Chapter 3: Time and Space
Section D: Quantity and Number: Spatially Quantitative and Dynamically Qualitative Quantities
Boman really drags out this chapter, but still misses some things. He notes that, to understand the Greek spatial conception of things, we need to see how it shines brightest in the mathematics of geometry. What he doesn’t mention is that the term “geometry” means “earth-measuring”. If there’s anything that tells us how spatially oriented their thinking was, that should do it. The implication is that it’s the field of math for measuring the planet as the nearest element of space itself. They included things like squares and cubes, and their roots, etc.
We know historically that the Hebrews stand alone in having never bothered with math, in contrast to the other Semitic races. It was the arrival of the Semitic influence that saw the Babylonian development of algebra. And while we know that geometry is the drawing of what algebra abstracts, and that algebra abstracts what geometry draws, the Babylonians actually went farther with algebra than the Greeks did with geometry.
(Note: the word “algebra” is derived from an Arabic term for figuring out fractions.)
All the Hebrew terms that seem to translate into English as geometrical terms actually have no such origin. There are no triangles or squares, only vague concepts that bring those figures as results. The Hebrew word for “compass” is merely a drawing tool. The words translated as “round” are more aimed at things which naturally turn out round simply because it’s the easiest shape for handling some materials.
Factoid: Do you know that “silver coins” in Israel were originally rectangles cut from thin sheets? They weren’t worth the trouble to strike them in rounds; as long as the mass was consistent on the scales, nobody worried about their shape.
The Hebrew word associated with great spaces or long journeys (rabh) is the noun form of a verb meaning “to become many; to be thick or dense”. A few other words used that way have similar meanings. The opposite terms meaning “small” all come from a root meaning of “diminish or reduce”. Again, not abstract concepts nor visual but actions. The image of something being bigger is not “greater” as in Greek, but simply that something draws away at a distance. That was the expression used to declare Saul a head taller than the average Israeli.
We are aware that Hebrew share one thing with the most primitive languages: numbering is conceptually one or two. A few primitive languages go as far as three. Indo-European languages appear to have developed this from the image of people seeing themselves as one, someone they speak to as two, and maybe a third person they can indicate — I, you, him. It’s visual. Not with Hebrew; it’s based on the concept of repeating an action, like tapping or stomping. Boman doesn’t mention that a great many expressions in Hebrew indicating numbering stops at two, because of the moral implication of being single-minded versus double-minded, though they had words for numbers of things that required actual counting.
Thus, the rise of the number seven in Hebrew comes from the Sabbath cycle, of course. He also doesn’t mention that quite naturally, the Hebrew word for “seven” has the additional implication of “making sacred or holy”. But other words for counting things are typically tinged with moral qualities, rarely a simple matter of abstract numbering. Grammatical plurals (-im for masculine and -ôth feminine) are often purely symbolic in that having a bunch is all about intensity and greatness, not how numerous — elohim is the most common example, meaning “plenitude of power”.
So, Boman suggests we treat Hebrew “plurals” as intensives. Along this same line of thinking, Hebrew language expressed the concept of “every” quite often by using the plural noun twice — yôm yôm (“days days”) is the expression for “every day”. Only when they indicated the whole total together did it switch back to singular.
