The Numerical Secrets of Psalm 49, Psalm 64, and Psalm 81

While editing the poetry of the Psalms for the book The Symbolism of the Psalms, I discovered that the Hebrew scriptures have an underlying numeric structure that was used in the poetic structure of each Psalm. Other scholars have noted some of these patterns, but unfortunately many have degenerated this study into some false methods invented by Jewish Qabbalists. I have summarized the findings in a new book The Secret Code of the Psalms. It is primarily focused on patterns in verse, word and letter counts. Why did the Jews do this? Because the Hebrew scriptures are Divine, where even the numbers have spiritual meaning. Modern science has shown that the universe is very mathematical, built upon numbers. This corresponds to the belief that God's Word created all things. So lets count the words, shall we?

There are numeric patterns used that reinforce the meaning of the text, and the numeric patterns can validate the Hebrew scriptures themselves against other variants. To demonstrate that this is the case, I thought I would show a couple of examples here on the numeric structure of Psalms 49 and 64.

In Psalm 49 there is one verse that is translated differently by some Bible versions. The Masoretic Hebrew text says this of those who place their trust in material wealth:

Their inward thought was that their houses were forever (Ps. 49:11)

Some modern Bibles translate this verse as follows:

Their graves are their homes forever (Ps. 49:11)

So, why do some translations have "graves" instead of "inward thought"?  And which one is correct? The word for "inward thought" is Hebrew qereb, but the word for grave or sepulchre is qeber. So what some modern translators presume is that the original Hebrew text is in error, and that a copyist transposed two letters.

However the modern translators are incorrect, and this can be proven from the numerical structure of Psalm 49. Most of the Psalms are numerically designed to have a center in terms of word and sometimes even letter count. Psalm 49 has an offset center, which can be determined by examining two near duplicate phrases:

And Man who is in dignity stays not,
He is like the dumb beasts (Ps. 49:12)

Man who is in dignity, and understands not,
He is like the dumb beasts (Ps. 49:20)

Verses 12-13 form a quatrain at the end of a stanza demarcated by the word Selah; the repetition of verse 12 in verse 20 places emphasis of the last quatrain in verses 19-20. This last quatrain has 16 words. Excluding the last 16 words of the Psalm, if the Psalm is divided into 73 + 1 + 73 words, the central 74th word is inward thought, the word in question in Ps. 49:11.

And this is very significant. The word "inward thought" is also the Hebrew word meaning "center".

So the Masoretic text is correct. And this is just one of many proofs showing that the structure of the Psalms is playing quite a few number games. And we know from original Hebrew texts that Jewish scribes would often take particular note of the central word or letter in the scriptures (for examples of this practice, see the article What Is the Midpoint of the Torah?).

Now maybe this example from Psalm 49 is a coincidence? Except when these coincidences keep coming up one can no longer say it is random, but rather it is by design. This can be seen in Psalm 64. Similar to Psalm 49, if the first stanza is treated as an offset, the remainder of Psalm 64 can be divided into 30 + 5 + 30 words. The central phrase becomes the following:

And the inward part of man and the heart is deep (Ps. 64:6)

And here the word for "inward part" is the same Hebrew word qereb, the word meaning "center."

And one will note that 49 is 7 x 7 and 64 is 8 x 8. They are square numbers. So out of curiosity, what is the central phrase of Psalm 81? Psalm 81 can be divided into 44 + 6 + 44 words, where the central phrase is the following:

I am Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt (Ps. 81:10)

This, of course, is a direct quote from Ex. 20:2, the beginning of the 10 commandments. It is actually the first commandment, which takes on the form of a declaration. That Jehovah is our God should be the center of our life purpose, and this is why its in the center. It is followed by 9 other commandments, and that is why it is placed in Psalm 81 since 81 is 9 x 9.

And the list of these weird numerical findings goes on and on, where it actually supports the meaning of the text.  I forgot to make this particular point connecting these three Psalms together in the book. But one has to publish, the work took forever. It also took me away from this blog. I am sure other readers will find even more patterns.

So what is secret is now no longer secret:

For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light (Luke 8:17)

THE SPIRITUAL MEANING OF CENTER

Several times Swedenborg interpreted the word for "center" in scripture - the word "center" or "in the midst" means what is central or primary, or what is the first principle. Thus Psalm 81 mentions the first commandment which should be the central principle in our life. To be withdrawn out of Egypt is for us to withdraw from the desires of our lower selves which imprison and enslave us into the freedom of a spiritual life of love. Psalm 49 has the opposite center of the wicked - the wicked place their center in their own selfish ego and their material wealth; this selfish center becomes their own hell in the other life.

What is center has a very special meaning in the spiritual sense:

"That the midst in the internal sense signifies what is primary or principal, and also inmost, is from representatives in the other life; when any good is represented by spiritual ideas, then what is best is placed in the midst, and what is less and less good is put successively from the middle outward, and lastly at the circumference are those things which are not good; it is from this that in the midst means both what is primary or principal and what is inmost. Thus, likewise, are represented ideas of thought, and also affections, and all changes of state, goods or evils being varied as to their situation in respect to the middle. The origin of this is from the form of spiritual and heavenly things, which is such." (Heavenly Arcana, n. 2940)

What one loves the most is one's center. From this spiritual idea of center, many Psalms are designed with a central thought or theme in mind which is revealed in the numerical arithmetic center of the Psalm.

Mystical Christianity, or the Spiritual Kingdom Within

As one grows spiritually, one advances where one becomes withdrawn from external cares or concerns, towards an internal way of living in love and truth. This internal communion with God, which governs the intentions in the way we live, becomes a constant source of hope and happiness, where external worries or concerns disappear.

This is a secret way of living, where one is no longer concerned with the opinions of others:

But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you (Matt. 6:6)

To go into one's room is to go into one's mind, and have communion with the Lord in prayer. And yet, all of our thoughts and deeds will become fully known and revealed:

Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known (Luke 12:2)

This is fulfilled when our spirit departs from the body, and we enter into the spiritual realm of heaven in our spiritual bodies. An spiritual aura emanates from our spiritual bodies, where all of our thoughts are revealed to others, and cannot be hidden. All of our deeds are recorded as in a book (Rev. 20:12). This is known in theosophy as the "Akashic record," and it is something that is tapped into by clairvoyants, who can see events of the past, present and sometimes the future. The first documented evidence of clairvoyance was done by Emanuel Swedenborg, which was investigated by the German philosopher Kant in the 18th century. A friend of mine was able to foresee the downing of flight MH17; something that came up as most of the casualties were Dutch, and I am half Dutch. These are things that occur for those who are open to gifts of the Spirit.

This realm, where all things are recorded, is the spiritual realm, where time and space lose meaning. Instead of time there is state, and instead of space there is love - the closer we are to a person, the more likely we will be with that person in heaven. It is a higher dimension that interacts with the lower natural material dimension. Our souls reside in this higher realm, while our bodies exist in the material dimension. Our internal communion with the Lord is within us, thus Jesus stated that the kingdom of God is within us:

The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you (Luke 17:20-21)

Our soul will reside in a different area of heaven and hell, depending on our state of being. For the spiritual realm governs our state of being, and we change it through free will - by recognizing the evil within ourselves, and turning against them in practice. All too often people look for external signs in the material world as evidence for the kingdom of God. But the revelation of the kingdom of God is a spiritual revelation from heaven, not a material appearance that occurs in the skies. This is described in detail in an earlier article: Is the Second Coming a Physical Event or Spiritual Event?

The true Second Coming is the revelation of the spiritual sense in God's Word, for now the Word is opened to us in all its glory. Although we have been cut of from heaven due to the fall in the Garden of Eden, it is reopened to us through scripture, by going to the Lord alone. All too often people are caught up in the literal sense of the Word, and fail to see its spiritual meaning. But it is now there for anyone who wishes to see it, all one has to do is look, and examine the revelations that have been given. For this is the New age of Christianity, one where the Lord is worshiped as one person, where a true spiritual life is one where one lives by His commandments:

If you love me, you will keep my commandments (John 14:15)

And this leads to a communion with the Lord in our heart:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me (Rev. 3:20)

The Secret Code of the Psalms

I am pleased to announce the publication of a new book, The Secret Code of the Psalms, which reveals a hidden numerical design embedded in the Hebrew poetry of the Psalms:

This is based on an accidental discovery as a result of editing the poetry of the Psalms for a previous book I published, The Symbolism of the Psalms. Within this work is revealed a numerical design in the Psalms numbers, verse counts, word counts and even the letter counts in the original Masoretic Hebrew text. This numerical design determined the overall arrangement of the Psalms, and explains several odd features in the Hebrew text that has puzzled Biblical scholars, such as why Psalms or phrases are duplicated, why certain acrostic verses are missing, the meaning of the odd word Selah as well as its positioning, why single Psalms were split into two, and much more. The overall numeric design of the Psalms is revealed, and the numerical poetic structure of all 150 Psalms are explained in detail.

The numerical design reveals a hidden system of cross referencing, where disparate passages in the Psalms are connected together to form a connected whole, where the smallest part of scripture is a reflection of the whole. Every letter becomes an important part of this whole, supporting the statement of Jesus that every "jot and tittle" of scripture is significant (Matt. 5:18).

The text of scripture has priority over any numerical considerations, and it is shown how the numerical design reinforces the meaning of the text. For example, consider this passage:

The verse in question states: The speech of Jehovah is pure speech: As silver refined in a furnace of earth, purified seven times (Ps. 12:6). This is the seventh verse of the Psalms (the Bible verse number is inaccurate). Up to the end of this statement the Psalm has 49 words, or 7 x 7. The stanza that contains this verse has 154 letters which is 2 x 77.

Let's choose another simple example where a number is mentioned:

Forty years I loathed that generation,
And said, It is a people who go wandering in their heart,
And they know not my ways.
Unto whom I swore in My anger:
They shall not enter into My rest (Ps. 95:10-11)

What is amazing, is that preceding that verse which mentions the 40 years of wandering is the 1600th verse of the Psalms, where the number 1600 is 40 x 40.

And these are just two examples out of hundreds.  And this is not the way I discovered this, it was accidental, when I was trying to arrange the Psalms back into their original poetic structure according to Hebrew parallelism. The challenge was how to arrange the Psalms into stanzas? I discovered that stanzas were arranged according to word counts, and later, they were arranged with certain letter counts in mind. This is the origin of the Jewish Masoretic practice of counting verses, words and even letters to ensure the accuracy of scripture. But this practice originated from a numerical design.

THE DIVINE SIGNATURE OF PI

What is perhaps the most surprising discovery of all, which again was accidental, is that embedded in the Psalms I saw that there are mathematical ratios that approximate pi to a very high degree of accuracy. The numbers of these ratios were considered sacred, and the numbers were used in the letters for the name of God, Jehovah. The circle was considered to be a symbolic representation of the infinite Divine, which is revealed in the measure of the diameter of the circle.

The knowledge of this can be found in an ancient mystical Jewish text known as the Sefir Yetzirah. In that ancient work, a Hebrew letter circle is presented:

This diagram is explained from a mathematical perspective in the work. To summarize, there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet since 22/7 is a convergent ratio for pi. The diameter is 7, and 7 of course is a holy number throughout scripture. But the Psalms contains within it even more accurate ratios, so accurate they were not improved upon until they were rediscovered in China in the 5th century A.D. and later among Indian and Persian mathematicians in the 14th-15th centuries A.D.

The ratios of pi pervade the entire Psalms, and determined its overall structure. However there are other overlapping numerical structures that are explained in detail in this work. Some of the knowledge contained in scripture is similar to the ancient mathematical knowledge of the Pythagoreans, who believed that numbers ruled all of creation. They placed special emphasis on the musical octave scale, and knowledge of this octave scale can also be found in the numeric structure of the Psalms.

For those of you who have been watching this blog closely, while I was working on this other people would have clairvoyant dreams describing this work, and one dream in particular explained the numbers in the Psalm I was about to analyze before I even knew it. See the post More Clairvoyant Dreams of the Numerical Symbolism of the Psalms. That was back in 2016. This has taken several years and it is finally done, and the evidence is conclusive. The challenge was to demonstrate what was by design as opposed to what was just random, and this is done by following strict methods according to the poetic structure of the text. It is comprehensive, all 150 Psalms are explained.

Another surprising discovery: this work for the first time explains the origin of the Jewish tradition that there are 613 commandments in the Law of Moses. This tradition is very ancient, dating back to the the 3rd century A.D. Jewish rabbis have been at a loss to explain the origin of this oral tradition.

When one takes a step back, and looks at the overall design, one will question could any human author conceived this on their own? The design is elegant and beautiful, where the smallest of parts is related to a larger whole.

WHAT WAS SWEDENBORG'S VIEW OF THIS?

Emanuel Swedenborg was shown many things, but this is one thing he missed. Swedenborg, however, was actually the first one to discover the pattern of Hebrew parallelism in scripture, where one line is repeated in the next. The verse, the simplest numerical unit, forms the foundation of the overall numerical structure. However beyond the verse, there are larger structures that repeat, where entire stanzas are parallel with other stanzas.

An example of how Swedenborg missed this entirely, is although he could explain parallelism in a verse, he could not explain why scripture would duplicate entire passages. For example, in the book of Exodus, chapters 36-39 repeats exactly what was said in chapter 25-28. Swedenborg passes right over it in his commentary on chapter 36:

"What these things signify in the internal sense is evident from what has been explained before in chapter xxvi., for they are the same as are there. Wherefore what is in this chapter is passed over without further explication." (Heavenly Arcana, n. 10750).

What the numerical symbolism of the Psalms shows is that duplication of passages have meaning, often related to the underlying numerical structure.  To most readers the repetition in Exodus is useless, however what seems useless does have significant meaning.

So why the extensive design with numbers in the Psalms?  Here Swedenborg does offer an explanation - in a lower plane of heaven, general ideas were represented by particular numbers. Words express these ideas in a more particular manner. What this work shows is that there is a correspondence between the numerical design and the literal text. Thus this work will provide new insights into the meaning of scripture, especially the Psalms.

Again, I am happy this is done. The work is massive, with original discoveries and a new translation and the original Hebrew text is included. It also references Biblical scholarship over the past 200 years concerning the poetic structure of the Psalms. The embedded mathematical knowledge, and its intricate design, comes closer to showing that indeed scripture does have a hidden Divine author.