Number Four

Four - Arba'a - (ארבע)


Four is not a number of major significance in Biblical lore, though it certainly occurs.

There are four rivers flowing out of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:10), namely Piyshon (פישון), Giychon (גיחון), Chidekel (הדקל), which is usually identified with the Tigris, and Perat (פרת), which we know from other texts was the Euphrates.

There are four quarters to the heavens - a construct that is really a much later (proto-Jewish; not earlier than the 4th century BCE) borrowing of the Hindu idea of the Mandala: which is both a circle ("mandala" in Sanskrit means "circle") and a square, and symbolises the universe. In Chapter 9:1 of his "Collected Writings", you will find this from Carl Jung, for whom the mandala was a key psychological symbol:

"The 'squaring of the circle' is one of the many archetypal motifs which form the basic patterns of our dreams and fantasies. But it is distinguished by the fact that it is one of the most important of them from the functional point of view. Indeed, it could even be called the archetype of wholeness."

The four wheels of Yechezke-El's (Ezekiel's) chariot, and the four beasts for whom those wheels were provided, follow a much earlier concept, though it is probably a precursor of the mandala; the same is true of the four Keranot ("horns") and the four Charashim ("craftsmen") of Zechar-Yah's (Zechariah's) vision. In Yechezke-El, each of the living creatures has four faces, one of a man, one of a lion, one of an ox, and one of an eagle; and four wings - something similar will recur as the "beasts of the apocalypse" in the Christian "Revelation of St John".

The foursome represented the midwinter, spring, mid-summer and autumn equinoxes, and can be found as NINIB (also known as Ninurta), MARDUK, NERGAL and NABU in the Babylonian mythologies - once again the Babylonian roots of so much that is Tanachic. The full text can be found in Ezekiel 1.

The remaining three principal gods (the Babylonians had seven) were the Trinity of the Sun, the Moon and Ishtar, the earth/fertility goddess; exactly the same trinity as that of Hor (Horus), Osher (Osiris) and Eshet (Isis) at Hierapolis, and at Elephantine; likewise at Rome where Ishtar became Venus (physical Nature), Jupiter the impregnating or animating principle (the sun), and Minerva directed the wisdom behind the universe (moon). To the Beney Yisra-El the essential trinity was Yehudah, Bin-Yamin and Levi; but this was almost certainly a post-exilic addition.

The fourth day of Creation is the one on which the material universe was more or less substantiated, with the bringing into existence of the sun, moon and stars (Genesis 1:14 - 19).

There are four winds and four beasts in the Book of Dani-El, but these have to be taken with four large pinches of salt as Dani-El was to Biblical Scripture what Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings are to modern literature - a wonderful act of the imagination, employing clichéd images from around the world as fancifully as suited the text, rather than a theologically driven work of allegory or analogy which can therefore be deconstructed to provide a deeper understanding of that theology.

After which there is nothing meaningful to add, though plenty that is meaningless, and for this there are dozens of websites which you can waste your own time perusing; they will tell you, with much earnest explanation of the symbolic significance, that the name of Chavah (Eve), or perhaps it was Sarah, is mentioned four times in a single chapter, from which profound and conclusory proofs may be drawn, that Ya'akov (Jacob) had four wives (though two of them were unmarried concubines), and that Gol-Yat (Goliath), remarkably enough, had four fingers on each hand, leaving aside the matter of his thumbs (I only mention this because one of his sons, and one of his descendants, are said to have had five, plus the thumbs - click here, and then here, if you don't believe me).

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