The BibleGospel Companion

Ayin

Every entry below is printed as its editors wrote it, with the edition named.

ISBE 19151 verse reference

ISBE 1915

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915). Where it reports or adopts critical theories, those are the views of its writers or the scholars they cite; Gospel Companion holds the historic Christian view of Scripture.

a'-yen: `ayin, "eye" or "fountain": The 16th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, so named, probably, because the original form resembled the eye. `Ayin (`) is usually neglected in pronunciation, and inverted comma (`) is the sign most commonly employed to represent it in transliteration.

The same sound is found in the Arabic and other Semitic languages. The Arabs have two pronunciations, one a very strong guttural formed at the back of the palate, something like a rattled "r" or "rg," the other similar in quality, only less harsh and guttural. The Septuagint reproduced the `ayin (`) in some cases by the Greek letter gamma (g). The numerical value of this letter is 70. An `ayin (`) begins each verse of the 16th section of Ps 119 in the Hebrew.

W.W. Davies

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · public domain

In Scripture

Psalms 119
1 reference found in the entries above · verse links open the World English Bible

Sources