Does 12-13-14 Have Any Special Meaning?

I imagine that the numerologists are very busy today looking for arcane messages in today’s date, 13 December 2014. This date can be represented as 12-13-14.  This alignment of dates will not happen again for 100 years.  Surely it must have some cosmic significance! Personally, I think it is just a coincidental arrangement of numbers due to our current dating system.

When I noticed the 12-13-14 arrangement, I thought about the significance of numbers, especially in the Bible, which does use numbers as symbols. Think of the numbers 3, 7, 666, and 1000. Some people think that they see beyond the obvious symbolic use of numbers and that they can detect many numerological messages secretly embedded in the text by God. This is on the same order as belief in the controversial Torah Bible Codes.

The hidden messages which do undeniably exit in the Bible were of human origin. For instance, investigate ATBASH. An example occurs at Jeremiah 25:26. These messages were meant by the writers to obscure the true meaning from hostile governmental authorities who might read the texts. The idea is "to hide in plain sight." Also investigate the use of acrostics, an intentional literary form used by some of the Old Testament writers. Two examples of biblical acrostics occur at Proverbs 31:10-31 and Psalms 119.

I do not believe that the Bible is full of hidden supernatural messages. That is a pagan Gnostic idea. God inspired the writing of the various books of the Bible as a coherent whole and it is intended to be understood. It is a tool, a book of revelation about the nature of God, not a book of puzzles.

The Bible tells us that God is not a man and that His ways are not our ways. God is totally other, unknowable, and perfect.  He moves in the sub-atomic places and in the cosmic places. The Bible is part of God’s effort to make the utterly unknowable (Himself) understandable, at least partly, to our inadequate tiny little minds. Over and over we are told, “the Kingdom of God is like ….” I believe that God has used the entire Jewish religious and cultural system to explain what He is like. The entire Bible points toward Jesus, Who is the ultimate revelation of Who God is.

Psalm 119

Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem intentionally built by the author. This is an ancient Hebrew literary form which is not evident in translation.  The poem is built on the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, in alphabetical order.



Verses 1 - 8 all begin with the letter Aleph.

Verses 9 - 16 all begin with the letter Beth.

Verses 17 - 24 all begin with the letter Gimel.

Verses 25 - 32 all begin with the letter Daleth.

Verses 33 -40 all begin with the letter He.

Verses 41 - 48 all begin with the letter Waw.

Verses 49 - 56 all begin with the letter Zayin.

Verses 57 - 64 all begin with the letter Heth.

Verses 65 - 72 all begin with the letter Teth.

Verses 73 - 80 all begin with the letter Yodh.

Verses 81 - 88 all begin with the letter Kaph.

Verses 89 - 96 all begin with the letter Lamedh.

Verses 97 - 104 all begin with the letter Mem.

Verses 105 - 112 all begin with the letter Nun.

Verses 113 - 120 all begin with the letter Samekh.

Verses 121 - 128 all begin with the letter Ayin.

Verses 129 - 136 all begin with the letter Pe.

Verses 137 - 144 all begin with the letter Tsadhe.

Verses 145 - 152 all begin with the letter Qoph.

Verses 153 - 160 all begin with the letter Resh.

Verses 161 - 168 all begin with the letter Sin/Shin.

Verses 169 - 176 all begin with the letter Taw.

The Acrostic in Proverbs 31:10-31

Acrostics are an artificial literary form, not hidden Bible Codes.  They were a favored poetic convention in Hebrew poetry and represented conscious effort on the part of the writer to place the text into a complex pattern while still retaining its readability and meaning.

In Proverbs 31:10-31,  "tThe Excelent Wife" passage, the initial letters of the Hebrew verses go successively through the Hebrew alphabet in the correct sequence. In languages other than Hebrew, the word order appears to be random.  In the English below, the initial words of each Hebrew line are in BOLD text.

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.
She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar.
She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.
She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.
She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.
She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.
She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.
She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.
She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.
She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.
Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.
She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.
Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.
She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.
Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.
Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

The Hebrew text below, with the first letters of each line in Bold text, makes the acrostic clear:

אשת־חיל מי ימצא ורחק מפנינים מכרה׃

בטח בה לב בעלה ושלל לא יחסר׃

גמלתהו טוב ולא־רע כל ימי חייה׃

דרשה צמר ופשתים ותעש בחפץ כפיה׃

היתה כאניות סוחר ממרחק תביא לחמה׃

ותקם בעוד לילה ותתן טרף לביתה וחק לנערתיה׃

זממה שדה ותקחהו מפרי כפיה [כ= נטע] [ק= נטעה] כרם׃

חגרה בעוז מתניה ותאמץ זרעותיה׃

טעמה כי־טוב סחרה לא־יכבה [כ= בליל] [ק= בלילה] נרה׃

ידיה שלחה בכישור וכפיה תמכו פלך׃

כפה פרשה לעני וידיה שלחה לאביון׃

לא־תירא לביתה משלג כי כל־ביתה לבש שנים׃

מרבדים עשתה־לה שש וארגמן לבושה׃

 נודע בשערים בעלה בשבתו עם־זקני־ארץ׃

סדין עשתה ותמכר וחגור נתנה לכנעני׃

עז־והדר לבושה ותשחק ליום אחרון׃

פיה פתחה בחכמה ותורת־חסד על־לשונה׃

צופיה הליכות ביתה ולחם עצלות לא תאכל׃

קמו בניה ויאשרוה בעלה ויהללה׃

רבות בנות עשו חיל ואת עלית על־כלנה׃

שקר החן והבל היפי אשה יראת־יהוה היא תתהלל׃

תנו־לה מפרי ידיה ויהללוה בשערים מעשיה׃

The Acrostic in Psalm 119

Ancient Hebrew poetry has many conventions which are not immediately apparent to the reader, especially when it is read in translation as most of us, including me, must do.  I took several semesters of Hebrew in seminary but I have to admit that I barely understood what I was "learning" and today still understand it only in very patchy form. (Greek to me was much easier as it is Indo-European and is much more similar to English than the Semitic Hebrew.)

The rhythm of Hebrew poetry is irregular and is based on the accented or toned syllables rather than on meter as in English.  Rhymed word sounds are rare.  Refrains, repeated lines, sometimes occur.  The "rhyming" in ancient Hebrew poetry is based on parallelism of ideas in three forms: synonymous (the meanings of the lines are similar); antithetical (the meanings of the lines are opposites of one another; and synthetic (nouns correspond to nouns, verbs correspond to verbs, etc)

One convention of ancient Hebrew poetry which has received much modern attention is the acrostic, in which the first letter of each line spells out a word or makes a pattern.  Psalm 119 is such an acrostic.  Verses 1-8 begin with the letter aleph, verses 9-16 begin with the letter beth, verses 17-24 begin with the letter gimel, then daleth, he, waw, zayin, etc.  Acrostic patterns also occur in Psalms 9, 10, 25, 34,37, 111, 112, and 145.

All of these poetic conventions are human in origin and have nothing to do with the supposed Bible Codes which some believe that God has embedded into the Torah.

The Sign of the Fish

The Sign of the Fish?  Didn't I mean The Sign of the Cross?  The sign of the fish was one of the very early symbols used by Christians.  The obvious reference is to the biblical stories recorded in Matthew 14:13-21, 15:32-39, Mark 6:31-44, 8:1-9, Luke 9:10-17, and John 6:5-15 where Jesus fed thousands using only a few fish and loaves of bread.  Also, several of Jesus' first disciples were fishermen and He promised them that they would become "fishers of men." (Matthew 4:19, Mark 1:17)

The fish symbol was often safer to use than a cross because the Romans knew the cross symbol but most of them would totally miss the significance of a fish.  The symbol became a sort of secret code so Christians could safely recognize others whom they had not yet met.  Also, a house with a fish over the door was a "safe house," an indirect reference to the Passover. (Exodus 12:12-14)

This was not the only meaning of the fish; it was also an anagram from the first letters of the phrase Ιησούς Χριστός Θεού Υιός Σωτήρ (Greek meaning "Jesus Christ God Son Savior).  The first letters of the five words spell out ΙΧΘΥΣ (Icthys, Greek for "fish,'" from which we derive the English word "ichthyology," the study of fish.)

Atbash

Interest in the possibility that secret codes (inserted by God) exist in the first five books of the Bible has inspired much discussion and numerous books.  The Bible Codes and possible humanly inserted acrostics have been discussed in this blog.

There is another Hebrew biblical convention known as Atbash (ATBS).  This is a simple monoalphabetic substitution cipher which was used to "hide in plain sight" secret messages intended only for those who knew the code.  The code consists of reversing the Hebrew alphabet.  The third letter from the beginning of the alphabet would be replaced by the third letter from the end of the alphabet, etc. An example from   Jeremiah 25:26 and 51:41 is the substitution of Sheshak (שֵׁשַׁךְ) for Babylon (בָבֶל).

The Acrostic in the Sign on Jesus' Cross

"And Pilate wrote a title, and put [it] on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, [and] Greek, [and] Latin. Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written." John 19:19-22

Acrostics in the Bible are not the same thing as the Bible Codes which some believe that God has embedded into the Tanakh (Old Testament) and especially in the Talmud, the first five books. The Bible Codes are considered to be predictive of future events which would have been unknowable to the writers of the original texts. The Bible Codes would be, by their very nature, supernatural.

An acrostic is a poetic form in which the first, and sometimes the last, letters of a line in the poem form a word, a name, and sometimes a sentence. They are an intentional poetic form and occur in many places in the Old Testament. In "The Epitaph on the Cross of Yeshua," Chuck Missler suggests that the Hebrew line on the sign which Pilate wrote contained the acrostic YHWH, the Tetragrammaton, Yahweh, The Name of God. This would be an otherwise unknown ocurrance of the Hebrew poetic practice in the New Testament. http://xwalk.ca/yhwh.html

Pilate obviously meant to insult the Jewish leaders by what he wrote. Thinking that he understood the complexities of Hebrew poetry might be a stretch.

In "Acrostic Code Failure," Joel Stienke shows how the supposed acrostic in the sign could not be correct because it violates common Hebrew practice in the use of the letter "waw." The article is a highly technical explanation of Hebrew grammatical usage which shows that the words could not have spelled out YHWH, but instead probably YHHH or, more likely YHMH. There was probably no acrostic involved. http://xwalk.ca/acrostic.html

Joel Steinke holds a Masters of Divinity degree from Concordia Seminary and is a conservative Lutheran.