived from words. However, the Hebrew letters themselves do not have meaning. For example, the word aleph did mean “ox” and the word beth did mean “house”. However, the letters Aleph and Beth themselves have no meaning. In order to understand this, we need to consider how the letters of the Hebrew alphabet were created.

The letters of the Hebrew alphabet were created using the rebus principle: Existing symbols were used purely for their associated pronunciation sound; without any regard at all for their meaning. For example, in order to express the “b” sound in writing, a symbol for a house was used because a common word for “house” was beth, which started with the “b” sound. Accordingly, this letter was named “Beth”. Thus, the letter Beth was used to express the “b” sound in writing. However, the meaning of the word beth, “house”, was completely irrelevant to the letter Beth.

-- Asher Chee (Zealous Minitries)

Symbols from Hebrew alphabet perspective

Calculating word values

Ragil Method

Calculates the value of a word by adding the numeric values of each letter together. For example:

Mispar Mussafi Method

Calculates the same as the Ragil Method but also add the number of letters in the word. For example:

Mispar Gadol Method

Calculates the same as the Ragil Method but add the final forms (sofit).

For example:

Mispar Katan Method

Calculates the value of the word by assigning a value between from 1 to 9 to each letter. For example:

For example:

Ordinal Method

Calculates the value of the word by using the ordinal position of each letter in the Hebrew alphabet. For example:

For example: