Torah by the numbers

The Torah

Letters

304,850

Words

79,982

Distinct words

12,826

Verses

5,853

Chapters

187

Appear once

6,792

• By our count of the Leningrad Codex, the Torah has 304,850 letters in 79,982 words across 5,853 verses and 187 chapters.
• Those 79,982 words are 12,826 distinct written forms, and 6,792 of them appear only once.
• The first word of the Torah is בראשית (Genesis 1:1) and the last is ישראל (Deuteronomy 34:12); its first letter is ב and its last is ל.
• The most common word in the Torah is את (marks the direct object; with), written 2,622 times.
• The longest word in the Torah is ובמשארותיך (“and in your kneading troughs”), 10 letters, at Exodus 7:28.
• The longest verse by letters is Deuteronomy 13:6, with 127 letters; by words it is Exodus 32:1, with 34 words.
• The shortest verse by letters is Exodus 20:13, with 6 letters, the first of 4 that short; by words it is Exodus 20:13, with 2 words, the first of 6 that short.
• By our count the middle letter of the Torah falls between the ה and the ח of החזה in Leviticus 8:29 (letters 152,425 and 152,426 of 304,850).
• The middle word is between ויקדשהו and לכפר in Leviticus 8:15 (words 39,991 and 39,992 of 79,982), and the middle verse is Leviticus 8:9 (verse 2,927 of 5,853).

Every word in the Torah →The longest words in the Torah →Words that appear only once in the Torah →The most common words in the Torah →

The Tanakh

Letters

1,197,042

Words

305,507

Distinct words

39,615

Verses

23,213

Chapters

929

Appear once

20,554

• By our count of the Leningrad Codex, the Tanakh has 1,197,042 letters in 305,507 words across 23,213 verses and 929 chapters.
• Those 305,507 words are 39,615 distinct written forms, and 20,554 of them appear only once.
• The first word of the Tanakh is בראשית (Genesis 1:1) and the last is ויעל (2 Chronicles 36:23); its first letter is ב and its last is ל.
• The most common word in the Tanakh is את (marks the direct object; with), written 7,366 times.
• The longest words in the Tanakh have 11 letters; there are 3, the first being ובתועבותיהן (“and in their abominations”) at Ezekiel 16:47.
• The longest verse by letters is Esther 8:9, with 193 letters; by words it is Esther 8:9, with 43 words.
• The shortest verse by letters is Exodus 20:13, with 6 letters, the first of 4 that short; by words it is Exodus 20:13, with 2 words, the first of 6 that short.
• By our count the middle letter of the Tanakh falls between the last letter of לדל and the first of מעוז in Isaiah 25:4 (letters 598,521 and 598,522 of 1,197,042).
• The middle word is הארץ in Isaiah 12:5 (word 152,754 of 305,507), and the middle verse is Jeremiah 6:2 (verse 11,607 of 23,213).

Every word in the Tanakh →The longest words in the Tanakh →Words that appear only once in the Tanakh →The most common words in the Tanakh →

What the Talmud says the scribes counted

Their count and ours

• The middle letter: the ו of גחון (Leviticus 11:42). In our count that ו is letter 157,239 of 304,850, 4,814 letters after our middle, which falls between the ה and the ח of החזה in Leviticus 8:29.
• The middle of the words: דרש דרש (Leviticus 10:16). In our count they are words 40,921 and 40,922 of 79,982, 930 words after our middle, and our middle falls between ויקדשהו and לכפר in Leviticus 8:15.
• The middle verse: Leviticus 13:33, the verse of והתגלח. In our count it is verse 3,086 of 5,853, 159 verses after our middle, which is Leviticus 8:9.

Why the counts differ

Full and defective spellings. Many Hebrew words can be written with or without a vav or a yod, and manuscripts do not agree on every one. The Gemara above says it plainly: by Rav Yosef's time the sages no longer trusted themselves to settle a count of letters. One letter more or less moves the middle.

Ketiv and qere. In 67 places in the Torah (1,254 in the Tanakh) the word read aloud differs from the word written. We count what is written, the ketiv, as every search on this site does.

Words joined by a maqaf. The Torah's text joins words with a maqaf 11,474 times (42,569 in the Tanakh). Like the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible, we count each joined word as a word of its own, so a count that takes a joined pair as one word comes out lower.

Verses. In the same passage Abaye says that even in verses we are not expert, and Rav Acha bar Adda reports that in the Land of Israel one verse (Exodus 19:9) was read as three. Verse divisions differ between traditions, and so do the totals.

The figures most commonly cited for the Torah, 304,805 letters and 5,845 verses, come from counts like these made on other copies and other divisions. Our count of the Leningrad Codex as we index it gives 304,850 letters and 5,853 verses. Both are printed here; neither is claimed as the correct one.