Many centuries after the events recorded in the Book of Numbers it became the practice to use Hebrew letters as numerals. Consequently, all written words and names have since become fairly interpretable as numbers. Details of the Hebrew alphabetic numbering scheme are provided below.
Where pairs of Hebrew characters occur, the second of each pair represents its 'end-form' - used when that character occupies the final position of a word. The sum of the numerals representing the letters in a word or name is here termed its 'characteristic value' (hereafter, 'CV'). This principle is demonstrated in the table below where the 16 Hebrew names involved in the wilderness encampment are converted into a set of numbers.
Following the English rendering of each name a Strong's reference number is provided; this enables the interested reader to check the given Hebrew spelling using the link www.blueletterbible.org (Thus: simply enter the given reference number in the box, top left, and click 'Search'). Beneath each Hebrew name the numbers representing its letters are displayed and totalled. Those entries on a white background are names for which different spellings occur in the literature; these are further detailed below.
