Finally! I told you I'd get to it one day! Before I get into the numbers though, I want to take a moment to talk about faith. I know I've talked about it before, but I have to share this because Sara Gene received a revelation about faith, the strength in faith, and the healing and blessing that can come from faith.
Since this newsletter is about numerology, you'll be interested to know that the word faith occurs 246 times in the KJV bible. But only two of those times are in the Old Testament! It is clear Yehovah is trying to tell us this is important now more than in Old Testament times. It is also clear that faith has power, as Luke 17:19 shows us just a man's faith made him whole. And in Acts 14:9, we see that faith is necessary to be healed. It's also important to realize that a lack of faith can block healing and blessing. In Mark 5:40-42, Jesus raised Jairus' daughter from the dead, but only after he kicked everyone out of the house except those that had the faith that she would be raised. All those He kicked out were mocking Him. So take an opportunity to look inward and assess your faith in Yehovah, His power, and His love for His children. Having faith is a choice we make, as we can see in Acts 11:24 that faith and being full of the Holy Spirit are two separate things.
The Numbers
Ok, now let's get into the numbers. I don't know if you all (or, y'all if you prefer!) have heard of numerology, but if you haven't it's the belief in a connection between numbers and a spiritual significance. I'll be honest, when I first heard about it I was a skeptic. I chalked it up to coincidence, or people looking for significance in something that's random. As I took a look more into it however, it is clear to me numerology is one of the many layers in which Yehovah operates.
We know that everything in the physical is connected to things in the spiritual. Just take a look at the sacrifices they made in the Old Testament and the significance of blood and how serious it was to not consume it. Also, there's a process Yehovah tells Moses to tell the people in Numbers 5:11-31. It's a test for an unfaithful wife that involves her drinking water that has the ink in which curses were written, which results in her abdomen swelling if she was unfaithful. Clearly there is something unseen going on in this situation that results in this being an accurate test of faithfulness.
The same then goes for the language of Yehovah's chosen people, Hebrew. There are at least three different meanings for each of the Hebrew letters. They are pictorial letters, so the symbol itself has a meaning, they are letters, so they are used to form words, and they have numbers assigned, and this is where the numerology comes in. Isaiah 55:9 tells us Yehovah's ways are higher than our ways, and we can see that day to day when something unexpected happens and we remember back to a seemingly meaningless event that occurred in our lives previously that prepared us for that unexpected happening. At the time, the preparation meant nothing to us. But at the right time we see it really did have meaning.
From the Beginning
So let's take a look at the numbers we see in the beginning. You can read through the record of creation and gloss over the fact that certain things were created on certain days, but you'll be missing the foundation of the meanings of numbers. Let's jump to day 6: living creatures, beasts of the earth, and MAN (Gen 1:24-31). Where else do we see this number? In Revelation 13:18, we see this is the number used for the beast, and it is specified that this is the number of man!
If this isn't significant enough for you, take a look at the number 7. We know this is the day of rest, and it also signifies completion and fulfillment of promise. If you think numerology is something modern man has created and meant nothing to the Jewish people, take a look at Matthew 1:17. It's explicitly stated, with purpose, there are fourteen generations (seven times two) between Abraham and David, from David until they were taken to Babylon, and from Babylon until Jesus. Additionally, Yehovah made a promise to Joshua to bring down the walls of Jericho if he had the people march around the city for seven days, and on the seventh day seven times (Joshua 6:1-20). There are seven churches listed in Revelation (Revelation 2, 3). Naaman was told to bathe in the river seven times to be healed of his leprosy (2 Kings 5:9-10, 14). The Lord's Prayer has seven parts (Matthew 6:9-13). There are seven seals, seven trumpets and seven bowls of wrath in Revelation.
Just Coincidence?
Well, those are so obvious, perhaps they are just coincidental? Writing it so out in the open like that, the Holy Spirit just wanted to emphasize those numbers. Not so. Let's take a look deeper. There have been many people that have studied the patterns and numerical significance in scripture. That's how people became obsessed with what they called, "The Bible Code," in the mid-90s. Over and over again, they have found that the patterns and numbers found are too numerous to be coincidental. In fact they are so numerous that it is statistically impossible they occur randomly or coincidentally.
Taking a look back at the beginning, the Hebrew of Genesis 1:1 is made up of 28 letters (a multiple of SEVEN) which make up the SEVEN Hebrew words for "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Remember I said each letter has a number associated with it? Well, when you add up all the numbers of the first and last letters of each word in this verse it's a multiple of SEVEN (1393). The number of times the Hebrew word for SEVEN occurs in the Old Testament? 287 (7 times 41).
Even Deeper
If that has you intrigued, if you weren't already, I encourage you to watch this video a close brother sent to me. It takes the hypothesis that Isaiah 46:10 has much more meaning than a casual reader, and I think even most scholars, understands. That perhaps when Yehovah says He declared the end from the beginning, He didn't just mean He decides and is in control of all things. Perhaps He meant in the beginning of scripture He declared how our sin would be atoned for and how the world (and Satan) would be overcome. Take a look, and decide for yourself.
I want to close by stressing that if you do get into numerology and decide to study it more, do not let it become an obsession that lets you ignore the important things like strengthening your faith, prayer, and being alight to the world. This topic is very intriguing and it's very easy to get lost down a rabbit trail, and before you know it those things have fallen away.
I also want to say despite my interest in the topic, I am not convinced of modern numerology. What I mean by that is you can find many people out there that take modern day names of people and places and try to find numerical significance of those names. I believe this is a method of Satan to take something meaningful from Yehovah and take it one step further to make it an obsession for people to be distracted away from Him. Hebrew was designed to have letters be assigned numbers, however modern languages were not. Separate words and symbols are used in these languages to mean letters vs numbers.
But I guarantee, if you take a little time to take a look into Hebrew numerology in scripture your faith will strengthen as you will see Yehovah Himself not only inspired scripture, but is the author of all things!
Shabbat Shalom and God bless you!
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