The Number Seven

The Number Seven:

The frequent recurrence of the number seven in Scripture is obvious because it surpasses the other numbers in which it occurs. Many term seven as the representative symbolic number, the keystone on which the symbolism of numbers depends.

The number seven appears to have external associations, and concerning the Hebrews, we can only trace seven back to the point when the seventh day was consecrated to the purpose of rest. So assuming this as our starting point the first idea associated with seven would be that of religious festival celebrations.

Seven is used in the astronomical or rather astrological as in the observation of the seven planets, the phases of the moon changing every seventh day. In the O.T. usage of seven we find the Creation completed in seven days, and for that reason, the seventh day was kept sacred; every seventh year was Sabbatical, and the seven times seventh year ushered in the Jobel-year. The three Pilgrims festival (Passah, Festival of Weeks, and Tabernacles), lasted seven days; and between the first and second of these Feasts were counted seven weeks. The first day of the seventh month was a “Holy Convocation.”

The levitical purification lasted seven days, and the same space of time was allotted to the celebration of weddings and mourning for the dead. Seven is also multiplied by ten, as in seventy Israelite’s go to Egypt, the exile lasts seventy years, there are seventy elders.

The dove was sent out the second time seven days after her first mission, Pharaoh’s dream shows him twice seven cows, twice seven ears of corn, and let’s not forget the seven wise men. This number also played an immense part in the superstitions of the middle ages as it does in many cases to this day.

The number seven has been impressed with the seal of sanctity as the symbol of all connected with God, and was adopted as a cyclical number, with the subordinate ideas of perfection or completeness.

Seven in a sense can find a likeness to that of a round number, but with the additional idea of sufficiency and completeness. The foregoing applications of the number seven become of great practical importance in connection with the interpretation of some of the prophetical portions of the Bible and particularly of the book of Revelation.

We need only to run over the chief subjects of the book, in order to see the necessity of deciding whether the number is to be accepted in a literal or a metaphorical sense, in other words, whether it represents a number or a quality.

In the N.T. we have the churches, candlesticks, stars, trumpets, Spirits, all to the number of seven; and the seven horns, the seven eyes of the Lamb.

The same number appears also to be divided in half. This affects not only the number seven, but also the number which stands in a relation of antagonism to seven, as in the half of seven, which appears under the form of forty two months, = 3 ½ years (Revelation 13:5), twelve hundred and sixty days, also = 3 ½ years (Revelation 11:3 and 12:6). Again as a time, times, and half a time = 3 ½ years, Revelation 12:14.

Now if the number seven expresses the idea of completeness, then the number half seven should mean incompleteness, and the secondary ideas of suffering and disaster: If the one represent divine agency, the other we should expect to represent human agency.

Phillip LaSpino   www.seekfirstwisdom.com