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Names & Divisions
Topic C:
Where do the names of the books of the Humash come from? There were also older Hebrew names of the Bible recorded in Rabbinic
literature that did refer to the book's content. Look at the chart below. 
In Hebrew, the books are called by the first important word (or
words) of the first sentence (like the Parasha). So the second
book of the Torah is called Exodus in English (like the word Exit)
because it tells of the Jewish people leaving (Exiting) Egypt,
but in Hebrew is called Sh'mot- Names, because the first verse
begins, Now these are the names of the children of Israel....
English Name
Meaning
Hebrew Name
Meaning
Genesis
Beginning
Breishit
Beginning
Exodus
Departure
Shmot
[These are the names]
Leviticus
Priests
VaYikra
And he called
Numbers
Census
BeMidbar
In the wilderness
Deuteronomy
Second Law
Devarim
[These are the words]
We already saw how the Tanach (and the Torah) is divided into books. The actual Torah scroll has almost no divisions: no punctuation and no chapters. Only the five books are separated by a few blank lines. The Torah is divided into Parashiyot which are divided into individual Aliyot/readings but neither of these is indicated in the Torah text.
The only other division is that some paragraphs, (technically called pericopes) are left open, or others that are closed. The printed Humash, often records these 'breaks' with the Hebrew letter 'pey' for the open paragraphs, and 'samech' for the closed ones. (There was even a game in Eastern Europe looking for these mysterious letters!)
One unusual oddity is found in the book of Numbers, where a verse is set apart with what appears to be two upside down 'nun's, or brackets.
The Parashah, and chapter and verse divisions are only found in the printed Humash. A verse, by the way, is like a sentence, but not always: especially in English translations, what we might consider to be one sentence might be 2 or 3 verses and vice versa. A smaller unit than the Parasha (usually containing 5 or 6 chapters) is the chapter. These were actually introduced by Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury in the 13th century. The divisions into chapters were not a Jewish division, but were finally adopted by Jews, out of the necessity to be able to quote chapter and verse in disputations with Christian clergy. Sometimes, the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible differ as to the numbering of verses, as in
Also note: chapter divisions were introduced quite late and often don't agree with the Jewish division, or the context of the story. Look how the creation story of Chapter 1 is artificially interrupted at verse 31 leaving the final 3 verses of the story to begin chapter 2. Or for example, Parashat Va'Era begins on verse 2, Exodus chapter 6.
Gen. 2:1
Just like every book in a library has its own access code (Dewey
decimal system), every verse can be accessed by a code, that includes
the book, (often abbreviated), the chapter number (sometimes in
Roman numerals) and the verse number (separated by a colon). This
is called a citation. The above citation is read: The book of
Genesis, chapter 2, verse 1. A hyphen is used for contiguous verses;
multiple verses in the same chapter are separated by commas. New
chapters are separated by semi-colons, so a citation could be:
(Ex. 2:1-5, 7, 9; 3:1,2). Is this clear?
It is also possible to use this system in Hebrew. The chapter
numbers (and sometimes verses) are represented by Hebrew letters:
so Aleph is chapter 1, Beit is chap. 2, Yod is 10, Yod-Aleph is
11, Kaf is twenty, etc.
would be Exodus 25:2. To use this system, you need to know the
numerical value of the Hebrew alphabet.
The Treasure Hunt and Verse Bingo are exercises to help you practice looking up citations.
