The Significance of Numbers in the Bible

The Significance of Numbers in the Bible

"Do you know calculus? You had better learn it. It is the language God talks. - Manhattan Project physicist Richard Feynman to colleague Herman Wouk God used beautiful mathematics to create the world. English physicist Paul Dirac Mathematics is the alphabet in which God has written the universe. Galileo The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God. Euclid

If mathematics is a human invention, then why does it apply to the physical world at all? If mathematics is not a human invention, then it must have been established by God. Mathematics is not invented, but is merely discovered by man. Mathematics is the language of science. Furthermore, mathematics transcends all languages, that is 1+1=2 regardless of past, present or future, regardless of one s native tongue. Mathematicians are known for their desire to prove certain concepts using rudimentary laws, axioms, properties, etc. For centuries and even today, numbers are used as a tool for communication. God is a mathematician. God counts.

John 21:11 11 So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. Revelation 13:18 18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. [a] That number is 666. [a] Or is humanity s number This number is symbolic of the beast. He is known by his number which can be calculated. If this number (666) has its significance and the beast is known by this number, is it the only number in the Bible that has significance? Could someone expect that other numbers in the Bible are significant and symbolic for certain truths that God wishes to communicate to us? Perhaps we can not only read the Bible, but also count the Bible. Psalm 147:4 4 He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Luke 12:6-7 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, you are of more value than many sparrows.

2 Timothy 3:16 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness 2 Peter 1:20-21 20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet s own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. John 5:39;46-47 39 You study [a] the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me 46 If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47 But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say? Jesus believed in the inspiration of the Scriptures. Moses who lived hundreds of years before Christ, could not have written about Christ, except by divine inspiration. The same can be said for David and many other prophets in the OT. John 10:35 35 If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came and Scripture cannot be set aside What do you think Jesus means when He says Scripture cannot be set aside? In the KJV it is translated Scripture cannot be broken.

The books in the Bible claim to be divinely inspired, so the question is not whether or not the Bible claims to be inspired by God(it does). The question to ask is this: Can the claim of the Bible to be divinely inspired be PROVEN to be true? Some unbelievers may say the authors of the Bible were liars, or were deceived, or proclaimed divine inspiration when they were writing for themselves. For PROOF of divine inspiration of the Bible, one would need to find agreement and harmony between these men s writings, most of whom never met one another in order to show that the Bible is God s Word. This would make the point that God was with the men writing in the OT as well as the NT as well as man could not have fabricated the writings of the Bible.

The Bible is composed of sixty-six books, written in three different languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek over a span of approximately fifteen centuries. God used approximately forty men from a variety of backgrounds to write these books. Yet the message of them all is the same. They show God s unfailing love to mankind and his desire to connect with man despite his sin.

In the Bible we find the words written by kings, poets, philosophers, fisherman, statesmen, learned men of Egypt and Babylon, and men who trained at the feet of rabbis in Jerusalem. Books were written by men while in exile, while in the desert, while in a shepherd s tent, while in the service to a foreign king, during times of war, during times of peace. We also find the tax collector, the tent maker, the cupbearer, the shepherd, poor men, rich men, learned men, uneducated men, captains, legislators, and judges among the authors of God s Holy Word. The authors who wrote down the Word of God came from a variety of occupations and social statuses.

Over the course of our studies, we will see how several numbers appear in different books by different authors, written in different times and even in different languages, but are in a mutual agreement as to the significance of specific numbers. If the words were divinely inspired, then should not also the numbers be divinely inspired? For example, THREE is symbolic of RESURRECTION. This number appears in Genesis, Exodus, Kings, Daniel, Jonah, the Gospels, the writings of Paul, and Revelation all in connection with RESURRECTION. It is nowhere stated in so many words that THREE stands for RESURRETION. However, the recurrence of three in connection to resurrection occurs too frequently to be discounted.

If the Holy Spirit did not inspire the authors, then we wouldn t see a similar parallel of the number THREE and other numbers throughout scripture. The agreement of both the OT and NT on the significance of different numbers proves that the same God who inspired the writings of the OT also inspired the writings of the NT. The whole point of this study is to make a case that the books in the Bible were inspired by God, and He used His Spirit to communicate to men across various backgrounds and time periods so that we may believe the Bible is truly God s Word to man.