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Alphabet Letters

Tav ת

TAHV
Also Known As Tav
Hebrew Letters

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ת
Origin Develops the Achaemenid Aramaic chancery hand, adopted after the exile

Tav is the twenty-second and final letter of the Hebrew alphabet, its name meaning mark or cross and its gematria value four hundred. It is one of the seven Double letters, attributed to the seven planets, and is given to the planet Saturn (with an older attribution to the element Earth). In the Hermetic scheme it corresponds to the tarot trump The World and to the thirty-second path of the Tree of Life, joining Yesod to Malkuth. As the mark or cross, it symbolizes the sign, the seal, and completion; in ancient script it was written as a cross or X, a mark of signature and of covenant. Fittingly, as the last letter it stands for the end and the seal of the whole alphabet, and it belongs to the card of fulfilment and the gateway of return.

Facts
Disputed
Origin Period
Scholem places Sefer Yetzirah between the second and sixth century CE 5Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters
Gershom Scholem's Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Schocken Books, New York, 1961) surveys the manuscript recensions of Sefer Yetzirah and finds no single stable text: the surviving copies diverge enough in wording and in the letter-to-planet and letter-to-sign correspondences that quoting "the text" requires naming which recension is meant. Comparing the linguistic style, the doctrinal content and the external references made to the work across centuries of citation, Scholem argues the book could have been composed anywhere from the second to the ninth century CE, a span of roughly a millennium, with later Kabbalistic and Hasidic writers each reading it through their own era's overlay. The atlas follows Scholem's range rather than a narrower guess, and does not print the per-letter planet and sign tables at all, because doing so would silently pick one contested recension over the others.
Origin Period
Survives in three recensions that do not agree in detail 5Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters
Gershom Scholem's Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Schocken Books, New York, 1961) surveys the manuscript recensions of Sefer Yetzirah and finds no single stable text: the surviving copies diverge enough in wording and in the letter-to-planet and letter-to-sign correspondences that quoting "the text" requires naming which recension is meant. Comparing the linguistic style, the doctrinal content and the external references made to the work across centuries of citation, Scholem argues the book could have been composed anywhere from the second to the ninth century CE, a span of roughly a millennium, with later Kabbalistic and Hasidic writers each reading it through their own era's overlay. The atlas follows Scholem's range rather than a narrower guess, and does not print the per-letter planet and sign tables at all, because doing so would silently pick one contested recension over the others.
Origins
Origin Period
Develops the Achaemenid Aramaic chancery hand, adopted after the exile 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script
Origin Period
Not the script of the earliest Hebrew inscriptions 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script
Origin Period
Standard by the Hasmonean period; palaeo-Hebrew survives only on coins 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script
Place of Origin
The Levant, by way of the Aramaic administrative script of the Persian empire. 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script
Origin of the Name
Names travelled into Greek unchanged and meaningless 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script
Origin of the Name
Northwest Semitic words inherited from the older linear script 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script
Origin of the Name
Pictographic meanings (ox head, house, water) are modern reconstructions 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script
Sense of the Name
mark or cross 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script
The pictographic sense is a modern reconstruction from the letter name rather than a meaning attested in the script's own period, and the atlas records that position elsewhere on this letter. The name itself is inherited; the picture behind it is inferred.
Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern Use
A criticism of the predictive method, not of the tradition itself 4
Contested or Appropriated Modern Use
So many possible sums exist that a match can always be found 4
Contested or Appropriated Modern Use
Used as proof: the beast of Revelation, verse prophecy, Bible codes 4
Identity
Alphabet
Hebrew 1
Script Type
An abjad: the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew square script record consonants, read right to left, with vowels supplied either by the reading tradition or, in pointed texts, by the Masoretic vowel-pointing system. 1Tradition: The Hebrew square script
Position
Twenty-second and last of twenty-two in the Hebrew alphabet 1
Attributions
Associated Sound
One of the seven Double letters: voiceless dental stop t when hard, historically a voiceless dental fricative (as in English thin) when soft, a distinction lost in modern Israeli Hebrew 1
Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting Source
Hebrew letter mysticism is a continuous, living Jewish tradition 2Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters
Meaning in the Attesting Source
One of the seven double letters, each hard and soft 3Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters
Meaning in the Attesting Source
Runs through medieval commentary, golem lore, Abulafia, hasidic teaching 2Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters
Meaning in the Attesting Source
Still studied and practised today 2Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters
Meaning in the Attesting Source
The seven assign to seven planets and seven opposite pairs 3Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters
Meaning in the Attesting Source
Which planet goes with which letter is not recorded; recensions differ 3Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters
Meaning in the Attesting Source
Wisdom/folly, wealth/poverty, seed/desolation, life/death, dominance/subjugation, peace/war, grace/ugliness 3Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters
Learn More
Tav: The Hebrew Letter of Mark or Cross

Tav is the twenty-second and last Hebrew letter and a double letter; its name means 'mark' or 'sign' and its value is 400, the highest of the single-letter values. In its ancient form Tav was written as a cross or X, the primal mark; Ezekiel 9:4 describes a tav set on the foreheads of the faithful. The Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation), the foundational text of Jewish letter-mysticism compiled in late antiquity, divides the twenty-two Hebrew consonants into three groups: three 'mother' letters (Aleph, Mem, Shin) assigned to the elements Air, Water and Fire; seven 'double' letters, each with a hard and soft pronunciation, assigned to the seven classical planets and to seven pairs of opposites; and twelve 'simple' letters assigned to the twelve signs of the zodiac and the twelve months. As a double letter Tav is assigned to a planet and a pair of opposites.

A separate and much later system, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (founded 1888), mapped the twenty-two letters onto the twenty-two trumps of the tarot along the paths of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. This tarot correspondence is a modern Western-esoteric overlay, not part of the ancient Hebrew or classical Kabbalistic tradition. The Golden Dawn attributes Tav to the planet Saturn and to The World / The Universe (trump XXI), the final trump completing the cycle, as Tav completes the alphabet.

Tav: Scribal Tradition

Tav is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and in the older palaeo-Hebrew script that Jewish tradition holds the current square alphabet replaced after the Babylonian exile, discussed elsewhere in this atlas, it was drawn as a simple cross or X shape, a form some scholars connect to the letter's very name, meaning a mark or a signature. That older cross-shaped Tav sits behind a specific rabbinic reading of Ezekiel 9:4, where God instructs an angel to mark the foreheads of the righteous inhabitants of Jerusalem with a tav before judgment falls on the city; the Talmud, at Shabbat 55a, records a discussion of what the mark signified, with one view holding that a tav of ink marked those destined to live and a tav of blood marked those destined to die, and another linking the letter directly to the Hebrew words for life, chayim, and death, tamut, both of which begin with tav. Because Tav is the alphabet's final letter, later Jewish and Christian writers alike have also read it, alongside Aleph as the first, as a natural figure for completeness, an association distinct from, though sometimes compared with, the Alpha and Omega pairing discussed elsewhere in this atlas for Greek.

Tav is also one of the Sefer Yetzirah's seven double letters, discussed elsewhere in this atlas, and a scribe must take the same care distinguishing its hard and soft pronunciations that applies to Beth, Gimel, Daleth, Kaph, Peh and Resh, even though the letter's own graphic history, from a Semitic cross-mark to a modern square-script outline, has changed considerably more than most of its neighbours.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

The World, Tarot

In the Golden Dawn Kabbalistic attribution, The World corresponds to the Hebrew letter Tav by way of its Tree of Life path.

Source The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 6th editionIsrael Regardie

Derived from This

Tav U, Alphabet Letters

Passing the River Tav stands for the Hebrew letter Tav, and carries its value of 400. Agrippa prints the three scripts in Book III of De occulta philosophia as tables of Hebrew equivalents. The sign shapes vary between the manuscript and printed traditions; the letter for letter correspondence does not.

Source Three Books of Occult PhilosophyHeinrich Cornelius Agrippa
Tav U, Alphabet Letters

Malachim Tav stands for the Hebrew letter Tav, and carries its value of 400. Agrippa prints the three scripts in Book III of De occulta philosophia as tables of Hebrew equivalents. The sign shapes vary between the manuscript and printed traditions; the letter for letter correspondence does not.

Source Three Books of Occult PhilosophyHeinrich Cornelius Agrippa
Tav U, Alphabet Letters

Celestial Tav stands for the Hebrew letter Tav, and carries its value of 400. Agrippa prints the three scripts in Book III of De occulta philosophia as tables of Hebrew equivalents. The sign shapes vary between the manuscript and printed traditions; the letter for letter correspondence does not.

Source Three Books of Occult PhilosophyHeinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Related To

At ࡕ, Alphabet Letters

Mandaic At and Hebrew Tav occupy the same place in the twenty-two letter Aramaic sequence. Hebrew keeps the inherited noun as the letter name and the numeral value 400; Mandaic keeps neither. Where the Mandaic shapes came from is disputed, a cursive Aramaic hand or the Parthian chancery script.

Source The World's Writing SystemsPeter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.)
Ta ت, Alphabet Letters

Cognate letters. Arabic ta and Hebrew tav both continue the twenty-two letter Northwest Semitic alphabet, and they hold the same place in the inherited order and the same numeral value, 400. Neither is derived from the other.

Source The World's Writing SystemsPeter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.)
Taaf ࠕ, Alphabet Letters

Samaritan Taaf and Hebrew Tav are cognates. Both continue the same Paleo-Hebrew sign, both write plain t, both close the sequence and both carry the value 400, the highest any single letter holds.

Source The World's Writing SystemsPeter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.)
Tau τ, Alphabet Letters

Greek Tau and Hebrew Tav are cognates. Both continue the same Phoenician sign, which is why both carry the numeral value 400 in their letter-number systems. A shared ancestor, not a borrowing in either direction. The Greek alphabet was adapted from the Phoenician abjad in the early first millennium BC, and the Hebrew square script descends from the same abjad through Aramaic.

Source The World's Writing SystemsPeter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.)
Tau τ, Alphabet Letters

Hebrew Tav and Greek Tau continue the same Phoenician taw; both carry the numeral value 400 in their letter-number systems.

Source The World's Writing SystemsPeter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.)
Tav U, Alphabet Letters

Celestial Tav is a cipher glyph standing for the Hebrew letter Tav; Agrippa's Book III prints Celestial, Malachim and Passing the River as tables of Hebrew equivalents, letter for letter.

Source Three Books of Occult PhilosophyHeinrich Cornelius Agrippa
Tav U, Alphabet Letters

Malachim Tav is a cipher glyph standing for the Hebrew letter Tav; Agrippa's Book III prints Celestial, Malachim and Passing the River as tables of Hebrew equivalents, letter for letter.

Source Three Books of Occult PhilosophyHeinrich Cornelius Agrippa
Tav U, Alphabet Letters

Passing the River Tav is a cipher glyph standing for the Hebrew letter Tav; Agrippa's Book III prints Celestial, Malachim and Passing the River as tables of Hebrew equivalents, letter for letter.

Source Three Books of Occult PhilosophyHeinrich Cornelius Agrippa
Taw ܬ, Alphabet Letters

Syriac Taw and Hebrew Tav stand at the same place in the twenty-two letter Aramaic sequence and carry the same letter-numeral value, 400. The Syriac script grew out of the local Aramaic cursive of Edessa and the Hebrew square script out of the same Aramaic alphabet, so the two letters are inherited from one ancestor rather than borrowed from each other.

Source The World's Writing SystemsPeter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.)
Taw, Alphabet Letters

Both signs continue the same Northwest Semitic consonant inherited from a shared abjad ancestor; this is a cognate correspondence, not a borrowing in either direction. Ugaritic and Hebrew share the same twenty-two-consonant core, with Ugaritic adding six further signs Hebrew never developed separately.

Source The World's Writing SystemsPeter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.)
Tawe (Ta) ተ, Alphabet Letters

Tawe and the Hebrew tav continue the Semitic plain t. Tav closes the Hebrew order, where tawe stands tenth in the Ge'ez one.

Source Comparative Dictionary of Ge'ez (Classical Ethiopic)Wolf Leslau
Sources
1. The World's Writing Systems
Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.), Oxford University Press, 1996the chapter on the Aramaic scriptView the Source
2. Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid
Moshe Idel, State University of New York Press, 1990the chapters on the letter-combination traditions and their reception
3. Sepher Yetzirah (Book of Formation)
Anonymous (traditionally attributed to Abraham)On Tav as a double letter and the primal markView the Source
4. Numerology: Or, What Pythagoras Wrought
Underwood Dudley, Mathematical Association of America (Spectrum series), 1997the chapters on the beast, on the law of small numbers and on biblical sevensView the Source
5. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism
Gershom Scholem, Schocken Books, 1961the chapter on early Jewish mysticism, on Sefer YetzirahView the Source
Sepher Yetzirah, the Book of Formation, and the Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom
William Wynn Westcott, Theosophical Publishing Society / Internet Sacred Text Archive, 1887On the double letters and the planetsView the Source
The Encyclopedia of Tarot, Volume I
Stuart R. Kaplan, U.S. Games Systems, 1978For the Golden Dawn attribution (Saturn, The World)View the Source
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