Revelation 1:4. The Number Seven. “John to the seven churches which are in Asia.”
The most important aspect of the number seven in the Bible is its relationship to the oath of the Covenant. In English the words seven and swear, [take an
oath], look nothing alike; however, in Biblical Hebrew they can hardly be distinguished
for they consist of the same consonants.[1] In the
Hebrew, to swear could be translated
“to seven oneself,” (Strong’s #7650).
The word for week is also from the same root as seven, merely distinguished by inner
vowel differences. The noun form of this word is used of Jehovah’s oath of the Covenant promises in Deuteronomy 7:8:
But because the LORD loved you,
and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath
the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house
of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
And Psalm 105:8-9:
He hath remembered his covenant
for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations. Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac.
One sign of this
oath, or Covenant between Mankind and God, is to
be the Sabbath, a word also closely related to seven,
the cessation of labor on the seventh day.
And the LORD said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel,
‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout
your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you.’” Exodus 31:12-13 RSV
The Sabbaths were a sign of the oath. These Sabbaths, or sevens, was not only of
days of the week, but also a system of weeks and years. The seven-week period
was to be climaxed with a Pentecost Sabbath and the seven-year period was to
be climaxed by a sabbatical year, and
the seven-sabbatical-year period was to be climaxed by a jubilee year. These are the Sabbaths
that God ordained for a sign of His
Covenant, his oath.
The number seven
also functions mathematically with the number three to form the value of pi (pi, i.e. 3 1/7),
which is necessary to reconcile the line with the circle. Pi times the radius squared gives
the area of a circle; pi times
diameter gives the circumference of a circle.
Seven times 3 1/7, or 3 times 7 1/3, give the number
22, which was the number of the Hebrew alphabet letters. Since the
alphabet was also used as numerals, it was possible to designate any number by
use of some combination of the 22 letters. Therefore, some combination of
sevens and threes could describe any number as well as reconcile the
rectangular with the circular. It is in this combination that we see the truth
of the idea so often expressed that “seven is the number of completion, or
fullness.”
In the idea of the
reconciliation of the circle and the line, we see how the system was used for
time-telling. The passing overhead of the time-telling sun, moon and stars
described an apparent circular pattern; the earth represented the linear
distance. (This was, of course, the observed, or apparent pattern, not the
concept of the space age.) By use of the value pi, the priestly
function of time-telling could be more exact.
In the Book of
Revelation, the copious use of the number seven is the sign, the reminder, of the Covenant, the oath. It would be correct, therefore, for an
expanded translation to add to “the seven
churches” the phrase “the seven-fold Church in the Covenant,” and to the
phrase, “the seven spirits,” the
phrase “the seven-fold Spirit of Covenant.”
The seven plagues are those promised in the Covenant to the rebellious
and unbelieving, they are therefore Covenant plagues.
There are spurious
attempts to imitate the Covenant number; however, they turn out
not to be that number, really, for the seven heads of the beast become eight or
ten or so. In contrast God’s Covenant
seven is never changing. The number 666
also falls short of the Covenant of God.
The copious use
of the number seven in the Book of Revelation is a prominent reminder that the events
depicted there are those promised by oath
in the Covenant of God. As we shall see, the Seven Stars of
the constellation Ash are symbolic of
the Covenant Church.
[1] The words are only distinguished by the context. In the
original Hebrew, the text had no vowels, so words consisting of the
same radicals were interpreted by tradition. In about the tenth century AD the Masoretes added vowels to
the Hebrew text.
This lesson is an edited excerpt from my book Revelation In Context, available at the Living Word Bookstore in Shawnee, OK and also at www.Amazon.com and www.xulonpress.com.
Free downloads are also available at www.revelationincontext.sermon.net .
No comments:
Post a Comment