Daily Tidbits 2/29 – The Periodic Table of Elements

Isa 40:12 He who has measured in His hand the waters and the heavens by a span meted out; and enclosed in the measure the dust of the earth, and weighed in the balance the mountains, and the hills in the scales,

There are 92 naturally occurring elements which correspond to the 92 unique words used in the Torah describing creation (Genesis 1:1 – 2:3)

Periodicity of the Periodic Table of Elements – Yitzhak Ginsburgh

Click to access periodictable.pdf

“From the early rudimentary groupings of chemical compounds to our modern classification that recognizes the periodicity of atomic elements together, chemical tables are usually based on an implicit theory of the composition of matter. These theories have shared a common axiom: that all of the matter in the Universe is composed of finite variety of basic building blocks: These building blocks have been known from the ancient Greeks to the present as atoms.”

92 naturally occurring elements. The first possibility would be to map each element to its corresponding Hebrew root, simply based on order of appearance. Further reflection though reveals an alternative. The 92 distinct roots of the story of creation are divided such that the first 86 appear in the verses relating the first six days of creation (Genesis 1:1 through 1:31), while the last 6 are found in the verses relating the Sabbath (ibid 2:1 through 2:3). This motivates us to correspond the 6 noble gases with the 6 distinct roots found in the Sabbath section in Genesis, while the remaining 86 elements will be corresponded in order to the distinct roots found in the 6 Days section of Genesis. The 6 ‘noble gases’ do not form compounds, while the other 86 do form compounds with other elements.

This basic division into 6 and 86 observed in the naturally occurring elements is to be found (again, using a non-literal analysis of the Torah text) in the very first verse of Torah:

בראשׁית ברא אלהים את השׁמים ואת הארץ

“It is important to note that G-d here is referred to as Elokim alone (and not by His other names), thus leading to the association of this name with ‘nature’.”