Vaishlach/400 men

In parsha Vaishlach, Yaakov returns home after working for Laban for 20 years. Upon his entry into the Holy Land, he is faced by his brother Eisav accompanied by 400 men.

וַיָּשֻׁ֙בוּ֙ הַמַּלְאָכִ֔ים אֶֽל־יַעֲקֹ֖ב לֵאמֹ֑ר בָּ֤אנוּ אֶל־אָחִ֙יךָ֙ אֶל־עֵשָׂ֔ו וְגַם֙ הֹלֵ֣ךְ לִקְרָֽאתְךָ֔ וְאַרְבַּע־מֵא֥וֹת אִ֖ישׁ עִמּֽוֹ׃

 

The messengers returned to Yaakov saying, We came to your brother, to Eisav, and he is also coming to meet you; and there are four hundred אַרְבַּע־מֵא֥וֹת men with him.

 

What's interesting about the number 400 is that it is the gematria of the Hebrew letter tav, which in the Ashuri script that is currently used to write the scrolls of Torah is written as  ת

According to the Talmud, Ezra was the first to mandate that the scrolls of Torah be written in the Ashuri script rather than in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet used formerly. According to the Talmud, prior to Ezra the scrolls of Torah had been written in Paleo-Hebrew (Ktav Ivri), and Ezra switched it to Ashuri script. (according Wikipedia). If this is so, then according to some opinions in the Talmud, the Torah scroll was first written in the Paleo-Hebrew (Ktav Ivri) script. According to The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible, Jeff A. Benner, 2005 this is the script in which early Torah scrolls would have been written.

You will notice that the letter tav is represented by a symbol resembling the Christian cross. 

This is peculiar, since Eisav is generally considered a progenitor of the Romans, and they, in turn, became Christians. With this insight, we may read the posuk that Eisav was coming to kill Yaakov with his men of the cross, which could be interpreted prophetically as the Crusades, which probably made Eisav and his 400 men of the cross look something like this