Alphabet Letter

Shin ש

SHEEN

Hebrew Letters

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

Shin is the twenty-first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, its name meaning tooth and its gematria value three hundred. It is one of the three Mother letters of the Sefer Yetzirah, which are attributed to the three elements, and Shin carries the element Fire. In the Hermetic scheme it corresponds to the tarot trump Judgement and to the thirty-first path of the Tree of Life, joining Hod to Malkuth. As the tooth, it symbolizes that which grinds, consumes, and transforms; its three (or four) upright branches are seen as tongues of flame, and it is the letter of spirit-fire and divine presence, appearing on the mezuzah and in the Priestly Blessing. Fittingly it belongs to the element Fire and to the card of purification, awakening, and rebirth.

Facts

Disputed

Origin Period

Scholem places Sefer Yetzirah between the second and sixth century CE 5Sefer 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 5Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters

Origins

Origin Period

Develops the Achaemenid Aramaic chancery hand, adopted after the exile 1The Hebrew square script

Origin Period

Not the script of the earliest Hebrew inscriptions 1The Hebrew square script

Origin Period

Standard by the Hasmonean period; palaeo-Hebrew survives only on coins 1The Hebrew square script

Place of Origin

The Levant, by way of the Aramaic administrative script of the Persian empire. 1The Hebrew square script

Origin of the Name

Names travelled into Greek unchanged and meaningless 1The Hebrew square script

Origin of the Name

Northwest Semitic words inherited from the older linear script 1The Hebrew square script

Origin of the Name

Pictographic meanings (ox head, house, water) are modern reconstructions 1The Hebrew square script

Sense of the Name

tooth 1The 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. 1The Hebrew square script

Position

Twenty-first of twenty-two in the Hebrew alphabet 1

Attributions

Associated Sound

One of the three Mother letters: voiceless postalveolar fricative sh, as in English ship; a dotted variant read as s is not distinguished by this fact 1

Attestation

Meaning in the Attesting Source

Hebrew letter mysticism is a continuous, living Jewish tradition 2Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters

Meaning in the Attesting Source

One of the three mother letters, assigned FIRE, on its hissing sound 3Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters

Meaning in the Attesting Source

Runs through medieval commentary, golem lore, Abulafia, hasidic teaching 2Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters

Meaning in the Attesting Source

Same three mothers in every recension 3Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters

Meaning in the Attesting Source

Still studied and practised today 2Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters

Meaning in the Attesting Source

The three mothers are the text's first, most stable division 3Sefer Yetzirah: the thirty-two paths and the twenty-two letters

Alphabet (class)

Hebrew 1

Script type (class)

Abjad 1

Learn More

Shin: The Hebrew Letter of Tooth

Shin is the twenty-first Hebrew letter and one of the three mother letters; its name means 'tooth' and its value is 300. Its upward flames give it its character; it stands for one of the names of God, Shaddai, and is the letter traditionally inscribed on the mezuzah and formed by the hands in the priestly blessing. 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 mother letter Shin governs the element Fire; its hissing sound is the fiery counterpart to the silent water of Mem, and it is associated with the head and the hot season.

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 assigns Shin to Judgement (trump XX), the card of fire, awakening and the last trumpet.

Shin: Scribal Tradition

Shin is one of seven Hebrew letters, recalled by the mnemonic shatnez getz, that Jewish law requires a scribe to crown with three small decorative strokes called tagin in a Torah scroll, tefillin or mezuzah, a rule fixed in the Talmud at Menachot 29b. Shin also appears embossed directly on the small leather box worn on the head during Jewish prayer, tefillin shel rosh, where tradition specifies a Shin with three strokes on one side and, on many examples, four on the other, read by commentators as alluding to the letter's place in divine names and in the Priestly Blessing. That blessing is given with the hands arranged so that the fingers form a shape resembling Shin, a gesture the actor Leonard Nimoy has said he adapted, from a childhood memory of watching the ritual in synagogue, into the raised-hand Vulcan salute of the Star Trek television series, a modern popular-culture borrowing with no older tradition behind it beyond Nimoy's own account of its origin.

Shin's ordinary sound value and its place among the Sefer Yetzirah's three mother letters are discussed elsewhere in this atlas, and unlike most of the seven crowned letters, discussed elsewhere in this atlas, its appearance on tefillin gives it a second, everyday visibility on the body of an observant worshipper that most Hebrew letters never acquire outside the page of a scroll or a printed book.

Connections

Associated With

Judgement

In the Golden Dawn Kabbalistic attribution, Judgement corresponds to the Hebrew letter Shin 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

Contained In

Hebrew

Corresponds To

Path 31

Source Liber 777Aleister Crowley

Derived from This

Sha Ⱎ

Why this is disputed. Glagolitic Sha writes a Slavonic sh sound Greek had no letter for, so the Greek-cursive derivation claimed for the core alphabet cannot explain its shape. One theory traces Sha's form to the Hebrew and Samaritan letter Shin, a resemblance noted since the nineteenth century and consistent with Cyril's documented time among Hebrew and Samaritan speakers on his mission to Cherson. The rival idiographic school holds the resemblance is coincidental, since Glagolitic draws its whole alphabet from a small set of basic shapes, cross, circle and triangle, that could converge on a Semitic letterform by chance rather than by borrowing.

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

Shin W

Celestial Shin stands for the Hebrew letter Shin, and carries its value of 300. 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

Shin W

Passing the River Shin stands for the Hebrew letter Shin, and carries its value of 300. 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

Shin W

Malachim Shin stands for the Hebrew letter Shin, and carries its value of 300. 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

Ash ࡔ

Mandaic Ash and Hebrew Shin occupy the same place in the twenty-two letter Aramaic sequence. Hebrew keeps the inherited noun as the letter name and the numeral value 300; 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.)

Sawt (Sza) ሠ

Why this is disputed. Sawt and the Hebrew shin, in its left dotted reading, answer to the same reconstructed Semitic sibilant, which several lines of evidence make a lateral rather than a hiss. Reconstructing that sibilant's exact original sound, and whether Ge'ez sawt and the Hebrew left dotted shin diverged from it independently or through a shared intermediate stage, remains debated among specialists in comparative Semitic phonology.

Source Comparative Dictionary of Ge'ez (Classical Ethiopic)Wolf Leslau

Shan ࠔ

Samaritan Shan and Hebrew Shin are cognates at the value 300. The square Hebrew script separates shin from sin with a dot placed to the right or the left; the Samaritan script carries no such device and leaves the distinction to the reading tradition.

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

Shin ܫ

Syriac Shin and Hebrew Shin stand at the same place in the twenty-two letter Aramaic sequence and carry the same letter-numeral value, 300. 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.)

Shin

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.)

Shin W

Celestial Shin is a cipher glyph standing for the Hebrew letter Shin; 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

Shin W

Malachim Shin is a cipher glyph standing for the Hebrew letter Shin; 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

Shin W

Passing the River Shin is a cipher glyph standing for the Hebrew letter Shin; 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

Shin ش

Cognate letters. Arabic shin and Hebrew shin both continue the twenty-two letter Northwest Semitic alphabet, and they hold the same place in the inherited order and the same numeral value, 300. Neither is derived from the other.

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

Sigma σ

Greek Sigma and Hebrew Shin are cognates. Both continue the same Phoenician sign, which is why both carry the numeral value 300 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.)

Sigma σ

Hebrew Shin and Greek Sigma continue the same Phoenician shin; both carry the numeral value 300 in their letter-number systems.

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

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 Shin as a mother letter and the element FireView 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

Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation in Theory and Practice

Aryeh Kaplan, Samuel Weiser, 1997On the three mother letters and the elementsView the Source

The Encyclopedia of Tarot, Volume I

Stuart R. Kaplan, U.S. Games Systems, 1978For the Golden Dawn attribution (Judgement)View the Source

Liber 777

Aleister Crowley, Walter Scott, 1909Corresponds To: Path 31View the Source

Essays About This Entity (1 essay)

The Cyrillic Letter Sha Is a Hebrew Letter

The Hebrew letter the whole chain traces back to

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Shin ש

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