Introduction, article by A. B. OSTROVSKY. Translated from Hebrew by Yu. P. VARTANOV. Comments by A. B. OSTROVSKY and Yu. P. VARTANOV* (both St. Petersburg) The article attempts to comment on the numerical constants accompanying the description of the acts of the judges of Israel from the point of view of the semiotic function inherent in these numbers in the Book of Judges. Along with the numbers given by the narrator, numerical indexes of proper names and key terms are also considered; some basic situations from the Pentateuch of Moses, marked with a number, are also taken into account. It is found that the list of judges as a single whole acts as a "riddle" set by Shimshon (Samson), an anticipation of the category to which this period of the ethnic history of the Jewish people is directed - the category of "king". The presence of a metalanguage in an ancient written text allows us to explicate those semantic dominants (not verbally formed) and the connections between them that were inherent in the carriers of the tradition during the completion of editing and fixing this monument text. The later functioning of the text is enriched by the commentary tradition, is subject to the influence of socio-historical relevance, and the former meanings-despite the fact that they are incorporated into the text-may be outside the "oral" reflection, and on its periphery, and even forgotten. When studying the biblical ethnohistorical narratives (a series of 22 forefathers; the arrival of the people in the promised land and up to the creation and flourishing of the Israeli state, the period of split ethnicity - two kingdoms; and then, in the post-war period, the revival of national and cultural identity), i.e. the metahistory of the implementation of the Divine project by the Jewish people, sometimes with the direct intervention of God, the question arises about the existence of a certain metalanguage in which the narrator would correlate events with this project. I believe the nu ... Read more