What is the Biblical Significance of the Number Seven / 7?
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What is the biblical significance of the number seven? What is the meaning of the number 7 in the Bible?
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- What is the Biblical Significance of the Number 7? Throughout the
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- Bible, God often gives symbolic significance to mundane items or concepts. For example, in Genesis 9, 12 -16
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- God makes the rainbow the sign of His promise to Noah and by extension to all of mankind that He will not flood the whole earth again.
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- God uses bread as a representation of His presence with His people, of the gift of eternal life, and of the broken body of Christ, sacrificed for our sins.
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- The rainbow and the bread are obvious symbols in Scripture. Less obvious meanings seem to be attached to some numbers in the
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- Bible, especially the number 7, which at times provides a special emphasis in the text. The first use of the number 7 in the
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- Bible relates to the creation week in Genesis 1. God spends 6 days creating the heavens and the earth, and then rests on the 7th day.
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- This is our template for the 7 day week, observed around the world to this day. The 7th day was to be set apart for Israel, the
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- Sabbath was a holy day of rest. Thus, right at the start of the Bible, the number 7 is identified with something being finished or complete.
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- From then on, that association continues, as 7 is often found in contexts involving completeness or divine perfection.
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- So we see the command for animals to be at least 7 days old before being used for sacrifice, the command for Leprous Naaman to bathe in the
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- Jordan River 7 times to effect complete cleansing, and the command for Joshua to march around Jericho for 7 days, and on the 7th day to make 7 circuits, and for 7 priests to blow 7 trumpets outside of the city walls.
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- In these instances, 7 signifies a completion of some kind, a divine mandate is fulfilled.
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- Interestingly, man was created on the 6th day of creation. In some passages of the Bible, the number 6 is associated with mankind.
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- In Revelation, the number of the beast is called the number of a man. That number is 666.
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- If God's number is 7, then man's is 6. 6 always falls short of 7, just like all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3 .23.
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- Man is not God, just as 6 is not 7. Series of 7 things crop up often in the
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- Bible. For example, we find 7 pairs of each clean animal on the ark, 7 stems on the tabernacle's lampstand, 7 qualities of the
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- Messiah in Isaiah 11 .2, 7 signs in John's Gospel, 7 things the
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- Lord hates in Proverbs 6 .16, 7 parables in Matthew 13, and 7 woes in Matthew 23.
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- Multiples of 7 also figure into the biblical narrative. The 70 week prophecy in Daniel 9 .24
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- concerns 490 years. Jeremiah 29 .10 predicted the Babylonian captivity would last for 70 years.
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- According to Leviticus 25 .8, the year of Jubilee was to begin after the passing of the 49th year.
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- Sometimes, the symbolism of 7 is great comfort to us. Jesus is the 7 -fold,
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- I am in the Gospel of John. Other times it challenges us. Jesus told
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- Peter to forgive a wrongdoer 70 times 7 times. And then there are passages in which the number 7 is associated with God's judgment, the 7 bulls of the
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- Great Tribulation, for example, or God's warning to Israel in Leviticus 26 .18. Speaking of the book of Revelation, the number 7 is used more than 50 times in a variety of contexts.
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- There are 7 letters to 7 churches in Asia and 7 spirits before God's throne, 7 golden lampstands, 7 stars in Christ's right hand, 7 seals of God's judgment, 7 angels, and 7 trumpets, etc.
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- In all likelihood, the number 7 again represents completeness or totality. The 7 churches represent the completeness of the body of Christ.
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- The 7 seals on the scroll represent the fullness of God's punishment of a sinful earth, and so on.
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- And of course, the book of Revelation itself, with all its 7's is the capstone of God's word to man.
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- With the book of Revelation, the word was complete. In all, the number 7 is used in the
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- Bible more than 700 times. If we also count the words related to 7, terms like 7 -fold, or 70, or 700, the count is still higher.
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- Of course, not every instance of the number 7 in the Bible carries a deeper significance. Sometimes a 7 is just a 7, and we must be cautious about attaching symbolic meanings to any text, especially when scripture is not explicit about such meanings.
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- However, there are times when it seems that God is communicating the idea of divine completeness, perfection, and wholeness by means of the number 7.