17 PARONOMASIA OR WORDPLAY? literally. Thus, it seems to be some kind of metaphorical speech rather than wordplay. (4) The several instances of what one calls visual wordplay/paronomasia should be mentioned here too 46. As already stated, these figures are exclusively dependent on the written word to create ambiguity 47. One can differentiate between the gematria, at- bash, not(e)rikon and the alphabetic acrosticon in this context 48. – According to the principle of a gematria, each Hebrew conso- nant is related to a certain number. Numbers can therefore be sym- bolically interpreted as referring to words or proper nouns. Some have, for example, seen a gematria in Numbers 1,46 and more specif- ically in the number 603,550, the number of people delivered from Egypt 49. 603,550 would be a gematria for bene yisra’el kol ros, “the children of Israel, every individual”. Words can also bear a sort of hidden meaning that can only be “deciphered” when one relates the consonants to their equivalent numbers 50. For example, some schol- ars consider the proper noun Gad to be a gematria for the number seven 51. Attributing the seventh place to Gad in the list of tribes in Genesis 46 and Gad becoming the father of seven sons would there- fore not be a coincidence. – The atbash is based on the idea that the last character of the al- phabet is replaced with the first character, the second to last char- acter is replaced by the second character, and so on 52. Cherry 46 Cf. SASSON, Wordplay in the Old Testament, 968-969; BEITZEL, Exodus 3:14 and the Divine Name, 6-8; CHERRY, Paronomasia and Proper Names in the Old Testament, 18-20. 47 Cf. CHERRY, Paronomasia and Proper Names in the Old Testament, 18. 48 Cf. BEITZEL, Exodus 3:14 and the Divine Name, 6-7; SASSON, Wordplay in the Old Testament, 969; CHERRY, Paronomasia and Proper Names in the Old Testament, 18-19. 49 BEITZEL, Exodus 3:14 and the Divine Name, 6-7. 50 However, Beitzel, Sasson and Cherry agree that the “decoding” of such gematria is often the result of subjective interpretations of Bible interpreters rather than the intention of the Hebrew author/redactor. 51 SASSON, Wordplay in the Old Testament, 969. 52 For more information regarding this subject, see M. LEUCHTER, “Jere- miah’s 70-Year Prophecy and the ymq bl/K## Atbash Codes”, Bib 85 (2004) 503-522; S.B. NOEGEL, “Atbash in Jeremiah and Its Literary Signifi- cance: Part 1”, JBQ 24 (1996) 82-89; “Part 2”, JBQ 24 (1996) 160-166; “Part 3”, JBQ 24 (1996) 247-250; R.C. STEINER, “The Two Sons of Neriah and the Two Editions of Jeremiah in Light of the Two Atbash Code-Words for Ba- bylon”, VT 46 (1996) 83-84.