Category Archives: Numbers in the Bible

Five and Two

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Five and Two, this combination of numbers is found in the Old and New Testament, and in narrations and parables. A young lad’s lunch is the main course for this study, but the side dishes and appetizers are just as important.

In a sermon I heard recently, it was noted that the early Church Fathers liked to interpret the New with the Old and assign meanings to things; really things have not changed that much. St. Augustine of Hippo has the first recorded use of five and two with the Feeding of the 5,000. He saw the five loaves of bread as the Five Books of Moses and the two fish as the Psalms and Prophets. That is not a bad interpretation, and I am sure St. Augustine worked that into his commentary very well. Is that the only way to look at those numbers in that story?

No; here are a few other ways to look at that number combination.

  • A mother or aunt overpacked a young lad’s lunch; since he did not eat all of it, he shared it with his uncles and Jesus.
  • Five can represent grace, provision, and readiness. Two may represent unity, truth confirmed by witnesses, or divine order.
  • The first use of this combination is in Genesis 45:6 and there it is associated with famine. Well, that idea does not really work here.
  • Numbers 7 has this pair of numbers used several times in association with a sacrifice for the individual tribes. That might be a real stretch.
  • Judges 20:45 uses these numbers in describing how many Benjamites were killed.
  • 1 Samuel 25:18 list the amounts of provisions Abigail prepared to stop David and his men from killing off her husband’s household. This one is more in line of suppling provisions.

In my study I noticed a contributor named I. M. Rite who focused on one explanation and dismissed any other insight to these numbers. I think he got his version from his favorite preacher, The Right Reverend Wright. Well, Jesus used these numbers in several of His parables so we should look at them.

  • Matthew 25:15 has bags of gold being assigned to trusted servants who were to use this wealth to increase their master’s holdings.
  • Luke 7:41 has two people owing a man some money; one owed 500 and the other 50.
  • Luke 12:6 teaches us about five sparrows being sold for two pennies.
  • Luke 12:52 has a family of five divide into groups of two and three.

Yes, there are other examples of five and two. The translation you search in may give you more or less verses to look at, so try several.

This post is like the leftovers the disciples picked up; they were good food and should not be wasted, but they looked a little different than what was packed in that lunch. My point, STUDY, go Berean, and do not put God in your little box. His Word fits nicely in-between the covers of my Bible, but as soon as I open it ‘my world’ fills up and overflows. Sounds like provision and witness to me.

BibleGateway – Keyword Search: five two

Bread in the Bible

Feeding the 5000

The Number Twenty-four in the Bible

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This collection of the number twenty-four in the Bible covers a large time span and a variety of things.

  • Numbers 7:88 – The leaders of the twelve tribes brought two oxen apiece (24 total) as an offering to dedicate the altar.
  • Numbers 25:9 – 24,000 Israelites died in the plague that came from the men indulging in immorality with the women of Moab and Midian. Balaam had suggested this to nullify God’s banner of protection over the People when he could not openly curse the nation.
  • 1 Chronicles 20:6 and 2 Samuel 21:20 – A giant, a descendant of Rapha, who was killed by David’s nephew, had 24 fingers and toes.
  • 1 Chronicles 27:1 – David had twelve divisions of his army that were on duty one month out of the year. Each division had 24,000 men for a total of 288,000.
  • 1 Kings 15:33 – Baasha King of Israel reigned for 24 years. He killed Nadab son of Jeroboam and the entire family of Jeroboam to gain power. He continued the sin of Jeroboam, having priests who were not from the family of Aaron.
  • 1 Chronicles 24:18 and 25:31 mark the 24th person on a list.

These are all days when words and visions were given to the prophets. They all are given after Cyrus gave the orders to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

  • Daniel 10:4 – On the 24th day of the first month in the third year of Cyrus King of Persia Daniel was fasting and had a vision. I find it hard to think that Daniel would have fasted through Passover, but this would have been at the end of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It could be the first month of the civil calendar, which would put it at the time of the Day of Atonement. This was near the end of Daniel’s life and close to the time of Ezra.
  • Haggai 1:15 – The 24th day of the sixth month of the second year of King Darius the Great. (This is not the Darius that was in Daniel, and there are several timestamps in Haggai and Zechariah that are very close together.) This is when work started on the Second Temple; it was incorporated into Herod’s Temple that Jesus visited.
  • Haggai 2:10 and 18 – These are the 24th day of the ninth month of the second year of Darius. The foundation of the Temple was laid, and God had Haggai ask the priest a question. The point of the first words from the Lord on this day was to have the people consider carefully how things changed when they finally started building the Temple.
  • Haggai 2:20 – This is a separate message that was given on the same day. This was a word of encouragement to Zerubbabel, who is a forefather of Jesus.
  • Zechariah 1:7 – On the 24th day of the eleventh month, the month of Shebat in the second year of Darius a word came to Zechariah. (This is the religious calendar.)
  • Nehemiah 9:1 – This is the 24th day of the seventh month, which is after the Day of Atonement. (religious calendar) This should match the day that Daniel had his vision.  

Hebrew Jewish Months in the Old Testament – Bible History (bible-history.com)

The Elders in the Book of Revelation

  • Revelation 4:4 and 10, 5:8, 11:16, and 19:4 are all references to the 24 elders who worship God before His throne.

The Number Twenty-two in the Bible

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The Number Twenty-two in the Bible is my last study that will mirror the year. They have encouraged me to focus on my writing and I have learned plenty. Believing in God and doing lucky numbers just don’t fit together in my brain. Father God made numbers for our benefit and He uses them to speak to us in His Word. 

The Letter

The twenty-second letter of the Hebrew alphabet is tav or taw. When applied as a number, tav is four hundred. Because of its last position in the alphabet, it represents truth. Chabad.org explains the truth of a thing is known when the thing is done. The term for truth is emes.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/137287/jewish/Tav.htm

Psalm 119, which is an acrostic, has been my influence on the series of posts on numbers. In keeping with the meaning of tav I would recommend you read Psalm 119:169 -176. They seem to represent points that are relevant at the end of the matter. I did an alternate approach to read this Psalm. I separated the twenty-two sections into eight sections twenty-two verses long. It is fun to speculate about who composed the longest Psalm. Solomon would be the first guess, but I can’t help thinking Hezekiah may have made it to praise God for fifteen more years of life. 

The Number Twenty-two

With the aid of research tools, like Bible Gateway, you can get an easy look at the occurrences of a word. This time I found that for the NIV you need to use twenty-two and 22 (two separate searches). In trying to make sense of how God used it is His Word, I saw three general groupings: counts, things that “died”, and rulers. This number, more than some others I have studied, has several examples of thousands-22,000. 

I found no references in the New Testament to the number twenty-two. There may be hidden ones. The individuals who count uses of words or the times something appears in Scripture amaze me. If you do an internet search, there are interesting things to be found. Please do your own study to verify how important or real these are. Different translations may have varying counts of words and sentence structures. So, making meaning from your counts in your favorite translation may not carry over in another work. (Sorry, Jesus did not speak King James English.)   

Examples  

Remember this is from the NIV. I choose five verses to go into the “counts” list; I will feature two. 

            Counts 

  • 2 Chronicles 13:21 Abijah, a good king, was growing in strength. The chroniclers showed this by utilizing numbers- fourteen wives, twenty-two sons, and sixteen daughters. (I like including the daughters.) His total count of children was thirty-eight. This also is an important number in Israel’s history.  
  • Numbers 3:39 tells the total number of Levite males. There was a redeeming process for these 22,000 males from among all of Israel. I am uncertain how these fit with the other 22,000 verses.
  • Joshua 19:30 Asher’s towns, 1 Chronicles 12:29 may talk about 22 officers from the clan of Zadok, 1 Chronicles 15:6 220 relatives of Merari (I still used it:).

Died or 22,000

  • Judges 7:3 22,000 men left Gideon’s army, so I think they were “dead” to his cause. They were the ones who trembled because of the battle.
  • Judges 20:21 tells of the Benjamites killing 22,000 men who came to punish them for the sin they were defending.
  • 2 Samuel 8:5 and 1 Chronicles 18:5 tell when David killed 22,000 Arameans who supported the king of Zobah.
  • 1 Kings 8:63 and 2 Chronicles 7:5 speaks of Solomon dedicating the Temple and offering 22,000 cattle. This sacrifice was probably to feed the people that showed up for the dedication.

The leader portion covers several quantities and time periods.

            Leaders

  • Judges 10:3 talks about Jair, who judged Israel twenty-two years. He had thirty sons, who had thirty donkeys, and they ruled thirty cities.
  • 1 Kings 14:20-Jeroboam who leads the Northern Kingdom away from God reigned twenty-two years.
  • 1 Kings 16:29-Ahab ruled in Samaria for twenty-two years. Omri, his father, was an evil king who set an awful example for his family.
  • 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2- Ahaziah, who was a poor king of Judah, was twenty-two years old when he became king. His mother, Athaliah, was Omri’s granddaughter, enough said. Jehu killed Ahaziah and Joram.
  • 2 Kings 21:19 and 2 Chronicles 33:21 mention Amon. He was the son of Manasseh, the worst king of Judah, and the father of Josiah, one of the best kings of Judah. Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king.

There are other 22,000+ numbers, I choose not to include them.

The numbers twenty-two and 22,000 are connected with interesting things in the Bible. In my research, I saw a lot about it representing chaos, confusion, and other bad things. Some sites had good with twenty-two. I will say that there were a lot of poor kings that had a twenty-two connection. The other references don’t support chaos. Like tav many things ended when twenty-two was involved.

The Number Twenty-one in the Bible

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Twenty-one in the Bible is associated with four major topics and a minor one.  The minor topic is found in 1 Chronicles 24 + 25.  These references are the list of people who have a job that has been assigned to them and the numerical order of these people.

The four major topics are Zedekiah, Daniel’s fasting, the seventh month, and the Passover and unleavened bread.

  1. 2 Kings 24:18, 2 Chronicles 36:11, and Jeremiah 52:1 reference that King Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began his reign of Jerusalem/Judah.  He would have been ten years old when his father Josiah died.  He was the last king of Israel, until Jesus, and he did not follow God or listen to the prophets.  2 Chronicles 36 mirrors Jeremiah 52 and gives a good summary of his life.  Nebuchadnezzar made him king and changed his name from Mattaniah (gift of God) to Zedekiah (Yahweh is righteousness).  He is one of several people in the Bible to have their name changed.  The change may have been to remind him to follow the rules!  The ten and twenty-one we will see again in another topic. 
  2. Daniel 10:13 is part of the story of Daniel’s fast.  The twenty-one days have become important parts of fasting and warfare narratives.  In studying this I feel it is important to remember the reason and the timing of his fast.  The reason was the ending of the seventy years of rest for the land.  Okay, that is also the time that Jerusalem would be vacant before Cyrus king of Persia would let Israel go home.  If “the first month” was the Jewish religious calendar this fast went through the time of Passover.  (Which started on the tenth of the month and went to the twenty-first of the month with the end of Feast of the Unleavened Bread.  So, Daniels’s fast could correspond to the birth/rebirth of the nation of Israel.)
  3. Exodus 12:18 is the reference for the first Passover and the ending of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  This should have been the time period for the crossing of the Red Sea and a time of freedom for Israel.
  4. The last major topic also deals with the Feast on the twenty-first day of the seventh month.  The best reference is Haggai 2:1 when a word of encouragement went to Zerubbabel.  This occurred in the seventh month or during the time of the Feast of Tabernacles.  This commemorates Israel living in tents for forty years.  This feast comes after the Day of Atonement, which is on the tenth day of the seventh month. (Study Leviticus 23.) The prophet Jeremiah was also being taken to Egypt, against his will, during this time period after the fall of Jerusalem.

The twenty-first letter of the Jewish alphabet is “shin” and it is the letter that looks like a crown.  The number value of shin in the Hebrew language is 300.  This letter is associated with the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) because its gematria is 300. To appreciate the full scope of shin go to Chabad.org as they have a good article on this topic.

An interesting “twenty-one” I found is in Luke 3:34-38.  Start with Adam, as number one, and count to Abraham.  I just read in my devotional book that we give up the curse of Adam at the cross and take on the blessing of Abraham – who is twenty-one from Adam.

 

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/137093/jewish/Shin-Sin.htm

https://www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/Aleph-Bet/Shin/shin.html

https://imgbin.com/png/b8eFPpq5/shin-hebrew-alphabet-letter-png

I do not believe in “good luck” numbers as Jesus does not do things by luck.  But because of this study, I would associate the number twenty-one with the Feasts of Israel and the beginning of the nation.

The Number Twenty in the Bible

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The number twenty in the Bible is used with many individuals and with key things in Scripture. My habit is to look at the number itself (Jewish thought) and the meaning of the letter in the Hebrew alphabet and then look at the examples of the number used in Scripture. The number twenty  lent itself to nine groupings or usages and three groups of larger numbers – 120, 20,000, and 120,000. 120 and 120,000 could be handled as part of a study in the number twelve.  I found 120 interesting, so I will include it and loosely work 20,000 into this study.  I viewed other websites but the three I list at the bottom of the post seemed to be less complicated, yet very informative.  Twenty is a number that does not stir much interest!  I am not sure why.  The concordance and the Bible translation you use will produce slightly different results in the number of times it is used.  After I grouped and studied them, it seemed to me that I could have put more into the miscellaneous and time column.

The nine groups I picked are miscellaneous, Solomon, Tabernacle, food, Temple, dates and times, Jacob, rulers, and age of males (general population and Levities).  But I will start with the letter in the Hebrew alphabet that represents twenty.

Kaph– resembles the palm of an open hand.  Kaph is the eleventh letter in the alphabet.  The idea of a hand corresponds with ten fingers and ten toes, making twenty a “natural number”.

Reish/resh– This is the twentieth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It is taken to represent the head and all that is involved with a human head.  The bej.org site has good details.  Resh is used for the number 200.  20 x 10:}

Examples – I listed some of the many verses from each group.  Use a concordance or Bible Gateway to find all of the references.

  • Miscellaneous– Genesis 7:20 the height of the floodwaters above the mountains, this is fifteen cubits in the KJV; Genesis 37:28 the sum of money that the brothers got for Joseph – it came to two shekels each.
  • Solomon– 1 Kings 9: 10,11 the years to build the Temple and his palace; towns he gave to Hiram for payment. 2 Chronicles 2: 10 (20,000) the amounts of wheat, barley, wine, oil he paid Hiram.
  • Tabernacle and Temple– Exodus 26, 27, 30 36, 38 and for the Temple 1 Kings 6:2,3,16,20 and 2Chronicles 3:3, 4, 8 and 3:11,13; 4: 1, and Ezekiel 40, 41, 42, 45.  These references are sizes of rooms, angels, and the shekel.
  • Jacob– Genesis 31 and 32 have references for the number of years Jacob worked for Laban and the quantities of certain animals in the gift for Esau.
  • Food– 2 Kings 4:42 loaves of bread Elisha gave away. Ezekiel 4:10 amount of food he was to eat at set times of the day.
  • Dates/Times– Numbers 10:11 is when the cloud moved so the people would travel again after the Ark and Tabernacle were made.  Many of the dates deal with when kings started to rule.
  • Rulers– Judges 4:3 Jabin and Sisera oppressed Israel, 2 Kings 15:27 years that Pekah of N. Israel ruled; Assyria deported people, Judges 15:20 years Samson led Israel, 2 Kings 16: 2 the age that Ahaz became king
  • Age of males– Exodus 30:14 – age that money was collected for them to ransom themselves, Leviticus 27: 3,5 – ages and shekels if dedicated to the Lord, Numbers 14:29 age of those counted and who grumbled against God, Numbers 26: 2, 4 age for army service, Numbers 32: 11 those who would die before the people could enter the Land,1Chronicles 23:24,27 – age of Levites in David’s counting for service to the Ark,Ezra 3:8 age of Levites to supervise work on Temple
  • 120– Genesis 6:3 length of time a man would live, Deuteronomy 31:2, 34:7 Moses’ age, Acts 1:15 number praying in Upper Room

My Thoughts on Twenty

Twenty in many of the examples seem to be a “boundary” for the ending and beginning of things.  The Tabernacle and Temple are examples of physical boundaries, while the age of accountability for the complainers is noteworthy.  Numbers 10: 11 ended the construction of the Tabernacle and the moving of the camp to the Land.

The age of twenty and the thirty-eight years of wandering have had the greatest impact on me personally.  All of the “twenties” had to die during the season of “thirty-eight” before the People could enter the Land. For two years the wonders of God and the labors of Egypt were on display for these men and women.  Their paradigms/boundaries that they had set on God had to go away. Unfortunately, they did pass some down to the “nineteens” and they were dealt with but they plagued the people again.

# Jesus, HELP!  Reset my Twenties and get me into the Promised Land!

(My DISCLAIMER – People view numbers very differently, so there are many interpretations for twenty.  Jewish studies seem to be different than Christian studies and then there are people who do not believe in God/Jesus throwing in their opinions. The Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are what makes anything important! God set the boundaries – the size, age, date.  He is the One who made the number important and set the pattern and meaning. Look to Them and not a number, because they are a teaching aid in Their hands!)