Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Mike:

On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 12:52 PM, Mike Burke <michaelgburk AT yahoo.com> wrote:

If you must know, I'm having an on-going internet dialogue with someone who believes that numbers and the Hebrew words (ancient and/or modern) they can be associated with (thru gematria and/or kabbalah) have "great significance."

Now this is clearly a subject outside the purview of this discussion group, but thanks for letting us know as it helps us understand your questions. 

One of my questions was how this is possible when the words arrived at often have opposite meanings.

Here’s where getting a good dictionary helps. But that’s just the first step, because there are many cases where, because written Biblical Hebrew lacked vowels, the written consonants of different words can be the same (called homographs), hence the need for context to understand which word is meant.

…

Thank you.

Michael Gerard Burke

Karl W. Randolph.