Treasure Hunt
Topic C:
How to Find a Verse
You should now be able to navigate through the 'maze' Torah, so
you could find:
- a specific English (Gen. 9:9) or Hebrew (Breishit Tet:9) citation
- a Parasha, aliyah and verse (Can you find the 2nd verse of the fifth Aliyah of the second Parasha of the book of Genesis?)
But what if you wanted to find:
- The first time the word 'covenant' appears.
(PS. all three answers for the above are the same).
To find where specific words are mentioned, we need to use a different technique. If you are looking for a specific word but you don't know where to find it, you can use a 'Concordance.' A Concordance is (like a dictionary) an alphabetical listing of very word in the Tanach and where it appears. There are a number of English and Hebrew Concordances and Lexicons of the Bible. Today, however, there is an easy way to do this kind of search without such a specialized volume.Luckily, on the Internet, there are many 'electronic' Bibles which allow you to search in Hebrew or English. (Be aware that many of these sites are Christian, and use Christian translations etc.) Bibles on CD ROM of course also have this search capability. Sometimes finding out how many times a word appears, or where it appears can have surprising results.
Try using these search engines (we will be using some of these when we discuss translating the Bible in module 4:
Chumash Search with links to the ORT Bible site
Find where the word 'ark, (Teivah)' appears.
How many times does the word 'Tsohar (window)' appear?
How many times does the word 'Torah' appear in the Torah?
Biblical Treasure Hunt
The Masoretes (8-10th Century) were biblical scholars who studied the biblical text with great attention to the tiniest detail. They counted the number of verses, words, and even letters in the Torah and in each Parashah.
Print out this page and use a Tanach to find the answers (If you have kids, they're allowed to help).
Help the Masoretes find:
(I have provided clues on the right hand side; Answers not in order)
| The longest word in the Tanach | Gen. 8:19 |
| The longest word in the Torah | Gen. 26:6 |
| The only 2 Aramaic words in the Torah | Gen. 31:47 |
| The shortest verse in the Torah | Ex. 7: 19 |
| The longest verse in the Torah | Lev. 11:42 |
| The longest verse in the Tanach | Lev. 13:33 |
| The longest chapter in the Torah | Numbers 7 |
| The longest chapter in the Tanach | Jeremiah 6:7 |
| The shortest chapter in the Tanach | Obadiah |
| The shortest book in the Tanach | Psalms |
| The longest book in the Tanach | Psalm 117 |
| The middle verse of the Torah | Psalm 119 |
| The middle letter of the Tanach | Esther 3:13 |
| The middle letter of the Torah | Esther 9:3 |
