Septets in Revelation and Daniel

Kee Lau
Kee Lau Member Posts: 76
edited November 21 in English Forum

Continuing from https://community.logos.com/forums/p/205808/1199735.aspx#1199735 I am opening a new post, with new thoughts added.

Only sets each of 7 uniform items (or called "septets") are considered here. Thus, I have not considered, among others, other sets of uniform items searchable by Logos 9, such as sets of 3, 4, 10, 12, 24, 12,000, 144,000, etc. So, remember to add these not considered in your comprehensive reckoning. 

No filter, only lemma, selected—

(A) Total Greek words

(B) Total Greek septets

(B)/(A) %

Revelation (NASB95)

9833

224

2.3%

Wars 3

14219

196

1.4%

Wars 4

17589

308

1.8%

Wars 6

12426

238

1.9%

Wars 7

12286

105

0.9%

In the table, 1 Greek septet contains 7 Greek words. Each of these Greek words, if per my assumption of the average, is in a cluster of 7 Greek words that makes at least semantic sense. That is to say, 7 words are involved. Then the percentage of Greek words involved in Revelation and Wars 6 will be 112.7% (2.3%x7x7) and 93.1% (1.9%x7x7) respectively. Yet not all of these septets are intentionally arranged or make significant senses, especially those by Josephus. Anyway, we see the saturation of sets in both works. In other words, we should not neglect their presence, if intentionally arranged, in exegesis. 

How do I know that a set is done intentionally? If a set makes significant sense, the possibility is higher than otherwise.

John’s labor more or less helps us to improve or determine our exegesis, or informs us these sets’ importance or what they are hinting at.

As for the book of Daniel, similar elements are considered, only that this book, like Ezra, has 2 languages.

No filter, only lemma, selected—

NASB95

(A) Total original language words

(B) Total original language septets

(B)/(A) %

Daniel

8893

217

2.4%

Ezra

5611

91

1.6%

Nehemiah

8484

147

1.7%

Esther

4905

70

1.4%

Zechariah

4843

77

1.6%

Aramaic filter and lemma selected—

NASB95 

(A) Total original language words

(B) Total original language septets

(B)/(A) %

Daniel

5022

147

2.9%

Ezra

1621

63

3.9%

Hebrew filter and lemma selected—

 NASB95

(A) Total original language words

(B) Total original language septets

(B)/(A) %

Daniel

3871

70

1.8%

Ezra

3990

28

0.7%

Nehemiah

Same as No filter, only lemma, selected

Esther

Zechariah

 

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Comments

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 35,682

    In the table, 1 Greek septet contains 7 Greek words. Each of these Greek words, if per my assumption of the average, is in a cluster of 7 Greek words that makes at least semantic sense. That is to say, 7 words are involved. Then the percentage of Greek words involved in Revelation and Wars 6 will be 112.7% (2.3%x7x7) and 93.1% (1.9%x7x7) respectively.

    This does not make sense to me. Each of the 224 words on average will occur in a cluster of 9833/224 = 43-44 words

    Freq per 1000 words in Rev is (224x1000)/9833 = 22.78

    I performed a Search of the 32 lemmas in Revelation, with these results

    image
    The freq per 1000 words in chapter varies from  9.22  to 42.03.

    imageimage

    The count per chapter varies from 2 to 21.

    Rev 7 is the only chapter without a septet result!

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Kee Lau
    Kee Lau Member Posts: 76

    Each of the 224 words on average will occur

    I think you misunderstood 224, which is the number of septets, NOT the number of words.

    That is to say, the total in the 224 septets is 224x7= 1568 words. Then each of these 1568 words will involve another 7 words which are the cluster with semantic sense. So the total involved in 224 septets will be 1568x7=10,976 words.

    Of course 10,976 words are more than the initial 9833 words. The difference is due to the fact that the septets involving the clusters may overlap one another. This also explains why my initially calculated percentage was 112.7%.

    112.7% being more than 100%, just as 10,976 words are more than 9833 words.

    Last but not least, there are other sets of uniform items not yet considered, such as sets of 3, 4, 10, 12, 24, 12000, 144000, etc.

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 35,682

    I think you misunderstood 224, which is the number of septets, NOT the number of words.

    I pointed this out earlier in the original thread. Go back to the Concordance to see that there are 32 septets of 7 words = 224 words.

    Then each of these 1568 words will involve another 7 words which are the cluster with semantic sense.

    What is the basis for this?

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Kee Lau
    Kee Lau Member Posts: 76

    there are 32 septets of 7 words = 224 words.

    Then each of these 1568 words will involve another 7 words which are the cluster with semantic sense.

    What is the basis for this?

    There are 32 septets, each septet contains 7 words, totalling 32x7=224 words. (You are right at this juncture. Thanks for your correction of my error.)

    Each of these 224 words involves another 7 words to form a cluster of semantic sense.

    Let’s see the following screenshot—

    The arrows (red) point from the concordance to the 2 words in NASB95 (blue). Each of these 2 words involves a cluster of semantic sense (brown). You could see that each cluster contains 7+ words (though in English). The second cluster COULD ALSO BE much more words (green) so as to form a perfect semantic sense.

    You could also take the whole verse as the perfect semantic sense of both words "keep" IN TERMS OF the overall theme of the book of Revelation, and thus there are even more than 7 words for each cluster, and also the 2 clusters are overlapped.

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 35,682

    The arrows (red) point from the concordance to the 2 words in NASB95 (blue). Each of these 2 words involves a cluster of semantic sense (brown). You could see that each cluster contains 7+ words (though in English).

    I don't find this convincing as  the number 7 seems arbitrary for a cluster.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Kee Lau
    Kee Lau Member Posts: 76

    I don't find this convincing as  the number 7 seems arbitrary for a cluster.

    I never deemed that the cluster must be 7 words. Note my earlier saying-- "if per my assumption of the average, is in a cluster of 7 Greek words that makes at least semantic sense."

    In my last post, I even took the whole verse as the cluster.

    If you like, you could deem it 6 or 8 or any number you think as the reasonable average.