Footnote 3 – Why 2K?

The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters plus five variant letters, which appear only at the ends of words. The first nine letters of the Hebrew alphabet are equivalent to one through nine, so that aleph (A) = 1, beth (B) = 2…teth (T) = 9. The next nine letters rise by tens, so that yod (Y) = 10, kaph (K) = 20, lamed (L) = 30, mem (M) = 40, nun (N) = 50…tsade (TS) = 90. The last four letters and the five variant letters rise by 100s so that qoph (Q) = 100, resh (R) = 200, etc.