The word-counts on the original text — reproducible, with base rates
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In-depth:
The counts below are computed on the Hebrew original — the Masoretic Text with the morphological coding of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible — and are reproducible. The number after each word gives how often it occurs in the whole Hebrew Bible (at the word level); that is the base rate against which every "hit" must be weighed. Where this book leans on a count, it refers to this appendix.
1 · Base Rates of the Key-Words
- Wilderness — midbar (מִדְבָּר), 271×. - Wings — kanaf, wing (כָּנָף) 111× · nesher, eagle (נֶשֶׁר) 26× · uf, to fly (עוּף) 32× · daah, to dart (דָּאָה) 4×. - To bear — nasa (נָשָׂא), 654×. - Refuge — chasa, to take refuge (חָסָה), 37×. - Place — maqom (מָקוֹם) 401× · kun, to make ready (כּוּן) 219× · sukka, booth (סֻכָּה) 31× · Bozrah (בָּצְרָה) 8×. - Flight — nus, to flee (נוּס) 161× · barach, to flee away (בָּרַח) 65×. - Coming up — ala (עָלָה), 894×. - To nourish — kul, to sustain (כּוּל) 37× · man, manna (מָן) 14×. - Remnant — sheerit (שְׁאֵרִית) 66× · shaar, vb. (שָׁאַר) 133× · peleta/palit (פְּלֵיטָה) 52× · yeter/notar (יֶתֶר) 209×. - Trouble — tsara (צָרָה), 73×. - To gather — asaf (אָסַף) 202× · qavats (קָבַץ) 127×. - Chaoskampf — tannin, sea-dragon (תַּנִּין) 26× · Leviathan (לִוְיָתָן) 6× · Rahab (רַהַב) 3×. - Flood — shataf, to overflow (שָׁטַף), 31×. - Earth-mouth — bala, to swallow (בָּלַע) 50× · patach, to open (פָּתַח) 145× · peh, mouth (פֶּה) 498× · erets, earth (אֶרֶץ) 2505×. - Seed — zera (זֶרַע), 229×. - Mother — yalad, to give birth (יָלַד) 500× · aqara, barren woman (עֲקָרָה) 12×. - Hagar — Hagar (הָגָר), 12×.
2 · Load-Bearing Collocations (Two Words in the Same Verse)
Collocation
Words
Count
Places
Eagles' wings
kanaf + nesher
7×
Deut 32:11; Ex 19:4; Ezek 17:3, 7; Jer 48:40; 49:22; Prov 23:5
Great eagle
nesher + gadol
2×
Ezek 17:3, 7
Refuge under the wings
chasa + kanaf
5×
Ps 36:8 (Eng. 36:7); 57:2 (Eng. 57:1); 61:5 (Eng. 61:4); 91:4; Ruth 2:12
Coming up out of the wilderness
ala + midbar
19×
Ex 13:18; 16:14; Lev 16:10; Num 13:21; 16:13; 21:5; Josh 8:20; 16:1; 18:12; Judg 1:16; 11:16; 1 Kgs 2:34; 2 Kgs 3:8; 2 Chr 20:16; Jer 2:6; Hos 13:15; Amos 2:10; Song 3:6; 8:5
Time of trouble
et + tsara
11×
Judg 10:14; Neh 9:27; Ps 9:10 (Eng. 9:9); 10:1; 37:39; Prov 17:17; Isa 33:2; Jer 14:8; 15:11; 30:7; Dan 12:1
Remnant of Jacob
sheerit + Jacob
5×
Isa 46:3; Jer 31:7; Mic 2:12; 5:6 (Eng. 5:7); 5:7 (Eng. 5:8)
To gather
qavats + asaf
11×
Isa 11:12; 43:9; 62:9; Ezek 11:17; 29:5; 39:17; Joel 2:16; Mic 2:12; 4:6; Hab 2:5; Zeph 3:8
Sea-dragon in the sea
tannin + yam
3×
Isa 27:1; Job 7:12; Ps 74:13
The earth swallows
bala + erets
10×
Ex 15:12; Num 16:32, 34; 26:10; Deut 11:6; Isa 25:8; 49:19; Lam 2:2; Job 2:3; Ps 106:17
The earth opened her mouth
patach + peh + erets
2×
Num 16:32; 26:10
Overflowing river
shataf + nahar
3×
Isa 43:2; 66:12; Song 8:7
3 · The Flight-Counts (with Part I, Chapter 3)
These counts illustrate that the saving flight-to-a-refuge is, in the Hebrew Bible, the rare, marked pole. They illustrate the reading; they do not carry it — a raw co-occurrence is no base-rate-corrected test.
Collocation
Words
Count
Comment
Fleeing before
nus + panim
49×
panim, with 1891 occurrences, is one of the most frequent words in the Bible
Fleeing to a refuge
nus + miqlat
7×
all in the city-of-refuge context: Num 35:6, 11, 15, 25, 26, 32; Josh 20:3
Fleeing away to safety
barach + miqlat / + chasa
0×
barach does not couple with a refuge-word
Dying in the wilderness
midbar + mut
20×
mut, with 695 occurrences, is highly frequent — the wilderness as a place of death
Taking refuge in the wilderness
midbar + chasa
0×
This is largely a lexical datum: chasa is a poetic word for taking refuge in God, not a place-marker — elsewhere the wilderness is a refuge (Hagar, Elijah), only without this word.
4 · The Birth-Pang Matrix (with Part I, Chapter 4b)
The six prophetic passages that place the end-time birth at the time of trouble, with the load-bearing Hebrew word, the Greek rendering of the Septuagint, and the point of contact in Revelation 12.
Place
Hebrew
Greek (LXX)
Contact in Revelation 12
Isaiah 26:17-19
chil, to be in labour + zaaq, to cry out
ōdinousa [...] ekekraxen
krazei ōdinousa (12:2)
Isaiah 66:7-9
chil + yalad, to give birth; zachar, male (singular) over against baneha, her sons (plural)
exephygen kai eteken arsen
eteken huion arsen (12:5) over against "the rest of her seed" (12:17)
Jeremiah 30:6-7
yoledah, a woman giving birth + et tsara, time of trouble
ōdinousa; kairos thlipseōs (LXX Jeremiah 37:6-7)
the trouble in which the woman is kept (12:6, 14)
Micah 4:9-10
chuli vagochi, writhe and burst forth
ōdine kai andrizou
the flight to the open country, where she is rescued (12:6, 14)
Micah 5:2 (Eng. 5:3)
ad et yoledah yaladah, until she who is to give birth has given birth; yeter echav, the rest of his brothers
heōs kairou tiktousēs texetai; hoi epiloipoi tōn adelphōn autōn, the rest of their brothers
hoi loipoi tou spermatos autēs (12:17)
Daniel 12:1-2
yaamod Michael, Michael shall stand up
Michaēl
Michaēl kai hoi angeloi autou (12:7)
The four contacts, counted separately: three verbal, one thematic.
1. Crying out in birth-pangs (krazei + ōdinousa) — Revelation 12:2 ↔ Isaiah 26:17 LXX. Both words stand in the same order with the same woman giving birth.
2. She gave birth to a male (eteken + arsen) — Revelation 12:5 ↔ Isaiah 66:7 LXX. Elsewhere in the LXX the word-combination occurs only at Exodus 2:2 (Moses).
3. The flight to the open country — Revelation 12:6, 14 ↔ Micah 4:10. Out of the city, and there the rescue — not upward. This contact is thematic, not verbal: the Septuagint has ἐν πεδίῳ and Babylon in Micah 4:10, not ἔρημος.
4. Michael — Revelation 12:7 ↔ Daniel 12:1. In the whole New Testament the name Michael occurs in only one other place: Jude 9.
The zero-count. Verbal contacts between Revelation 12 and the birth narratives of Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 — 0×. The dragon at the birth (12:4) does have a pattern-contact with Exodus 1-2 and Matthew 2:13, but no verbal correspondence with a birth narrative; see the weighing in Part I.
The counts below are computed on the Hebrew original — the Masoretic Text with the morphological coding of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible — and are reproducible. The number after each word gives how often it occurs in the whole Hebrew Bible (at the word level); that is the base rate against which every "hit" must be weighed. Where this book leans on a count, it refers to this appendix.
1 · Base Rates of the Key-Words
- Wilderness — midbar (מִדְבָּר), 271×. - Wings — kanaf, wing (כָּנָף) 111× · nesher, eagle (נֶשֶׁר) 26× · uf, to fly (עוּף) 32× · daah, to dart (דָּאָה) 4×. - To bear — nasa (נָשָׂא), 654×. - Refuge — chasa, to take refuge (חָסָה), 37×. - Place — maqom (מָקוֹם) 401× · kun, to make ready (כּוּן) 219× · sukka, booth (סֻכָּה) 31× · Bozrah (בָּצְרָה) 8×. - Flight — nus, to flee (נוּס) 161× · barach, to flee away (בָּרַח) 65×. - Coming up — ala (עָלָה), 894×. - To nourish — kul, to sustain (כּוּל) 37× · man, manna (מָן) 14×. - Remnant — sheerit (שְׁאֵרִית) 66× · shaar, vb. (שָׁאַר) 133× · peleta/palit (פְּלֵיטָה) 52× · yeter/notar (יֶתֶר) 209×. - Trouble — tsara (צָרָה), 73×. - To gather — asaf (אָסַף) 202× · qavats (קָבַץ) 127×. - Chaoskampf — tannin, sea-dragon (תַּנִּין) 26× · Leviathan (לִוְיָתָן) 6× · Rahab (רַהַב) 3×. - Flood — shataf, to overflow (שָׁטַף), 31×. - Earth-mouth — bala, to swallow (בָּלַע) 50× · patach, to open (פָּתַח) 145× · peh, mouth (פֶּה) 498× · erets, earth (אֶרֶץ) 2505×. - Seed — zera (זֶרַע), 229×. - Mother — yalad, to give birth (יָלַד) 500× · aqara, barren woman (עֲקָרָה) 12×. - Hagar — Hagar (הָגָר), 12×.
2 · Load-Bearing Collocations (Two Words in the Same Verse)
3 · The Flight-Counts (with Part I, Chapter 3)
These counts illustrate that the saving flight-to-a-refuge is, in the Hebrew Bible, the rare, marked pole. They illustrate the reading; they do not carry it — a raw co-occurrence is no base-rate-corrected test.
4 · The Birth-Pang Matrix (with Part I, Chapter 4b)
The six prophetic passages that place the end-time birth at the time of trouble, with the load-bearing Hebrew word, the Greek rendering of the Septuagint, and the point of contact in Revelation 12.
The four contacts, counted separately: three verbal, one thematic.
1. Crying out in birth-pangs (krazei + ōdinousa) — Revelation 12:2 ↔ Isaiah 26:17 LXX. Both words stand in the same order with the same woman giving birth.
2. She gave birth to a male (eteken + arsen) — Revelation 12:5 ↔ Isaiah 66:7 LXX. Elsewhere in the LXX the word-combination occurs only at Exodus 2:2 (Moses).
3. The flight to the open country — Revelation 12:6, 14 ↔ Micah 4:10. Out of the city, and there the rescue — not upward. This contact is thematic, not verbal: the Septuagint has ἐν πεδίῳ and Babylon in Micah 4:10, not ἔρημος.
4. Michael — Revelation 12:7 ↔ Daniel 12:1. In the whole New Testament the name Michael occurs in only one other place: Jude 9.
The zero-count. Verbal contacts between Revelation 12 and the birth narratives of Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 — 0×. The dragon at the birth (12:4) does have a pattern-contact with Exodus 1-2 and Matthew 2:13, but no verbal correspondence with a birth narrative; see the weighing in Part I.