What’s in a name?

I’ve always wondered where the English names for the books of the Torah come from. For the most part they seems quite unrelated to the Hebrew names.

The first book makes sense; the Hebrew name “Bereishit”, which means “in the beginning”, clearly relates to the English name “Genesis”. But what about the other 4 books? How does “Shmos”, which means “the names” relate to “Exodus”? How does “Vayikra”, which means “And He called”, relate to Leviticus? How does “Bamidbar”, which means “In the wilderness”, relate to “Numbers”? And finally, how does “Devarim”, which means “the words”, realte to Deuteronomy?

The answer is that the English names (which are actually Latin) are based not on the traditional Hebrew names, but on the names given to each of the books in the Talmud. The traditional names are based on the opening sentence of the book. The Talmud gives each book an alternate, more descriptive name.

The Talmud calls Shmos “Sefer Ha’Gaula”, which means “the book of the redemption”, we can clearly see how that relates to the English names of Exodus.

Vayikra is called “Toraht Kohamin” which means “Laws of the Priests”. The Priests, remember, come from the tribe of Levi. The English name Leviticus, is Latin for “tribe of Levi”.

Bamidbar is called “Sefer Ha’Pekudim” which means “the book of the counting”, hense the English name “Numbers”.

And finally, “Devarim” is called “Mishnai Torah”, which means “The repetition of the Torah”. The Latin Deuteronomy means “repetition of the law”.