New York Mets Player Puzzled Fans with a Hebrew Tattoo Error

 

 

During a celebration after a successful home run, baseball player Mark Vientos from the New York Mets accidentally showcased his tattoo with erroneous Hebrew symbols. This caught attention and led to active discussions among native speakers.

On Vientos’s chest, a tattoo with Hebrew letters was noticed: הפלפמ (ha’plpm), above which was the number 4:6. Many assumed that this was a reference to a biblical verse. However, Israelis and Hebrew experts who saw the image immediately expressed bewilderment, as the combination of letters has no meaning in Hebrew.

After the photos appeared on the internet, users began to speculate. Some commentators suggested that the tattoo might be an unsuccessful attempt to write the name of the New Testament book “Epistle to the Philippians,” which in Hebrew is written as הפיליפים. It was noted that the word in the tattoo contains a grammatical error: the letter מ (mem) at the end of the word should have been written as ם (mem sofit).

It remains unclear why Vientos chose Hebrew for his tattoo, as the original text of the epistle was written in Greek. Perhaps the player wanted to quote a verse from the New Testament, which says: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

This mistake in the tattoo generated a lot of jokes and discussions on social media, leaving fans and linguists puzzled.