The Provocative 137 Year Spans
The Provocative 137 Year Spans

by Remy Landau
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Properties of Hebrew Year Periods - Introduction notes that while a given Hebrew year period has only one length in years, it can have up to 2 lengths in terms of months, and up to 10 lengths in terms of days.

The period of 137 Hebrew years is the first span to show all of these conditions.

137 YEAR SPANS
  1,694 months =  50,024d 19h  902p
  1,695 months =  50,054d  8h  615p
M'+/-DAYSMOD 7dOCCURSM"+/-DAYSMOD 7dOCCURS
-2
       0d
0
       0
-2
  50,052d
2
     105
-1
  50,023d
1
   6,297
-1
  50,053d
3
  42,865
0
  50,024d
2
 153,412
0
  50,054d
4
 106,535
1
  50,025d
3
 133,504
1
  50,055d
5
 164,130
2
  50,026d
4
  66,656
2
  50,056d
6
  12,957
3
  50,027d
5
   3,011
3
       0d
0
       0
The maximum variance is 33 days

The maximum variance is the difference between the longest and the shortest possible lengths in days for a given period of Hebrew years. In the case of 137 years, the maximum variance is 33 days.

Although the span of 137 Hebrew years can have anyone of 10 lengths in days, the set of lengths in days does not have all of the remainders possible after division by 7.

Simple arithmetic shows that these lengths, after division by 7, produce the remainders
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

None of the 10 lengths possible give the remainder 0 after division by 7.

The gematria of the Hebrew word kabalah (meaning tradition) is 137, since the values of its Hebrew letters (kuf = 100, bet = 2, lamed = 30, and heh = 5) add up to 137. This, of course, is an interesting coincidence.

The coincidence becomes more intriguing when it is noticed that the 10 lengths in days are arranged in 2 groupings consisting of 5 lengths on the 1,694 months side, and 5 lengths on the 1,695 months side. This grouping is highly reminiscent of the almost universal symbolic representation of the Shnei Luchot (the two tablets), which shows a grouping of 5 items on one tablet, and 5 items on the other.

However, the most interesting coincidence comes from the Biblical Genesis 25:17, Exodus 6:16, and Exodus 6:20, where

Genesis 25:17 states that the life of Ishmael was 137 years long.
Exodus 6:16 states that the life of Levi was 137 years long.
Exodus 6:20 states that the life of Amram (the father of Mosheh) also was 137 years long.

It appears that the biblical text does not explicitly state as equal the length of the lives of any other three biblical personalities.

As a result, this interesting Biblical coincidence can become subject to considerable speculation, not least of which might be whether or not the biblical scribes were aware of this exceptionally obscure primacy property of the 137 year span.


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Hebrew Calendar Science and Myths

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Remy Landau

First  Paged 16 Oct 2001
Next Revised  9 Nov 2001