There are 304,805 Hebrew consonant letters in the first 5 books of the Bible and altogether there are 1,196,824 Hebrew letters in the complete Old Testament.
It is not surprising therefore to know that every now and then the scribes who were copying the text made a spelling mistake in connection with a name.
This means that it doesn’t matter how careful a scribe may be, there is a possibility that over hundreds of years of copying there will be some trivial copyist’s errors.
Here is an example where the Hebrew letter ‘vav’ was shortened into a ‘yod’ giving a different spelling:
In 1 Chron 1:22 – Ebal
Here is an example where ‘resh’ and ‘dalet’ are confused:
ן Gen 36:26 – Hemdan, 1 Chron 1:41 – Amram, Joshua 7:1 – Zabdi, 1 Chron 2:6 – Zimri
On another note, we have Anah described as a Hittite in Gen 26:34, a Horite
in Gen 36:20 and a Hivite
in Gen 36:2.
How can this be so? There are several possibilities. Firstly, it may be that the term Hittite defines the race, Hivite the tribe, and Horite (a cave-dweller) how he lived in his local environment. Another possible solution is that since the three names differ in the Hebrew by one letter only, the difference may also be due to an error in transcription.
Despite these insignificant spelling differences, our Lord declared the veracity of the Scriptures in this way: “Thy Word” he said, “is truth” (John 17:17). To him “the Scripture could not be broken” (John 10:35). This should be our view too.