loftiness of character attaching to ‘twelve’ as well as the frequent use of this number. The instances we have in view are not those where ‘twelve’ manifestly stands in direct or indirect relation to the tribes of Israel, as in Ex 24428"! (‘ twelve stones in the breastplate of the high priest’), Lv 245,
NUMBER
Nu 7°*-, Jos 4%, 1 K 1851, Ezk 4851, Ezr 617 8%, Mt 19%, cf. the 24 classes of the priests (1 Ch 244) and Levites (25%) and the 24 elders (Rev 4‘); the 48 Levitical cities (Nu 357); the 72 men (Nu 115" 35); the 144,000 sealed ones (Rev 72); the twelve baskets (Mt 14”); the twelve legions of angels (26™); the twelve gates of the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev ΣῊ ther have we in view especially the twelve generations that are enumerated from Aaron to Ahimaaz in 1 Ch 5*°“ and 6% [Eng. 6*8 and ©-°8), Another important element in the national consciousness of the Israelites was the recollection of the [about] forty years of the wilderness wanderings, as is proved by the frequent allusions to these (see the passages cited above in 2, a, n); and this recollection was of a very serious and mournful character. Hence it is intelligible that the round number 40 should be chosen just in those passages where the duration of a serious situation was to be indicated, as, for example, in the 40 days of punishment, of fasting, and of repentance, Gn 7* 12-17 86 Ex 2418 3425, Dt 9% 1.18 10”, 1S 17", 1 K 19, Jon 34, Mt 43.
(8) A fundamental element in the religious ex- perience of Israel was the receiving of the ‘ten’ commandments (Ex 2077 || Dt 5% *), which three times are expressly called ‘the ten words’ (Ex 34%, Dt 4 10); cf. also the ten candlesticks in the sanctuary (1 Καὶ 75). It would be no wonder, then, if the sanctity of those fundamental command- ments over to their nwmber, a process which may have been favoured by the circumstance of the ten times repeated ‘and God said,’ by which the world was made (Gn 1°), unless, indeed, the ten repetitions of this formula were themselves due to the significance of the number ‘ten.’ The present writer feels disposed to adopt this last suggestion, because the combination of those ten sox) with the seven ‘and God saw that (it was) good’ (Gn 1+ 10-12-18. 21.25.81), and with the three “and God blessed’ (17+ * 2°), appears too striking to allow the concurrence of those three numbers, ‘ten,’ ‘seven,’ and ‘three,’ to be set down as for- tuitous. Thesame conclusion is specially favoured by the fact that the formula of approval, καὶ ἴδεν ὁ θεὸς ὅτι καλόν, is repeated in the X eight times, the additional instance being 1%. It is more likely that the number was reduced to seven from an original eight than, conversely, that seven occurrences of the formula were expanded to eight.
(y)_ If we are right in the above supposition, the
sition is all the more established that ‘seven’
ad, in the estimation of the Hebrews, a certain measure of sanctity attached to it. This position is, however, very probable upon other grounds as well. For instance, next to the ark with the ten com- mandments, which of the fittings of the sanctuary was counted more sacred than the seven-branched candlestick (Ex 25%, 1 K 7, Zec 4%)? Was it not this which symbolized the illumination bestowed by the Spirit of God (cf. Is 11%)? And how the reverence for the number ‘seven’ must have been augmented by the circumstance that this number, derived from the revolution of the moon, etc. (see above, 2, a, 5), was connected with the Sabbath and many of the festal seasons! Finally, what a powerful contribution to the sacredness of ‘seven’ was supplied by the act of swearing, which, through the ceremonies practised (Gn 21*%) and the name (nishba') applied to it, connected itself with the number ‘seven’ (sheba'), a number which could be read off from the stars! Even if this con- nexion of ‘seven’ with holy utensils, seasons, and transactions was itself a secondary one, yet, once it was established, it must have tended greatly to promote the frequent use of the number ‘seven,’ and it is perhaps to the sacredness of ‘seven’ that we must attribute its selection in the following
NUMBER 565
instances : the fitting up of the place of worshi
(1 K 17, Ezk 405: * 418, cf. Pr 9'); the detailing o acts of ritual (‘the priest shall sprinkle of the blood seven times,’ etc., Ly 4°17 811} 147@ 164 Nu 19%, 2K 5"), or the specification of the objects required in the cultus (‘seven’ lambs, ete. Nu 28", Ezk 45%, 2 Ch 291); cf. the seven sons of Saul who were ‘hanged before the Lorn’ (2 S 219); and the seven locks of the Nazirite Samson (Jg 1018.19) appear to the present writer to have a necessary connexion with the act of swearing.
Besides, this connexion of ‘seven’ with re- ligious conceptions was common to the Israelites and those peoples in whose neighbourhood they lived at different times. Note, in the Bab.- Assyrian poem ‘ Die Héllenfahrt der I8tar’ (ed. A. Jeremias, 1887), the seven gates through which Ishtar descended to the ‘land without return’ (Ob- verse 1]. 63, Reverse ll. 14, 45). Further, note the seven altars which Balaam, who was sent for from Mesopotamia (Pitru on the Euphrates), caused to be erected in Moab (Nu 23!*+14 2); the seven sacrificial victims directed to be offered by the three friends of Job ‘in the land of Uz’ (Job 495); and the circumstance that ‘with the Egyptians also ‘“‘seven” was a holy number’ (Ebers, ΣΡ ΡΣ und die Bicher Mose’s, p. 339). The combination of this number with the cultus was, therefore, probably an inheritance which the Hebrews brought with them when they migrated from their home in the East. Now, we observe that this combinin of ‘seven’ with religious conceptions shows itse in an augmented measure in the post-exilic period. For instance, ‘ox and fatling’ of 2 S 6” is replaced in the parallel passage, 1 Ch 1535, by ‘ seven bullocks and seven rams,’ and ‘the seven holy angels’ are mentioned in To 12. This may, of course, be the