rom Moses to Solomon.
(9) The number ‘five’ also has at times the character of a familiar (Gn 43%, Jg 183,1 S 17“ 218) and approximate number: Ly 22 268 1S 175, 2K 7%, Is 1918 (against Hitzig, ad loc.) 30%, Mt 14-2 (| Mk 6®-4, Lk 9%, Jn 6°), 1 Co 14%, 2 Es 1435, Could the number of the fingers fail to give rise to such a usage? (So, too, Hirzel, J.c. p. 2, derives this employment of ‘five’ from ‘the constant beholding of the fingers’). Cf. ‘five’ in the Tel el-Amarna letters (/.c.), 918 1012 165%- 269 8527, It may be noted that analogies to the ‘six’ fingers of 25 21” (11 Ch 205) and the ‘sedigiti’ of Pliny (Nat. Hist. xi, 43) have been collected, especially by Zéckler in Lange’s Bibelwerk (on 1 Ch 905).
(:) To the same source must be traced the frequent use and the round sense of ‘ten,’ which one may note in Gn 31’, Lv 26%, Nu 14" (? Jg 6”), LS 15 (17%, 2S 18", 1 Καὶ 145, 2 K 55), Is 618, Am 58, Zec 853, Job 198, Ec 7 (Neh 518), Mt 251, Lk 158, Rev 2”, To 4”, Enoch 93; and the ‘ten tempta- tions of Abraham’ (Book of Jubilees, ch. xix.) set in SP a a light the ‘ten’ temptations of Nu 14” (J. H. Kurtz, Gesch. d. Alten Bundes, ii. 398, has rightly said, ‘the attempts to reckon exact] ten historical temptations cannot be carried throu without violence’). Cf. the ‘ten persecutions’ in Augustine, de Civitate Dei, xviii. 52. It is interest- ing to note that even in the book Jestrah the ‘ten’ spheres are deduced from the number of the fingers (ch. 1. § 3, ed. Rittangel, p. 195: rey 1500 mp0 (wy
NUMBER
ΓΟ ΣΝ}; ef. for ‘ten times’ the Tel el-Amarna letters, 17%: 82021 (obverse) 4+(reverse) #225 46, 569312. 18 ate,
(x) It was no less natural to employ ‘fifty’ (5x 10) as a round number. Examples of its use in this way are found in Gn 6% 7* 8° 18%, Ex 1831] etc. 26° ete., Lv 2315 9510 etc. 278, Nu 455. 163, Dt 22%, Jos 74, 18 6%, 2S 24%, 1 Καὶ 184, 2K 1°, Is 3% ete., Ezr 8° ete.; πεντήκοντα in Jth 15; 3won in Mésha‘ inscrip. 1. 28. a
(A) Such approximate quantities were naturally also the numbers ‘hundred’ (e.g. in Lv 268, 1 S 245, Pr 17”, Ec 6° 813, 1 Ch 218, Mt 19” (TR), Mk 10”, Lk 88; ἑκατόν To 14" (cf. v.2), Jth 10:7; nxo Mésha’ inser. 1. 29) and ‘thousand’ (Ex 905 347, Dt 1" 79 32%, 1 S 187 2111 29°, 2S 1813, Is 8017 60%, Jer 3218, Am 5%, Mic 67, Ps 5010 8410 904 917 1058 11972, Job 9 33%, Ec 6° 7%, 1 Ch 12 1618), and 4>y has also, according to its etymology, the general sense of ‘union, association.’ The remark of Hirzel (i.c. p. 2) may, further, be noted: ‘the numbers “ ten,” “hundred,” ‘‘thousand,” each commence a series which in a certain sense is dominated by them.’
(Ὁ) At least the number ‘thousand’ has a rhetorical use of a second kind. Numbers of this kind are not infrequently due to the tendency to hyperbole, traces of which may be observed in the comparison of Abraham’s seed to ‘the dust of the earth,’ etc. (Gn 1315 ete.), as is admitted even By Flacius (Clavis script. sacre, ii. 152, 383 1f.). To the same department of rhetoric belong many larger numbers, 6. - ‘seven thousand’ (1K 19'* etc.), ‘ten thousand’ (Ly 268, Dt 32%, 1S 187 21% 295, Ezk 16’, Hos 8, Mic 6’, Ps 3° 687 917, Ca δ᾽, μυριότης Wis 12”), ‘seventy thousand’ (2 2415), ‘thousand thousand’ (Dn 7,9, 1 Ch 215 9919, 2 Ch 14°), ‘thousand myriads’ (Gn 24°), “myriads of thousands’ (Nu 10%), ‘a myriad of myriads’ (Da 7), and ‘myriads of myriads’ (Enoch xxxix.). Cf. πῶς οὐ δεκάκις, μᾶλλον δὲ μυριάκις δίκαιός ἐστ᾽ ἀπο» λωλέναι (quoted from Demosthenes by R. Volk- mann, Bhetorik der Griechen u. Romer, 1874,
. 374). Other analogies are presented by the
atin phrases ‘sexcenti, sexcenties,’ etc., collected especié ἣν by Hunziker, Die Figur der Hyperbel in den Gedichten Vergils (1896), p. 37 ff. A measure of truth lies also in the remark of Hirzel (/.c. p. 3), that the general numbers give requisite scope to the human imagination.
3. NUMBERS AND THEOLOGY. —A special rela- tion of biblical numbers to theology has yet to be considered, in connexion with the question whether many numbers do not possess either a certain sacredness or a symbolical meaning.
(a) The reverence for, or sacredness attached to, certain numbers. — The latter quality has its natural sources and degrees. For instance, the connexion of a number with an important element either in the national fortunes or in the religious conceptions, might procure for that number a lower or a higher respect. Traces of this so-called sacredness of numbers are not wholly wanting in the Bible. Let us follow these traces, in order that we may use the possible sources and degrees of this phenomenon as normative.
(a) An extremely important feature in the national recollections of Israel was the number of the tribes, which may have originated substantially as is indicated in the Book of Genesis, in spite of the opinion to the contrary held by many recent commentators (ef. art. by the present writer on ‘Israel’s Historical Recollections’ in Expos. Times, 1898, p. 349). Hence we might explain a certain