Introduction
This sugya is independent of the previous one. It talks about a group of sages called soferim. In the Mishnah and elsewhere, this simply refers to a group like the rabbis or the Pharisees. Indeed, the New Testament refers to scribes and seems to use the term synonymously with Pharisees.
לפיכך נקראו ראשונים סופרים שהיו סופרים כל האותיות שבתורה שהיו אומרים וא"ו (ויקרא יא, מב) דגחון חציין של אותיות של ס"ת
(ויקרא י, טז) דרש דרש חציין של תיבות
(ויקרא יג, לג) "והתגלח" של פסוקים
(תהלים פ, יד) יכרסמנה חזיר מיער
עי"ן דיער חציין של תהלים
(תהלים עח, לח) והוא רחום יכפר עון חציו דפסוקים
The early [rabbis] were called soferim because they used to count all the letters of the Torah.
Thus, they said, the vav in gahon (Leviticus 11:42) marks half the letters of the Torah;
Darosh darash, (Leviticus 10:16) half the words;
Vehitgalah, (Leviticus 13:33) half the verses.
The boar out of the wood [mi-ya’ar] ravages it (Psalms 80:14), the ayin of ya’ar marks half of Psalms.
But he, being full of compassion, forgives their iniquity (Psalms 74:38), half the verses.
While historians usually understand soferim as scribes, taking the word to refer to the meaning of the verb as counting this passage, this passage associates it with the meaning of counting. These sages loved counting the words of the Torah and Psalms, the two most learned books in rabbinic times. They worked out which letters and words appeared right in the middle of these books. Interpreters have often tried to find deeper meaning out of the search for the middles of these books. But in my opinion, this is just something people love to do. Some people (including myself) simply love statistics.
בעי רב יוסף וא"ו דגחון מהאי גיסא או מהאי גיסא
א"ל ניתי ס"ת ואימנינהו מי לא אמר רבה בר בר חנה לא זזו משם עד שהביאו ספר תורה ומנאום
א"ל אינהו בקיאי בחסירות ויתרות אנן לא בקיאינן
R. Joseph asked: Does the vav of gahon belong to the first half or the second?
They said to him, Let s bring a Sefer Torah and we will count them! Did not Rabbah b. Bar Hanah say, They did not move from there they brought a Sefer Torah and they counted them? He said to them: They were experts in defective and full readings but we are not.
Interestingly, the students of R. Joseph wants to answer his question by really checking things out, to see where the middle of the Torah is. They act like empirical scientists not simply trusting tradition. He even cites another case where they actually counted the letters of the Torah (we do not know the context of this case).
But alas, R. Joseph seems to acknowledge that we do not know if our Torahs are written according to this count of letters. In Hebrew the vowels for oo and oh can either be written with the letter vav (full spelling) or without (defective). There are other words that can be written in either defective or full spellings. So we do not really know where the middle of the Torah is in terms of letters.
בעי רב יוסף והתגלח מהאי גיסא או מהאי גיסא
א"ל אביי פסוקי מיהא ליתו לימנוי’
בפסוקי נמי לא בקיאינן דכי אתא רב אחא בר אדא אמר במערבא פסקי ליה להאי קרא לתלתא פסוקי (שמות יט, ט) ויאמר ה’ אל משה הנה אנכי בא אליך בעב הענן
R. Joseph asked: Does vehitgalah belong to the first half or the second?
Abaye said to him, For the verses, at least, we can bring [a Scroll] and count them!
In the verses too we are not experts. For when R. Aha b. Adda came, he said: In the West [Eretz Yisrael] they divide the following verse into three: And the Lord said to Moses, behold I come to you in a thick cloud, [that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever; And Moses told the words of the people to the Lord] (Exodus 19:9).
The truth is that we do not even know the exact number of verses in the Torah. There may be variants on this as well. Therefore, we can t bring a Sefer Torah to see if the word vehitgalah is part of the first half or the second half.
תנו רבנן חמשת אלפים ושמונה מאות ושמונים ושמונה פסוקים הוו פסוקי ס"ת יתר עליו תהלים שמונה חסר ממנו דברי הימים שמונה
Our Rabbis taught: There are five thousand, eight hundred and eighty-eight verses in the Torah; the Psalms exceed this by eight; while Chronicles are less by eight.
This source posits that the Torah, Psalms and Chronicles are almost the same length. However, we should note that this is not true according to our Bibles. The Tosafot already note that it s not even close. There are over 5000 verses in the Torah and 2461 in Psalms. Not sure how many there are in Chronicles, but since there are only 65 chapters, the number of verses will be less than Psalms by a lot. Indeed, this source is so far off from the number of verses actually there, that it is somewhat of a mystery. The only thing I can say is that these are the three largest books in the Bible.