Why Is the Torah Divided into Five Books?

The division of the Torah into five books is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible, yet by the early first millennium C.E., the Torah became known by the Greek name Pentateuch, literally “five scrolls.” When and why was this division created?

Dr.

Elaine Goodfriend

Dr.

Elaine Goodfriend

Categories:

Vayechi

Why Is the Torah Divided into Five Books?

Part 1

A Book in Five Parts

The Torah is often thought of and treated as one book, nevertheless, it is comprised of five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.^[1] This division is marked in the Torah scroll itself, which is written as one long document, on pieces of parchment sewn together, and includes a 4-line break between each book (see Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 273).

It is attested in all text traditions, MT, SP, and LXX,^[2] and is taken for granted by the religious groups that canonize the Torah, such as the Jews, Samaritans, and Christians. Nevertheless, the division of the Torah into five books is not mentioned explicitly anywhere in the Bible. What is the earliest evidence we have for the fivefold division of the Torah?

Five-Part Division in Second Temple Literature

The 2^nd century B.C.E. Letter of Aristeas (which tells the origins of the Septuagint Pentateuch translation), refers to the books and “rolls” (τὰ τεύχη) of the Jews, i.e., treating the Torah as plural. Nevertheless, it does not specify the number five.^[3]

Five Books

The earliest reference to the five-fold division of the Torah (for him, the Greek LXX) is made by the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus (ca. 25 B.C.E.- 50 C.E.), in the opening of his On Abraham, in which he notes that the Torah has five books (πέντε βίβλοις).^[4]Surprisingly, Philo, who writes extensively about the symbolic nature of many elements in Jewish law, never ventures to explore the meaning for the number five in this context.^[5]

Several decades later, Josephus, who died in 100 C.E., speaks of the devotion of Jews to their sacred books and explains,

For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us . . . but only twenty‑two books… and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death.^[6]

“Pentateuch”

The first time the Greek word “Pentateuch” is used in reference to the Torah is the middle of the second century C.E., in a Greek epistle written by the Gnostic Christian philosopher Ptolemy to a female believer named Flora:

First, you must learn that the entire Law contained in the Pentateuch of Moses was not ordained by one legislator—I mean, not by God alone, some commandments are Moses’, and some were given by other men.^[7]

Ironically, the first reference to the Pentateuch of Moses is in a letter denying that he wrote it!

Five-part Structures in Tanakh

Another early indication of the five-part division of the Torah is the five-part structure of other biblical works such as Psalms, whose five-part structure is best explained as mimicking the Torah.

The Five Books of Psalms

This five-fold division is especially clear in Psalms, since each of the five sections ends with a liturgical doxology (41, 72, 89, 106, 150), with similar formulations of praise for God.

Ending of Book 1 (Ps 41:14)

בָּרוּךְ יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵהָעוֹלָם וְעַד הָעוֹלָם אָמֵן וְאָמֵן.

Blessed is YHWH, God of Israel, from eternity to eternity. Amen and Amen.

Ending of Book 2 (Ps 72:19)

וּבָרוּךְ שֵׁם כְּבוֹדוֹ לְעוֹלָם וְיִמָּלֵא כְבוֹדוֹ אֶת כֹּל הָאָרֶץ אָמֵן וְאָמֵן.

Blessed is His glorious name forever; His glory fills the whole world. Amen and Amen.

Ending of Book 3 (Ps 89:53)

בָּרוּךְ יְ־הוָה לְעוֹלָם אָמֵן וְאָמֵן.

Blessed is YHWH forever; Amen and Amen.

Ending of Book 4 (Ps 106:48)

בָּרוּךְ יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מִן הָעוֹלָם וְעַד הָעוֹלָם וְאָמַר כָּל הָעָם אָמֵן הַלְלוּ יָהּ.

Blessed is YHWH, God of Israel, From eternity to eternity. Let all the people say, “Amen.” Hallelujah.

Psalm 150, which does not precisely repeat the formulae found in these passages, serves as the book’s closing doxology, with its call to voices both in heaven and earth to praise God to the accompaniment of the Temple orchestra.^[8] The final passages of Books 1-4 are the only verses in Psalms in which the word “Amen” (a liturgical response) occurs and so appear to be additions, probably intended to break up the canonical Psalter in five books.^[9] These additions are very ancient, as they were already present in the Hebrew before its translation into Greek in the third century B.C.E.^[10]

The rabbis of the Roman period interpreted the five-part arrangement as corresponding to that of the Torah, as is evident from Midrash Tehillim, (also known, as Midrash Shocher Tov):

משה נתן חמשה חומשי תורה לישראל, ודוד נתן חמשה ספרים שבתהלים לישראל

Moses gave Israel five books of the Torah, and David gave Israel five books of the Psalms.^[11]

Other Five Part Books

The book of Proverbs can be divided into five parts based on its superscripts.^[12] A later work, the Gospel of Matthew (dated to the first century C.E.), also has a five-part structure that some attribute to the influence of the Pentateuch.^[13]

The Mishnaic tractate Avot had five sections in its original core.^[14] Martin S. Cohen, a pulpit rabbi and Bible scholar, finds five-fold elements in additional biblical books. The book of Job has speeches by five persons in addition to God.^[15] Further, a section of the Writings (Ketuvim) is classified as the “Five Scrolls,” but this designation is medieval.^[16]

Thus we see that the Torah was divided into five books already in Second Temple times, and that other books copied this division. But what is the reason for this division?

Part 2

Maximal Scroll Length

Some have suggested that the technology available to the ancients made a full-length Torah scroll impossible, with Genesis (the longest book of the Torah) representative of maximum scroll length.^[17] But this seems to be incorrect. As Menachem Haran has noted, Chronicles, which was considered a single book in antiquity, is 25% longer than Genesis, and it would have been written on one scroll.^[18]

Emanuel Tov writes that the maximum length of scrolls for the period of the Qumran scribes is unclear. He lists seven scrolls found in the Judean Desert which seem to combine two or more books of the Torah, but admits that the joins between these pairs of books have not been preserved, so the inclusion of two or more books on one scroll is only hypothetical.^[19] Thus, scroll length is a possible explanation for why the Torah is divided into more than one book, but it does not explain why five.

Convenience of Reading

Others have suggested that having the Torah on several scrolls was more convenient for reading and reference than assigning it to one long scroll.^[20] While this may be the case, such an explanation seems insufficient to explain the five-fold division, which was not made based on size, considering the large disparity between the lengths of the five books:

Book	Verses (Heb)	Words^[21]
Genesis	1,534	20,512
Exodus	1,209	16,723
Leviticus	859	11,950
Numbers	1,288	16,368
Deuteronomy	955	14,294

If scroll length was the rationale for the division, then we would expect that the five units would be of similar length, which is not the case.^[22]

Thematic Significance

The division of the Pentateuch into five books was likely “from the outset, an act of premeditated partition… which possesses thematic significance,” as Haran has already argued.^[23] In other words, the Pentateuch was designed to be a project of five books from the outset. Such an explanation better accounts for the dissimilar lengths of the books, as well as for other stylistic features of the books that we will explore shortly. But why this division in particular? An obvious starting point for the division of the Torah into books is the uniqueness of both Genesis and Deuteronomy.

Genesis offers a pre-history of the people of Israel, starting with a universalist outlook, but then narrowly focuses on the family and clan which constitute the ancestors of Israel. This justifies its distinction as its own “book.”^[24] Israel as a people (Hebrew ‘am) only appears for the first time in Exodus 1:9, and this represents the fulfillment of the many promises made to the ancestors in Genesis.^[25]

Deuteronomy, the other bookend, presents itself as Moses’ valedictory address to the Israelite nation beginning with, “These are the words that Moses spoke” (אֵלֶּה הַדְּבָרִים אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר מֹשֶׁה). Scholars have long emphasized its unique origin and style as compared to the other four books.^[26]

The Middle Three Books?

Thus, the reasons for the division of Genesis and Deuteronomy from the other books are apparent, but why three books from Exodus to Numbers? Admittedly, their literary integrity should not be overstated as the books have significant thematic overlap. All three books have cultic themes and laws, and all three books take place, at least partially, in the Sinai Wilderness. Baruch Schwartz notes that the chapters from Exodus 25 to Numbers 10 constitute a “long narrative that may be called, ‘When the Tabernacle Stood at Sinai.’”^[27]

Nevertheless, within this literary continuity, demarcations suggest that these three central books constitute three quasi-independent works with introductions and conclusions.

Jacob Milgrom has argued that each of these books possesses different core themes:

Exodus – describes the construction of the cultic implements,
Leviticus – converts this “static picture into scenes from a living cult,”
Numbers – “follows with the cultic laws of the camp in motion.”^[28]

Theme of Exodus: From Egypt to Tabernacle

The book of Exodus opens with the story of the next generation after the death of Joseph, when Israel grows from a family into a people, and ends with the building of the Tabernacle, ready for the initiation of cultic worship. The recapitulation of the names of the “sons of Israel” in Exodus 1:1-5 (echoing Genesis 46:8-27) is a fitting introduction. To William Propp, “it seems composed for the purpose it now serves: to introduce the second book of the Torah and summarize the essentials for readers unfamiliar with Genesis.”^[29]

Exodus ends when the construction of the Tabernacle is complete, on the first day of the new year after the Exodus, when God’s glory fills the Sanctuary (Exodus 40:2).^[30] Since the last word of Exodus is “journeys,” Hebrew mas’eyhem, it anticipates the trek which follows, from Mount Sinai to the borders of Canaan.^[31]

Theme of Leviticus: Rules

The book of Leviticus offers rules for the Sanctuary cult just established. While Exodus ends with a lengthy narrative description of the Tabernacle’s construction by Betzalel and his select cadre of craftsmen (Exodus 35:20-40:34), Leviticus opens with an address to all Israelites regarding the sacrificial system (Leviticus 1:2).

Leviticus 1:1 marks the first time YHWH addresses Moses from the Tent of Meeting, and so he must summon him (vayyiqra’) there, to speak with him. Dennis Olson remarks that,

[T]he elevated and stationary site of God’s revelation on the mountain has been transferred… to a moveable site of revelation in the midst of the people in the wilderness.^[32]

Holiness Collection – Second Half of Leviticus

Leviticus 26 with its rewards for compliance and graphic threats for noncompliance with the covenant, represents the conclusion of a subdivision of Leviticus, called the “Holiness Collection” by modern scholars.^[33] The chapter is analogous to the endings of other legal collections in the Torah, Exodus 23:20-33 and Deuteronomy 28. Leviticus 26 has its own conclusion for the book as a whole:

^{ויקרא כו:מו} אֵלֶּה הַחֻקִּים וְהַמִּשְׁפָּטִים וְהַתּוֹרֹת אֲשֶׁר נָתַן יְ־הוָה בֵּינוֹ וּבֵין בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּהַר סִינַי בְּיַד מֹשֶׁה.

^{Lev 26:46} These are the laws, rules, and instructions that YHWH established, though Moses on Mount Sinai, between Himself and the Israelite people.^[34]

Leviticus then includes one more chapter, an appendix on the funding of the Sanctuary through vows, consecrations, and tithes, and scholars offer various justifications for its role as the book’s conclusion: its presence emphasizes “a matter of central importance,” the funding of the Sanctuary;^[35] it shares content with chapter 1 thus forming an envelope; it allows Leviticus to end on a positive note, after the extensive and dire maledictions of chapter 26.^[36]Leviticus 27 has its own ending, which serves as the conclusion of the entire book:

^{ויקרא כז:לד} אֵלֶּה הַמִּצְו‍ֹת אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְ־הוָה אֶת מֹשֶׁה אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּהַר סִינָי.

^{Lev 27:34} These are the commandments which YHWH gave Moses for the Israelite people on Mount Sinai.^[37]

Theme of Numbers: The Camp

The Book of Numbers begins with a different locus, not “Mount Sinai” but “the Wilderness of Sinai,” and with a specific focus on the camp and its sanctity, the subject of Numbers 1-6.^[38] There is no continuity of theme from Leviticus 27, which centers on the individual’s contributions to the Tabernacle.

The narratives in Numbers are assigned to various sites, with Numbers 1-10:11 localized in the Wilderness of Sinai, and Numbers 11:12 through chapter 20 situated in several locations in the Wilderness of Paran, the Wilderness of Zin, and Kadesh, among other sites.^[39] Numbers 21-36 describes the movement of the Israelites through the Transjordan and thus the book’s concluding statement serves as the conclusion for the last section of the book (chapter 21-36), and not the book as a whole:

^{במדבר לו:יג} אֵלֶּה הַמִּצְו‍ֹת וְהַמִּשְׁפָּטִים אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְ־הוָה בְּיַד מֹשֶׁה אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּעַרְבֹת מוֹאָב עַל יַרְדֵּן יְרֵחוֹ.

^{Num 36:13} These are the commandments and regulations that YHWH enjoined upon the Israelites, through Moses, on the steppes of Moab, at the Jordan near Jericho.^[40]

Other Possible Divisions

In theory, the three middle works could have been divided into two – the first dedicated to Israel’s stay at Mount Sinai, and the second to its movement from Mount Sinai to the Transjordan, or perhaps even four, according to Israel’s residence in Egypt, at Mount Sinai, in the Wilderness of Sinai, and in the Transjordan. Other thematic divisions are also possible. Thus, we still are left with the question of why this division? Is it possible that the Redactor specifically wanted to have five books? If so, why?

Highlighting Leviticus (Blenkinsopp)

In The Pentateuch, Joseph Blenkinsopp suggests that the five-book arrangement “highlights Leviticus as the central panel of the pentad,” and thus the number five was chosen specifically, “rather than, say, four or six.” The choice of five, then, is based on its status as an odd number, so that attention is drawn to a central panel, which is therefore deserving of special emphasis.^[41]

The focus on Leviticus emphasizes the ritual and legal prescriptions which ideally assist Israel in becoming a “holy community.”^[42] Thus, Leviticus was (and still is in some circles) the first subject studied by Jewish children in a traditional curriculum.

The Centrality of Loving One’s Neighbor

Jacob Milgrom and Yehuda Radday sharpen the focus of Blenkinsopp’s observation by observing that Leviticus 19:18, with its demand that the Israelite “love his neighbor as himself,” constitutes the central verse of the Torah.^[43] How so? Leviticus 19, which demands that Israel aspire for holiness by following an assortment of ritual and ethical demands, is flanked on two sides by similar chapters (Leviticus 18 and 20) which focus on sexual ethics, and which, notes Milgrom, “set off and highlight the centrality of chap. 19.”^[44]

While one may argue that formal chapter and verse divisions are both later innovations (whether rabbinic or medieval), divisions into sedarim and parashot reflect more ancient ways of differentiating the various subject divisions in the text, and according to both, Leviticus 19 starts a new subsection.^[45]

Leviticus 19’s distinctiveness vis-à-vis the passages which precede and follow is marked by God’s instructions to Moses to “speak to the whole Israelite community” (kol-adat-benay-yisra’el), the only time this most inclusive phrase is used in Leviticus.^[46] Further, it is the only passage in Leviticus (and the Holiness Code) where God’s demand that Israel strive for holiness heads a chapter and appears in the context of ethical behavior; elsewhere it concludes a chapter and its context is more specific and ritual (11:44-45, 20:7, 21:7-8).

Further, its wide range of laws and echoing of the Decalogue suggests that it was intended to have paramount significance, which is reflected in Leviticus Rabbah (24:5, Margoliot ed.):

תני ר’ חייא מלמד שפרשה זו נאמרה בהקהל. ומפני מה נאמרה בהקהל, מפני שרוב גופי תורה תלויין בה. ר’ לוי אמ’ מפני שעשרת הדיברות כלולין בתוכה.

Rabbi Hiyya taught: “This section was read in an assembly.” Why was it read in an assembly? Because most of the Torah’s essential principles can be derived from it. Rabbi Levi said, “Because the Ten Commandments are included in it.”^[47]

Regarding the structure of Leviticus 19, this chapter contains 37 verses, and v.18b falls in the middle, serving as the climax in its series of ethical commandments (vs.11-18), before the huqot or “statutes”:^[48]

^{ויקרא יט:יט} וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ אֲנִי יְ־הוָה.

^{Lev 19:19} Love your fellow as yourself, I am YHWH.

This verse calls upon Israel to achieve holiness through love, that is, performing acts of kindness and generosity.^[49] Thus, the uniqueness of this chapter in the book of Leviticus, its enclosure by two chapters of similar content, along with its ethical core culminating in the command to love, support the view of Milgrom and Radday that Leviticus 19 constitutes the central chapter of the five-part Torah.

Part 3

The Symbolism of the Letter Heh (Cohen)

Martin Cohen, responding to Blenkinsopp’s reasoning, asks why five in particular was chosen when any odd number would have sufficed to highlight a central panel.^[50] Why not three or seven?

Cohen suggests that one possible reason for the choice of five is because it represents the fifth letter of the alphabet, heh, which is the number five in gematria,^[51] the practice of representing numbers with letters and vice versa. Cohen notes that heh was added or infixed in the names of biblical persons to indicate their new relationship with the biblical God: certainly this is the case regarding Sarah and Abraham.^[52]

That the letter heh was thought to be representative of the Divine may be based on the inclusion in the Tetragrammaton (the four letter name of God) of two hehs or because it is the first letter of HaShem, literally, “the Name” – a circumlocution for the Tetragrammaton that appears twice in the Hebrew Bible and is common in Mishnaic Hebrew.^[53]

Ancient Gematria?

The practice of ascribing a numerical value to letters according to their placement in the alphabet is well-known from later Jewish texts, and many scholars believe it was introduced into Hebrew exegesis from Greek exegesis in the Hellenistic Period.^[54] Nevertheless, there are certain indications in the Hebrew Bible and cuneiform texts that it was already in use in a much earlier period.^[55]

Gershon Scholem notes that,

The first use of Gematria occurs in an inscription of Sargon II (727-707 B.C.E.) which states that the king built the wall of Khorsabad 16,283 cubits long to correspond with the numerical value of his name.^[56]

Israel Knohl builds the case for gematria in the Hebrew Bible.^[57] For example, he writes that it is not coincidental that Moses lives in the twenty-sixth generation from Adam, and to Moses was revealed the divine name YHWH, the numerical value of which is 26. Knohl (among others^[58]) finds the number 26 as providing an organizing principle in several poetic passages in the Bible. More instances of Gematria are not difficult to adduce. For example,

The number of servants/warriors in Abraham’s fighting force is 318, which the Sages point out is the numerical value of Abraham’s servant’s name, Eliezer.^[59]

The Sabbath commandment in Exodus’ Decalogue begins with zakor, and thus the Hebrew letter zayin, the seventh letter of the alphabet.^[60]

The name “Gad,” which has no obvious meaning, is composed of the letters gimel and dalet (3 + 4 = 7). Gad is the seventh son of Jacob and himself has seven sons (Genesis 29:31-30:11, 46:16, Numbers 26:15-17).^[61]

Of course, all of these may be the result of coincidence, but it seems at least possible, if not likely, that the Bible already reflects the use of gematria. Thus, Cohen’s attempt to explain the five-fold division of the Torah as an expression of the letter heh, linked with the Tetragram, may indeed have a basis in biblical usage.

The Gematria of Five: Further Support

We can further strengthen the association of heh/five with YHWH, by noting the following:

Psalm 19:8-10, which deals specifically with torah, has six clauses with the Tetragrammaton as the second word, but with five-word intervals between the appearance of the Tetragrammaton five times.^[62]

The Tetragrammaton is the fifth word in both Leviticus 1:1 and 27:34, the first and last verses of Leviticus. The syntax of Leviticus 1:1 is difficult (“And He called to Moses, and spoke YHWH to him”), but perhaps this was occasioned by the desire to make the Tetragrammaton the fifth word.^[63]

It is also the fifth word in the third commandment, the subject of which is the misuse of God’s name (Exodus 20:7).

The Tetragrammaton is the fifth word in Lev 19:18b — וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ אֲנִי יְהוָ-ה (“love your fellow as yourself, I am YHWH”).^[64]

Five Fingers and God’s Hand

Another idea invoked by the number five is the number of fingers on the human hand, the organ that most distinguishes the human species from all other known forms of life. The hand is the organ of authority, blessing, prayer, ritual, salutation, oath-taking, custody, warfare, and handiworks; these are uniquely human activities.^[65]

Symbolism involving the human hand is found throughout religious art, from the Hamsa to the Benedictio Latina in Catholic iconography^[66] to the mudras (symbolic gestures) of Buddhist and Hindu art. W. Gunther Plaut suggests that the age of Moses at his death, 120 years, was “the perfect age because it was built into the structure of the human body. Our hands have five fingers; multiply them and you get 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 = 120.”^[67] The five-fold division of the Torah may be an expression of this “perfection,” no less than Moses’ age.

Martin Cohen goes further, linking the number five with the fingers of God’s hand, which is mentioned in a variety of biblical contexts:

The Fifth plague – In describing the plague of cattle disease, the 5^th plague, the text states that “God’s hand is about to be” (הִנֵּה יַד יְ-הוָה הוֹיָה) on the Egyptian livestock (Exodus 9:3). Here we have the association of five and the hand of God, not to mention the very unusual verb hoya with a double heh.^[68] There are also five objects in v.3 after the general “livestock in the field”: “horses, donkeys, camels, large cattle, and small cattle.” The association of five-ness with hand and the letter heh is evident. Other plagues are similarly depicted as the result of God’s hand.^[69]

Prophecy – The spirit of prophecy is viewed as the work of God’s hand especially in the book of Ezekiel.

^{יחזקאל א:ג} הָיֹה הָיָה דְבַר יְ־הוָה אֶל יְחֶזְקֵאל בֶּן בּוּזִי הַכֹּהֵן בְּאֶרֶץ כַּשְׂדִּים עַל נְהַר כְּבָר וַתְּהִי עָלָיו שָׁם יַד יְ־הוָה.

^{Ezek 1:3} The word of YHWH came to the priest Ezekiel son of Buzi, by the Chebar Canal, in the land of the Chaldeans. And the hand of YHWH came upon him there. ^[70]

God’s Benevolence – In the post-exilic period, God’s benevolent care for an individual is expressed in terms of God’s hand upon him:

^{עזרא ח:כב} כִּי בֹשְׁתִּי לִשְׁאוֹל מִן הַמֶּלֶךְ חַיִל וּפָרָשִׁים לְעָזְרֵנוּ מֵאוֹיֵב בַּדָּרֶךְ כִּי אָמַרְנוּ לַמֶּלֶךְ לֵאמֹר יַד אֱלֹהֵינוּ עַל כָּל מְבַקְשָׁיו לְטוֹבָה וְעֻזּוֹ וְאַפּוֹ עַל כָּל עֹזְבָיו.

^{Ezra 8:22} For I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us against any enemy on the way, since we had told the king, “The benevolent hand of our God is for all who seek Him, while His fierce anger is against all who forsake Him.” ^[71]

The imagery of the Torah as representing the divine hand goes together with the description of two tablets of the Decalogue as “written with the finger of God.” Perhaps the imagery of two tablets with five units each is symbolic of God’s two hands.^[72]

The “Hand of God” appeared as a motif in later Jewish and Christian art when depiction of YHWH or the Father God as a full human figure was considered unacceptable; the image of God’s Hand implies both that God is present and is exercising power and authority.^[73]

In a religious system in which no image of the Deity was permitted, could the five-ness of the Torah function as a subtle image for God’s hand and thus, represent God’s presence? If so, then the Torah’s five-ness may have suggested that the divine hand – conveyer of revelation and benevolence – rests not only upon prophets and priests, but upon the entire nation who received the Torah.^[74]

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Published

May 13, 2018

Last Updated

November 17, 2024

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Published

May 13, 2018

Last Updated

November 17, 2024

[1] In this article, I am exploring only the planning of the Torah as a Pentateuch, without the book of Joshua. The case for an original Hexateuch, i.e., the Pentateuch plus Joshua was suggested by Wellhausen, and argued for more recently by Marc Z. Brettler and Thomas Römer, “Deuteronomy 34 and the Case for a Persian Hexateuch,” JBL 119 (2000), 401-419; and in simplified form, Marc Z. Brettler, “Is the Torah a Pentateuch or a Hexateuch?” TheTorah.com (2013). Other scholars have even argued that it was originally planned together with Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings as an Enneatuch (a nine-volumed work). All of these different positions are discussed in Thomas B. Dozeman, Thomas Römer, and Konrad Schmid, eds., Pentateuch, Hexateuch, or Enneateuch: Identifying Literary Works in Genesis through Kings (Ancient Israel and Its Literature 8; Atlanta: SBL, 2011). All of these proposed collections other than the Pentateuch are artificial constructs with no basis in historical or textual reality. They lack exactly what the Pentateuch offers, the highest level of prophetic authority, that of Moses, with whom YHWH “speaks mouth to mouth, plainly and not in riddles” (Numbers 12:8).

[2] Scholars assume that the different books of the Pentateuch in the LXX have different translators based on their translation styles; this implies that they were already separate books before their translation into Greek in the third century B.C.E. See Albert Pietersma and Benjamin Wright, A New English Translation of the Septuagint (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 162-165, 204 and John W. Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Deuteronomy (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), x. That at least Deuteronomy was considered to be its own book is implied by the translator’s rendering of Deuteronomy 17:18, which states that the king should write for himself and study daily “a copy of this law” (אֶת מִשְׁנֵה הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת). Based on this verse, one of the ancient names for the book of Deuteronomy is Mishneh Torah, “the Repetition of the Torah,” and this is the meaning of Deuteronomy, its Greek name. The LXX translates this phrase as “this Deuteronomy” (τὸ δευτερονόμιον τοῦτο), implying that Deuteronomy was already the name of the work in the third century B.C.E. See discussion in Joseph Blenkinsopp, The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 45.

[3] Letter of Aristeas, 176-179; This last Greek term is the root of the term “Pentateuch”; it typically refers to jars or cases, but here denotes the scrolls or books.

[4] Philo mentions this again in On the Eternity of the World 19, “Moses, the lawgiver of the Jews, had said in his sacred volumes . . . and the number of the books is five” (ἐν ἱεραῖς βίβλοις· εἰσὶ δὲ πέντε). This makes the five-fold division of the Torah more ancient than its division into sedrot or parashiyot, which dates to the Rabbinic period (but are also reflected in Qumran texts), and much more ancient than the division into chapters, which dates to the medieval period. See Blenkinsopp, The Pentateuch, 42; Israel Yeivin, Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980), 40-42; Emanuel Tov, “Textual Criticism,” AB VI:397).

[5] In fact, Philo writes often of the five senses, or the five great lessons that Moses teaches, but never connects these with the number of books in the Torah. See, for example, Creation170, Abraham 147-50, 236-244. Surprisingly, midrashic literature is similarly silent, as Rabbi Martin Cohen notes, “As far as I am aware, no traditional midrashim speak directly to the question of why the Torah is specifically divided into five parts” (“Who Knows Five?,” Conservative Judaism 55, 2003, p. 63). One illustrative example of this strange silence is the passage in b. Ber. 6b that discusses the rewards for making the groom happy at this wedding. The text mentions that the Torah was given with “five voices,” but makes no mention of the “five-ness” of the Torah.

[6] Ag. Ap. I.8. Josephus arrives at the sum of twenty-two books as opposed to the traditional twenty-four because he includes Ruth with Judges and Lamentations with Jeremiah. See, Sid Z. Leiman, The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture: The Talmudic and Midrashic Evidence (New Haven: The Connecticut Academy of Art and Sciences, 1991), 31-32.

[7] “Ptolemy’s Epistle to Flora,” in Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions (New York: Doubleday, 1987), 306-315. A less direct allusion to the number of books in the Torah is found in 4 Ezra, also called the Apocalypse of Ezra, an originally Hebrew work which modern scholars date to approximately 100 C.E. 4 Ezra refers to ninety-four books revealed to Ezra, 70 hidden and 24 to be made public. These 24 books are typically assumed to be identical to the 24 books of the rabbinic canon, beginning with the five books of the Torah.

[8] The doxology of Psalm 150 is different in style. James Limburg suggests that this is because it serves as a concluding doxology both for Book V (Psalm 107-150) as well as for the Psalter as a whole (“Book of Psalms,” ABD V:526).

[9] Avi Hurvitz notes that the language of three of the four passages that break up Psalms clearly exhibit characteristics of postexilic Hebrew (Ps 41:14, 72:18-20, 106:47-48; The Transition Period in Biblical Hebrew: A Study in Post-Exilic Hebrew and its Implications for the Dating of Psalms (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1972), 170-171 [Hebrew]) On the basis of its similarity to 1 Chronicles 16:36, Nahum Sarna suggests that Psalm 106’s final verse “may well be an integral part of the Psalm,” and not a later addition, so that Psalms 90-150 originally constituted a single collection, and was later “artificially split into two” to make five divisions, in imitation of the Torah. Nahum Sarna, Songs of the Heart: An Introduction to the Book of Psalms (New York: Schocken, 1993), 17-18.

[10] See Sarna, Songs of the Heart, 16. He dates the translation of the Psalter into Greek to the second half of the second century B.C.E., while Limburg dates the Greek translation of Psalms to “the first half of the third century B.C.” (“Book of Psalms,” ABD V: 523), along with A. Pietersma, A New English Translation of the Septuagint (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 936.

[11] Midrash Tehillim, 1.2, ed. Buber p.3; William Braude writes that the present form of Midrash Tehillim is the result of one thousand years of accretions, from the third century C.E. to the thirteenth century C.E. William G. Braude, The Midrash on Psalms (New Haven: Yale, 1959), vol.1, xxvi-xxxi, 5.

[12] Rabbi Martin Cohen, “Who Knows Five?,” 69, n.10. He sees a five-part structure for Proverbs based on obvious headings, in Proverbs 1-9 (“The proverbs of Solomon), son of David, king of Israel”, 10-24 (“The proverbs of Solomon”, 25-29 (“These too are the proverbs of Solomon, which the men of King Hezekiah of Judah copied”), 30 (“The words of Agur, son of Jakeh”) , and 31 (“The words of Lemuel, king of Massa”) . Others see more divisions in its structure, however, these are less distinct, for example, Proverbs 22:17-24:22 – “Incline your ear and listen to the words of the sages,” which is not obviously a heading. See R. N. Whybray, The Book of Proverbs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 12; J.L. Crenshaw, “Book of Proverbs,” ABD V:513.

[13] Aaron M. Gale, “The Gospel According to Matthew,” in The Jewish Annotated New Testament (ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Brettler; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 1. The Gospel of Matthew is divided into five major discourses, separated by the formula, “when Jesus had finished” (7:28, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, 26:1), “suggesting a recapitulation of the Torah,” because of the author’s desire to depict Jesus as a second Moses. This link between the Gospel of Matthew and the Pentateuch was first suggested by Benjamin W. Bacon “The ‘Five Books’ of Matthew against the Jews,” The Expositor 15 (1918), 56-66. While the presence of exactly five major discourses is “firmly established,” scholars disagree over the importance of the discourses in relation to the gospel’s structure and whether there is any link to the Pentateuch. See, T.J. VanderWeele, “Some Observations Concerning the Chiastic Structure of the Gospel of Matthew,” JTS 59 (2008), 670; J. P. Meier “Gospel of Matthew,”ABD IV: 629.

[14] Judah Goldin, “Avot,” EJ 3:983-4.

[15] These are Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu; see Job 2:11 where they are first enumerated. Elihu son of Barachel does not appear until Job 32, which leads Cohen to suggest that he was added in later to “to provide a necessary fifth part” (Cohen, “Who Knows Five?,” 69, n.11). In addition to these, Cohen suggests some that are perhaps more speculative (“Who Knows Five?,” 65):

The Latter Prophets constitute fifteen books (5×3)
The MT of Psalms has 150 psalms (5×30; the LXX has 151 and the Psalm Scroll from Qumran has four non-canonical psalms).

Cohen admits that some of these observations are “far-fetched,” but suggests that “they make it possible to consider every single book in the Bible either to be in five parts or to be part of a larger five-part work!”

[16] This category includes the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. They all serve a liturgical function as they are read in synagogue over the course of the Jewish calendar year. The term “five scrolls” does not appear in the Talmud, nor are they grouped together in any enumeration of biblical books from the Rabbinic period. As a group of five, they appear in medieval manuscripts (Nahum Sarna, “Bible,” EJ 3:582).

[17] Herbert Wolf also suggests that the division into five “may owe its origin to a practical consideration,” as “No scroll could hold all the words” (An Introduction to the Old Testament Pentateuch [Chicago: Moody Press, 2007], 18. Jeffrey Tigay writes that, “The Torah in its final form is divided into five separate books because ancient scrolls could not contain a work of that length” (“Exodus,” in The Jewish Study Bible, 2^nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 95).

[18] Menachem Haran, “Book- Size and the Device of Catch-Lines in the Biblical Canon,” JJS36 (1985), 1-11. Only after its translation into Greek was Chronicles divided into two books.

[19] Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 74-76. The Dimensions of Qumran Scrolls,” Dead Sea Discoveries 5:1 (1998), 71. also Blenkinsop, The Pentateuch, 46, citing DJD II (Oxford, 1961), 75-78. While the Talmud refers to scrolls containing the entire Torah, the evidence from Qumran cannot be used to support the existence of such large scrolls, perhaps 25 meters in length.

[20] Moshe Weinfeld (“Pentateuch,” EJ 13:232) notes that “the division into five books could have been motivated by technical reasons, as, for example, the length of the scroll needed for convenient reading,” but adds that the breaks are also inherent in Scripture. Israel Leivin (“Torah,” EncyMiqrait 8:484) writes that the three middle books were initially divided up “for ease of reading only.” See the discussion by Olson, The Death of the Old and the Birth of the New (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), 52, quoting Arnold Goldberg (Das Buch Numeri, (Desseldorf: Patmos-Verlag, 1970), 11) and Sarna (Bible, EJ 4:820), who writes that “following the activities of Ezra and Nehemiah, it became customary, for strictly non-liturgical purposes and for convenience of handling, to transcribe the work on five separate scrolls.”

[21] The source for these numbers is Avraham Even-Shoshan, The New Concordance for the Torah, Prophets, and Writings (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1981), Introduction, 38.

[22] Obviously, Genesis is the longest book, almost twice the size of Leviticus. Exodus and Numbers are similar in length, but each is about 30% longer than Leviticus. Deuteronomy is longer than Leviticus but shorter than the other three. The greatest disparity is the relative brevity of Leviticus as compared with Exodus and Numbers: yet all three form a continuous narrative and share similar “priestly” content. Obviously, other factors must determine the division of these books.

[23] Haran, “Book- Size,” 6, 11.

[24] Editor’s note: In fact, this distinction has led many contemporary scholars to argue that Genesis was originally a separate unit that was loosely connected to the Exodus-Joshua account at a later stage. See, Tzemah Yoreh, “The Northern Tradition of Settling the Land,”TheTorah.com (2016); Zev Farber, “Jacob the Conqueror of Shechem,” TheTorah.com(2015). For a full-length treatment of the problem, see, Konrad Schmid, Genesis and the Moses Story: Israel’s Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible (trans. J. Nogalski; Sifrut: Literature and Theology of the Hebrew Bible, 3; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010).

[25] Genesis 12:2, 13:16, 15:5, 17:6, 18:18, 22:17, 26:4, 26:24, 28:14, 46:3.

[26] Deuteronomy or some part of it was perchance the scroll found in the Temple which motivated King Josiah to initiate his extensive religious reform (2 Kings 22-23). The book refers to itself as a torah (literally, “teaching,” “instruction”) in Deuteronomy 1:5, 4:8, 44, and sefer ha-torah (“scroll of instruction”) in Deuteronomy 29:20, 30:10, and other books refer to it as Sefer Torat Moshe (Joshua 8:31, 23:6, 2 Kings 14:6). Modern scholarship, based on Deuteronomy’s unique style and content, considers it the “touchstone for dating the sources in the Pentateuch and the historical books of the Old Testament” (Moshe Weinfeld, “Deuteronomy” EJ 5:1576).

[27] Schwartz, “Leviticus,” JSB, 193.

[28] Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 1.

[29] William Propp, Exodus 1-18 (New York: Doubleday, 199), 125. He suggests it likely comes from the Redactor, rather than the P source.

[30] Milgrom writes that Exodus 40:36-38, the description of how this luminous cloud will determine their journey, was inserted here to form a giant parenthesis with Numbers 9:15-23, where this subject will be covered in greater detail. In between is “the very center of the Pentateuch,” the laws given to Israel at Sinai following the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 21-24). Milgrom, Leviticus 1-17, 139.

[31] Propp, Exodus 19-40 (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 674.

[32] Olson, The Death of the Old and the Birth of the New, 49.

[33] Usually these are called “blessing and curses,” however neither word occurs in Leviticus 26. Baruch Schwartz, “Leviticus” JSB, 260. The Holiness Collection (named for the demand of Leviticus 19:2 that Israel be holy) spans Leviticus 17-27; for the characteristic language and idea of this source, see Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (NY: Doubleday, 2000), 1319-1333.

[34] The third term, “instructions,” is the Hebrew torot. In the context of Leviticus, it refers to the ritual prescriptions of Leviticus 6:17, 7:1, 7:11, 14:1, so that v.46 serves as a conclusion not just for the Holiness Code (chapters 17-27), but also chapters 1-16.

[35] Baruch Levine, Leviticus (NY: JPS, 1989), 192.

[36] For a more extensive list, see Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1333, and Leviticus 23-27, 2407-2409.

[37] Milgrom writes that the repetition of “Mount Sinai” shows that the editor is deliberately completing 26:46, and both conclusions complement each other, “so that both effect a proper closure for the entire book” (Leviticus 23-27, 2402).

[38] See Jonathan Grossman, “The Message of the Non-Chronological Opening of Numbers,” TheTorah.com (2017).

[39] Numbers 33:16-49 describes their journey from the Wilderness of Sinai till the Plains of Moab, and lists many place-names not mentioned in Numbers 10-36.

[40] Deuteronomy 1:1 opens in the same region, the steppes of Moab, in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, six months after the last chronological notice given in Numbers, Aaron’s death in the fortieth year, on the first day of the fifth month (Numbers 33:38). As noted above, Deuteronomy, styled as Moses’ valedictory address, constitutes a unique body of literature, with origins and intent that contrast with the three preceding works.

[41] Blenkinsopp, The Pentateuch, 47. The literary element to which Blenkinsopp alludes is chiasm, a literary device in which words or concepts are repeated in reverse order, expressed as A B C D E D’ C’ B’ A’. Often the author will place the main idea or turning point of a narrative at the center. Modern scholarship has detected chiastic order in many biblical books and passages to varying degrees of persuasiveness. Yehuda T. Radday, “A Chiasmus in Hebrew Biblical Narrative,” in Chiasmus in Antiquity: Structures, Analyses, Exegesis (ed. J. H. Welch; Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 1998), 50-117. Regarding the role of Leviticus 19, see 84, 88. For other books of the Bible, see Jan Fokkelman’s Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel: A Full Interpretation Based on Stylistic and Structural Analyses (Leiden: Brill, 1986). See also the bibliography in David A. Dorsey’s The Literary Structure of the Old Testament: A Commentary on Genesis – Malachi (Ada, Michigan: Baker, 2004).

[42] The Pentateuch, 47, 59. He also finds five-part structure in the two series of toledot passages in Genesis. These are the passages which begin ‘eleh toledot, “these are the generations,” found in Genesis 2:4a, 5:1, 6:9, 10:1 and 11:10, and then in Genesis 11:27, 25:12, 25:19, 36:1, and 37:2; Genesis 5:2 has a variant, zeh sefer toledot adam, “This is the scroll/record of the generations of Adam.”

[43] Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1767-1768. See also 1320, 1366, 1656. Radday, “A Chiasmus in Hebrew Biblical Narrative,” 84, 88.

[44] Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1767-1768.

[45] The division of the Torah into sedarim is found in the scrolls from the Judean Desert. The division into verses is early but is not indicated in the Torah scrolls because it is based on oral tradition; verse notations are indicated in early Greek Bible scrolls.

[46] See Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, pp. 1602-3. He notes also that “this is the only place in Leviticus where the term ‘edah is used in a commission speech.”

[47] Rabbi Levi sees allusion to all sections of the Decalogue, and modern scholarship confirms many of these: Clearly Leviticus 19 repeats the Sabbath commandment (v.3, 30), the command to honor parents (v.3), the prohibition to worship other gods and make images for worship (v.4), the prohibition of misusing God’s name (v.12) and theft (v.11). The prohibition of adultery is reflected in vv. 20-22. Editor’s note: See further discussion in, Ed Greenstein,“An Inner-Biblical Elaboration of the Decalogue,” TheTorah.com (2016); Uzi Weingarten,“Not Signing Off on Sacrifices,” TheTorah.com (2015).

[48] Leviticus 19:19 obviously starts a new section of miscellaneous laws of a more ritual character. For various ideas about the structure of Leviticus 19, see Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1596-1602.

[49] The literature on this verse is vast, but for basic ideas, see Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1653-1656; Richard Elliott Friedman, “The Exodus, the Alien, and the Neighbor,”TheTorah.com (2017). Rabbi Akiva calls this commandment, “a great principle of the Torah” (Sifra Kedoshim 4). It plays an important role in the Gospels as one of Jesus’ two “greatest commandments” (Matthew 22:34-40, Luke 10: 27), and for Paul, it represents the summary of the Law (Galatians 5:14).

[50] If the symbolic value of 5 did play a role in determining the division of the Torah into books, it would not be a unique case. A widely read modern work, the parts of which represent a significant number for the author and her religious tradition, is Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. She wrote the book with 108 chapters, with three sections of 36 in each. The number 108 represents the number of beads on a japa mala and is considered in Eastern religion to be “most auspicious, a perfect three-digit multiple of three, its components adding up to 9, which is three threes” (Eat, Pray, Love [New York: Riverhead, 2007], 1).

[51] Gematria uses the numeric values of the letters with which words are spelled in order to gain information about the meaning of words. Stephen J. Lieberman, “A Mesopotamian Background for the So-Called Aggadic ‘Measures’ of Biblical Hermeneutics?,” HUCA 58 (1987), 167.

[52] In Genesis 17, Sarai becomes Sarah; both refer the royalty, related to Hebrew sar, “prince” or “ruler.” The former reflects an archaic form (Nahum Sarna, Genesis (Philadelphia: JPS, 1989), 126). In the same chapter, Abram becomes Abraham, with the infixed heh representing the Hebrew hamon, “multitude,” as his name is given the meaning “father of a multitude of nations,” av hamon goiim. As for Joshua, in Numbers 13:8, he is called Hoshea, and then v.16 indicates that Moses called him Yehoshua; this perhaps indicates that Moses understood the prefix heh to represent the Tetragram or that he renamed him (b. Sota 34b).

[53] Martin Cohen cites two examples in the Torah, Leviticus 24:11 (v.16) and Deuteronomy 28:58 (“Who Knows Five?,” 70, n.20). Jacob Milgrom disputes the first example, arguing that it refers to God’s name YHWH (as opposed to Elohim) and only the Deuteronomic text represents an example of HaShem as a substitute for God (Leviticus 23-27 (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 2108. Nevertheless, Jeffrey Tigay agrees with Cohen (Deuteronomy [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991], 271) and notes that in several psalms, God’s name is synonymous with Himself (Psalm 5:12, 54:8, 61:6, 145:1-2).

[54] Saul Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1962), 68-79.

[55] See Stephen J. Lieberman, “A Mesopotamian Background,” 167-176. Since Mesopotamian texts used cuneiform writing, the “Gematria” in this case is based on the association of particular names with particular numbers, or the association of syllable signs with numbers. This differs from the Hebrew system which is based on alphabetic order (Lieberman, p.176).

[56] “Gematria,” EJ 7:369.

[57] “On Gematria in the Bible,” Beit Miqra 58 (2013), 130-134 (Hebrew); “Sacred Architecture: The Numerical Dimensions of Biblical Poems,” VT 62 (2012), 189-197; HaShem: Ha-misparim ha-sodiyim shel ha-Tanakh ve-ta’alumat yetsi’at Mitsrayim (Or-Yehuda: Dvir, 2012).

[58] See also the works of C.J. Labuschagne, “Significant Compositional Techniques in the Psalms: Evidence for the Use of Number as an Organizing Principle,” (VT 59 (2009), 583-605; Numerical Secrets of the Bible (Texas: BIBAL, 2000); “General Introduction to Logotechnical Analysis,” www.labuschagne.nl.; James Limburg, “Sevenfold Structure in the Book of Amos,” JBL 106 (1987), 219-220; Duane Christensen, Nahum (NY: Doubleday, 2009), 8-17.

[59] See b. Nedarim 32a and Genesis 14:14 and 15:2. Stanley Gevirtz doubts that Gematria plays a role here, but rather he sees 318 as the sum of all primary numbers between 7 and 49 (“Abram’s 318,” IEJ 19 (1969), 110-113). Early Christian interpretation saw a different significance in this number as it appeared in Greek, ιητ, claiming that it represented Jesus (the 310 are the first to letters of his name) and the cross (the tau looks like a cross).

[60] Francine Klagsbrun, The Fourth Commandment: Remember the Sabbath Day (NY: Harmony, 2002), 46.

[61] Isaiah 65:11 refers to a god by the name of Gad, associated with luck or fortune. W.A. Maier III, “Gad,” ABD II: 863-864. Perhaps we have here an ancient link between the number seven and good fortune (lucky sevens?) This may this explain the assortment of names in the Bible derived from the number 7 (sheva): Batsheva in 2 Samuel 11, Elisheva in Exodus 6:23, Sheva son of Bichri in 2 Samuel 20, a son of Gad named Sheva in 1 Chronicles 5:13, and the town Be’er-Sheva.

[62] Rashi comments that the five clauses with God’s Name as the fifth word reflect the five volumes of the Pentateuch.

[63] Rashbam, a grandson of Rashi, finds the subject of the verse in Exodus 40:35, “the Glory of YHWH,” and rearranges the words to make sense of the verse: “And He summoned Moses from the Tent of Meeting and spoke to him saying.” Milgrom follows Rashbam in connecting Exodus 40:35 and Leviticus 1, and comments, “Possibly, when Leviticus became a separate book, the Tetragrammaton was added (but in the wrong place) in order to provide a subject for this verse (Leviticus 1-17, p.139). Baruch Levine calls the syntax of the verse “unusual,” and also links Leviticus 1:1 with the end of Exodus.

[64] This was pointed out to me by David Stern, M.D., of Houston, Texas.

[65] Ethel J. Alpenfels, “The Anthropology and Social Significance of the Human Hand,” Digital Resource Foundation for the Orthopedics and Prosthetics Community 2 (1955), 4.

[66] http://medstud.ceu.hu/gesturesfinal/index.htm?hand.htm&1

[67] W. Gunther Plaut, “Calculated, Not Accidental,” The Jerusalem Report 1/14/1993, 37.

[68] It is worth adding that there may be a gematria connection here as well. The very unusual verb hoya (the qal participle of ה.י.ה), is reminiscent of the Tetragrammaton with its doubled heh, along with a yod and vav. Also, the letter heh appears five times in the phrase.

[69] Deuteronomy 2:15, 1 Samuel 5:6, 9, 7:13, perhaps Ruth 1:13 and 2 Samuel 24:16, 17; see Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 163-164. He notes that the hand of the god refers to pestilence in Ugaritic and Akkadian texts.

[70] See also, 1 Kings 18:46; 2 Kings 3:15; Ezekiel 3:14, 22, 8:1, 33:22, 37:1, 40:1.

[71] See also, Ezra 8:31, Nehemiah 2:18, and perhaps 2 Chronicles 30:12.

[72] See Exodus 31:18, Deuteronomy 9:10, and for the ten “utterances,” see Exodus 34:28, Deuteronomy 4:13. See Cohen, “Who Knows Five?,” 67.

[73] John D. MacIsaac, “The Hand of God: A Numismatic Study,” Tradition 31 (1975), 323-4.

[74] Another example of the democratization of holiness is the commandment for all Israel to wear fringes on their garments, which harkens back to the sha’atnez (linen and wool) worn by Israel’s priesthood (see Milgrom, Numbers (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990), 413). Israel is a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6), thus all are commanded to know the law, even ritual law! (Exodus 21:1, Leviticus 1:2, 19:1-2, etc.). Editor’s note: For a similar idea, see Jeffrey H. Tigay, “Why Are Laws for Priests Included in the Torah?” TheTorah.com (2018).

[3] Letter of Aristeas, 176-179; This last Greek term is the root of the term “Pentateuch”; it typically refers to jars or cases, but here denotes the scrolls or books.

[14] Judah Goldin, “Avot,” EJ 3:983-4.

The Latter Prophets constitute fifteen books (5×3)
The MT of Psalms has 150 psalms (5×30; the LXX has 151 and the Psalm Scroll from Qumran has four non-canonical psalms).