ṢADE

ṢADE (Ẓadi; Heb. יaצ, ץ; צָי, צָ), the eighteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet; its numerical value is 90. It is assumed that the earliest form of the ṣade was a pictograph of a blossom \!ejud\_0002\_0017\_0\_img2007 . In the late second and early first millennia B.C.E., the ṣade became \!ejud\_0002\_0017\_0\_img2008 . In the Hebrew script, from the eighth century B.C.E. onward, the downstroke was shortened and a hook was added on the letter's right side \!ejud\_0002\_0017\_0\_img2009 , which has been preserved in the Samaritan \!ejud\_0002\_0017\_0\_img2010 . The Phoenician and Aramaic scripts lengthened the downstroke \!ejud\_0002\_0017\_0\_img2011 and thus in the fifth century B.C.E. Aramaic script three forms developed: \!ejud\_0002\_0017\_0\_img2012 , \!ejud\_0002\_0017\_0\_img2013 , \!ejud\_0002\_0017\_0\_img2014 . While from the first form, through the Nabatean \!ejud\_0002\_0017\_0\_img2015 , \!ejud\_0002\_0017\_0\_img2016 the Arabic ṣad \!ejud\_0002\_0017\_0\_img2017 evolved, the Jewish script adopted the third form, which was the ancestor of the medial \!ejud\_0002\_0017\_0\_img2018 and final ṣade \!ejud\_0002\_0017\_0\_img2019 . See alphabet , Hebrew. (Joseph Naveh)