What Really Counts

The first and most important principle of Bible interpretation is taking the context into consideration. I should say “contexts” because there are four aspects of context to consider: historical/cultural, literary/genre, linguistic/grammatical, and global/whole Bible view. There are quite a few popular doctrinal notions that are founded upon poor interpretation arrived at through failure to consider one aspect of context or another.

In our day, we have significant historical information about the people and cultures of Bible times. Because God’s chosen people, Israel, were Mesopotamian, the culture and practices of that time and region are of special importance. If we try to understand Abraham, for example, as a twenty-first century father, we will be mystified. We will never grasp the significance of God’s orders to Joshua for conquering the Canaanites if we disregard the cosmic religious circumstances. The story of Ruth, David’s family problems, Israel’s Babylonian captivity will all be impossible to understand without considering the cultural context. That failure leads to faulty interpretation and often, bad doctrine.

One important aspect of the culture of the ancient Mesopotamians is their use of numbers. Especially now in the digital age, digits, numbers are critical to our society. Our weights and measures, chronological ages, historical events, and our computer processes are all tied to numbers with specific numerical values. Seven is one more than six and one less than eight. One thousand is ten times one hundred or nine hundred ninety-nine plus one. But to the ancient Mesopotamian mind, the Hebrew mind, seven was a symbol of completeness; one thousand was a metaphor for a large, indeterminate quantity. Our modern Western mindset wants to attach numerical significance to things that were primarily symbolic to the original audience.

I realize that with the coming of Jesus, the promised Messiah of Israel, the Gentiles were grafted into God’s family. However, every Bible author (with the possible exception of Luke) was a Jew writing to a mostly Jewish audience until Paul was sent specifically to the Gentiles. But even Paul emphasizes his own Jewishness. And though the New Testament was written almost exclusively in Greek, it was still an extension of the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures. The only “Bible” the authors could quote was in Hebrew; the culture out of which Christianity sprang was Jewish. Jesus was a Jewish prophet. John, though a convert to Christianity, wrote Revelation as the last book of Hebrew prophecy; his heavy reliance on the Old Testament proves this.

Speaking of Revelation, there is a cultural/literary overlap that deserves attention. Jewish literary tradition included what we call apocalyptic literature. The name comes from a Greek word meaning revelation, hence the name of John’s prophetic book. The main characteristic of apocalyptic literature is its intense use of imagery and symbolism. The Jews knew better than to try to make literal sense of apocalyptic prophecies. They understood that the outlandish, figurative imagery represented something that existed in reality.

This unspoken understanding also applied to numbers in apocalyptic writing. The threes, the fours, the sevens, the twelves, and the thousands would not have been numerical values to them. In fact, in the linguistic context, each number had a corresponding character in the Hebrew alphabet. Hebrew is a picture language like Egyptian hieroglyphics or Chinese Hanzi. This means the Hebrew letter has a meaning that transfers to its corresponding number. For example, the number six is represented by the Hebrew character vav which stands for man. Thus, repeating the number three times, a method of emphasis in Hebrew literature, 6-6-6 emphasizes the utter and complete humanness of the one being identified.

The same can be said for the number 1,000 we find in Revelation 20. Ancient Mesopotamian legends often attributed reigns of 1,000 years to their ancestral dynasties. They did not mean 999 +1; they meant to magnify the might and glory of the king with the symbolic 1,000-year reign. It is completely inappropriate to assume that there will be 1,000 periods of 365 days when Christ will reign while Satan is bound. Assigning the number 1,000 to Christ’s reign refers to its glory and power, and to Jesus’ complete victory over His enemies.

This same approach can be taken with the seven-fold cycles of judgment mentioned in Revelation 5-19. Some people see a literal application in the seven-year Roman siege of Jerusalem prior to its destruction in 70 AD. Whether that will be repeated at some future time is up for debate. It is worth noting that the number seven in Hebrew numerology is represented by the character zayin which is a weapon implying warfare or judgment. Seven also signifies completeness which may explain the three sevens of God’s judgment we find in Revelation (seals, trumpets, bowls). God’s judgment of apostate Israel was fully completed when the city and the temple were destroyed.

Three is another number that appears throughout Scripture. Gimel is the Hebrew character associated with the number three. It signifies being lifted up; it is the number of God Himself, the three-fold God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Man, created in God’s image, is three-in-one: body, soul, and spirit. Abraham had three visitors who are revealed as Yahweh Himself. There were three main feasts of Israel: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Jesus’ ministry lasted three years, and He was in the grave for three days, and so on. When a Jew saw three, he knew God was involved somehow.

One of the greatest dangers in Bible interpretation is assuming a text means something without seeking to understand it in all its contexts. This must include looking at the global/full Bible context of a passage. No one denies that the book of Revelation is a prophecy of God’s impending judgment. The Bible records that from the beginning of Israel’s establishment as a nation, God warned that disobedience would cause them to lose their land. The win/loss record in the book of Judges began to reveal how true this was. God foreshadowed how complete His judgment could be with the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. When the Jewish leaders executed the promised Messiah, God took their land and their temple from them as His final judgment on them.

On the other side of Israel’s prophetic judgment, God always promised a kingdom ruled by one of David’s descendants. Enter King Jesus. His reign will last a thousand years, but that doesn’t mean 999+1; it means a very long time – in this case, until the end of time. The Bible language literally says the kingdom will last until the end of the age – the church age. I believe after that comes the final judgment then the new heaven and earth. Scripture says we should number our days; that’s a reminder that life here will end someday. Whatever we believe about the countdown to the end, what really counts is what we do while we are here. God is watching us; you can count on that.

Related Posts: Understanding the Bible as Literature; God Made Small