The Old Testament is also called ‘Ta•nach.’ In Hebrew it is not a name but the initials of the three sections of the Old Testament: Torah (Torah, the Law); ‘Ne•vi•eem’ (Prophets); and Ke•tu•vim (Writings). The Torah includes the five books of Moses (the Pentateuch) and ‘She•mot’ is its second book, following ‘Be•re•sheet’ (Genesis). Each of the Torah books is named after either the very first word in that book (as in Genesis where the very first word, ‘be•re•sheet,’ is the name of the book), or the second word, with one exception occurring in the Book of Numbers, which gets its name from the fifth word.
‘She•mot’ means ‘the names.’
“And these are the names of the sons of Israel, who came to Egypt, with Jacob, every man with his household”
If you are wondering why we consider ‘these names’ to be the second word in the first verse while 1. it looks like two words and not one, and 2. it looks like it is still the fourth word and not the second, the answer is in the conciseness of the Hebrew language. The phrase ‘and these are’ is actually one word in Hebrew: ‘ve•e•le.’
The phrase: ‘the names’ is also one word in Hebrew, and it is ‘She•mot’: the Book of Exodus.
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