The Sun of the 19^th Tarot and the 19^th Tehillah

A standard deck of Tarot consists of 78 cards. Twenty-two of the cards are known as Major Arcanna, or Greater Secrets. Of these, 21 bear Roman numerals, I thru XXI, and one, The Fool, bears the numeral 0.

Depending on the type of deck, the 22 characters of the Hebrew alphabet can be found on the Major Arcanna, Alef, the first character, appears on The Magician, and Tav, the last character, on The World. The 19th card of the Major Arcanna, indeed, of the entire deck, is The Sun, associated with the Roman numeral XIX and the Hebrew alphabetic character Resh (pronounced: RAYSH). Interestingly, in the Book of Psalms, or Sefer Tehillim (T-HEE-LEEM), the sun figures more prominently in one psalm, or tehillah (T-HEE-LA), than in any of the others. And in what psalm is that? You guessed it. The 19^th !

Tehillah / Psalm 19: 5-7 says of the sun:

The Divine placed in the heavens a tent for the sun, who is like a groom coming forth from the chamber, like a hero, eager to run his course. His rising-place is at one end of heaven, and his circuit reaches the other. Nothing escapes his heat.

Astonishingly, the Hebrew alphabetic character, Resh, long used to designate The Sun, the 19^th Tarot, appears 19 times in the 19^th Tehillah / Psalm. Depending on the type of deck and / or the cartomancer (card interpreter), The Sun means different things. According to the British occultist S.L. MacGregor Mathers (1854-1918), upright the card signifies happiness, contentment, and joy, and reversed it signifies these states but to a minor degree.