Count God In: Theological Numbers in the Song of Songs

This study of Song of Songs uncovers many patterns related to the numerical value twenty-six and related numbers for the divine name YHWH. Patterns are so unique that they clearly show authorial intent. They involve the numerical value of root forms of words, their sequences, and their totals in the book. The beloved man is highlighted by special patterns, which indicate that a typology for God is intended. Deer names in the refrain have number patterns that confirm intention for being circumlocutions for divine names. The disputed presence of the divine name YH in 8:6 is confirmed by the value of its full word. One of the most striking patterns found with the help of a computer is that the totals of root words are all arranged to point to theological numbers in a beautiful intricacy. Besides describing these patterns, this study discusses numerical competence within a proposed Hebrew literary circle, and what steps they might have gone through to create these amazing phenomena. These theological numbers confirm intentionality for allusions to the Hebrew Bible and support a hermeneutic of spiritual applications. A literary analysis of each poem focuses on the use of numbers among other features of prominence. "Over millennia, the Song of Songs' place and role in the canon has been seriously questioned, and its interpretation in Jewish and Christian contexts subject to even hotter debates. . . . While giving full credence to the text's sexual references, Bliese, basing his conclusions on numerical letter counts of lemmas in the original Hebrew text, argues strongly for the latter. Certainly, this analysis, which pushes the numerical approach of the Song further than any other published study to date, is bound to lead to controversy and even some skepticism. But Bliese's line-by-line analyses of the Song and his careful attention to literary devices, including the Song's numerous chiasms, and more significantly, the placement of primary and second peaks in the Hebrew text, can be of great interest to exegetes, translators, and scholars interested in biblical poetry. For those who are really passionate about the Song, Bliese's well-referenced work, while at times a little hard going, provides intriguing insights and hypotheses on a most enigmatic book." --Lynell Zogbo, Former UBS Translation Consultant, Francophone, West Africa Loren F. Bliese served as a translation consultant in Ethiopia for twenty-five years for the Bible Society of Ethiopia helping in over twenty languages. He also taught biblical courses part-time at Mekane Yesus Seminary in Addis Ababa for twenty years. Previously he initiated literacy and mobile clinic medical services among the Afar nomadic people. He has published A Generative Grammar of Afar and articles on Hebrew Bible discourse analysis and Afar linguistics, culture, and songs.