Please, what is the biblical significance of number 7?
The fact that numbers are significant in the Bible is irrefutable. The number 7 seems to be particularly significant. To determine its significance, let’s look at a few instances of its use.
- After creating the world in six days, the Lord rested on the seventh. We read in Genesis 2:1-3, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the SEVENTH DAY God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Of course, the Lord could have created the world instantly, yet He takes six days and then added a day of rest, thus instituting a week as having seven days.
- No animal could be sacrificed until it was past seven days old. Exodus 22:30, “Likewise shalt thou do with thine oxen, and with thy sheep: SEVEN DAYS it shall be with his dam; on the eighth day thou shalt give it me.”
- There were seven pairs of clean animals for sacrifice that went into Noah’s ark. Genesis 7:1-3, “And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Of every clean beast thou shalt TAKE TO THEE BY SEVENS, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.”
- Joshua and Israel marched around Jericho seven times while seven priests blew seven trumpets before the walls came crashing down. Joshua 6:3-4, “And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets.”
- There were seven feasts of the Lord in the Old Testament: Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Pentecost, Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Tabernacles.
- There were seven letters written to the seven churches in Asia recorded in Revelation 2-3.
- In the book of Revelation, there were seven seal judgments, seven trumpet judgments, and seven bowl judgments.
There are only a few of the examples we could use to illustrate the great number of the use of the number seven in the scriptures. The number seven is seen to represent divine perfection or completion and is used over 700 times in the Word. We need to be careful about assigning symbolic meanings to any text, especially when the scripture are not clear about such meanings. But, there are definitely occasions it seems obvious that God is communicating the idea of divine perfection or completion by means of the number 7. (253.2)