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Bible Encyclopedias
Athbash
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or (אִתְבִּשׁ ) is a similar term for a somewhat different principle of commutation. In this, namely, the letters are also mutually interchanged by pairs; but every pair consists of a letter from each end of the alphabet, in regular succession. Thus, as the technical term Athbash shows, א and ת, and ב and שׁ, are interchangeable; and so on throughout the whole series. By writing the Hebrew alphabet twice in two parallel lines, but the second time in an inverse order, the two letters which form every pair will come to stand in a perpendicular line. This system is also remarkable on account of Jerome having so confidently applied it to the word Sheshak, in Jeremiah 25:26. He then propounds the same system of commutation as that called Athbash (without giving it that name however, and without adducing any higher authority for assuming this mode of commutation than the fact that it was customary to learn the Greek alphabet first straight through, and then, by way of insuring accurate retention, to repeat it by taking a letter from each end alternately), and makes שׁשׁ to be the same as בבל . (See Rosenmü ller's Scholia, ad loc.) Hottinger possessed an entire Pentateuch explained on the principle of Athbash (Thesaur. Philol. p. 450). There is also another system of less note, called ALBAI (אִלְבִּם ), which is only a modification of the preceding; for in it the alphabet is divided into halves, and one portion placed over the other in the natural order, and the pairs are formed out of those letters which would then stand in a row together. — Kitto, s.v.
All these methods belong to that branch of the Cabala (q.v.) which is called תְּמוּרָה, commutation.
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McClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Athbash'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/a/athbash.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.
