The Significance of Seven

At this point in our series stemming from the old negro spiritual, "Children, Go Where I Send Thee", we've reached the line "Seven for the seven who came down from heaven." This probably refers to the seven angels who pour out the wrath of God over those who stubbornly cling to Satan's ways after God's faithful have been saved. Read the description in the 16th chapter of Revelation. The bowls of wrath these seven angels pour out bring plagues of open sores, burning heat, bloody water, and more grotesequery to this remnant of humanity.

Seven is the biblical number of completion. The number seven ("shevah" in Hebrew), comes from the Hebrew root word "shavah" or "saba", meaning "full" or "satisfied".

When God's wrath is full, He will have the seven angels pour it out over Earth. In our beginning, when God saw His creation was good, He was satisfied and rested on the seventh day.

Seven is an extremely significant number in the Bible. It is the fourth most mentioned number there, after the numbers one, two, and three, in that order.

One lesser known biblical fact related to the number seven is that Noah's ark came to rest in the seventh month of the old Hebrew calendar (the civil calendar), on the seventeenth day. The new religious calendar instituted with the first celebration of Passover, made Nisan (the seventh month) now the first month. Jesus was crucified on the 14th day of Nisan and rose from the dead three days later. Noah's family left the ark on the same day that Jesus would rise from the dead at least two thousand years later, in the seventh month.

[Next: Six who couldn't get fixed]