roduct of a process of development within Judaism itself. It is the Esoteric-Priestly source (P) of the Pentateuch that has first to tell us that 70 descendants of Jacob went down to Egypt (Gn 46”; cf. on the 70 or 72 names in Gn 10 Kénig's Einleitung, p. 231), and the Chronicler means to enumerate 70 descendants of Noah (1 Ch 15:3) and of Abraham (νν. 3.9) ; ef. the 70 disciples (Lk 10"), the seven spirits of God (Rev 15 etc.), the ‘seven prophetesses’ (Seder ‘olam rabba, ch. 21). But if a ees source is to be sought for the growing disposition to connect ‘seven’ with religious notions, the influence of Babylonia suggests itself most readily, for we read ‘the names of the angels came in their hand from Babylon’ (Jerus. Rosh hashshanah, i. 4: 5330 703 ὧν ον οπ mow). Hence, if the notion of ‘seven’ angels is to be attributed to foreign influence at all, the present writer prefers to trace this influence to Babylonia rather than to Persia, whose claims Riehm (HW 3! p. 17794) sought to establish. Riehm’s view is all the less certain because elsewhere only ‘four’ supreme ene are mentioned (Enoch ix. ¥o, Apoe. Bar 62), and in considering the Persian origin of the ‘seven eyes’ of Zec 3° 4 one must not leave out of account the language of Is 457 (‘I form the light and create darkness,’ ete.) and of Zec 8°.
(δ) Finally, the thrice repeated ‘and God blessed’ (Gn 133. 33 2%) raises the question how far the num- ber ‘ three’ comes into connexion with the religious contents of the Bible. The answer can only be that there are very few traces of ‘three’ in the cultus and the religious conceptions of the Israelites. All that the OT offers on this point is the following : The sanctuary of Jahweh is composed of three main divisions, the Court, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies (Ex 26" 27°, 1 K 6 ete.). In the bless- ing formula of Nu 6*-* the name Jahweh is thrice repeated, and three pairs of actions are predicated of Him. The threefdld mention of the Divine name
occurs also in Jos 22", Jer 7‘, and Nah 15, Further,
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Jahweh Zebaoth is thrice called holy in Is 6. This threefold use of a word is a species of Epizeuxis which is found in other instances as well (Gn Q™>. Bd. τὺ, Jer 22% Ezk 21™), and is a circumlocu- tion for the superlative. (So also in Egyptian, according to Brugsch, Steininschrift, etc. p. 310, the use of ‘good, good, good’ serves as a substitute for the superlative, ‘the best’). This relative rarity of a connexion between ‘ three’ and religious notions, which prevails in the OT, should not be made good from other sources. The thunder call, ‘Hear, O Israel, Jahweh is our God, Jahweh (the ἢ one’ (Dt 64, ef. Is 414 44° 4813), drowns the voice of those who refer us to the triads of gods that were adored by the Babylonians, Assyrians (Anu, Bel, and Ea, etc. [Tiele, Bab.-Assyr. Gesch. pp. 517, 523]}), and other nations of antiquity. It was only in the course of the later development of Israel’s religion that the Old Test. ‘I am that I am’ (Ex 3") was parted into ὁ ὧν καὶ ὁ ἣν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος (Rev 14 45); ef. the evolution of the eng en7Q οὐ of Is 6° which meets us in the mysterious sentence ἬΡΟΥ ἼΣΟΙ 702 ΡΟ Ader ow enn (Jesirah, ch. i. § 1). But the original meaning of the OT text must not be modified to suit either heathen parallels or later stages in its own development.
The question has still to be put why in one series = passages it is ‘three’ and in another ‘seven’ or some other of the round (holy) numbers that is chosen. The proper answer appears to be that seve+ was preferred to three (e.g. 2 K 131, Sir 25%, Rev 9" the ‘three woes’) when it was desired t> indicate a larger quantity. This seems to be the principle at work, 6.0.» in the first seven of the seventy ‘weeks’ (Dn 9%), or the ‘seven churches of Asia Minor’ (Rev 1‘), or the ‘ seven golden vials, full of the wrath of God’ (15’).
(δ) The question of the symbolical character of many numbers.—The biblical numbers would be of immense importance for the material side of exegesis if it could be established that many of those numbers are used to indicate certain ideas.
Now, to cast a glance first of all over the history of this question, the Old Testament itself has no positive note as to a secret meaning of the numbers it employs. Such an indication cannot be discovered in the statement that the Tabernacle was constructed after a heavenly pattern (Ex 25°). Nothing more than an inguiry into the meaning of numbers is ascribed to Daniel (9°; cf. ‘the prophets have inguired,’ ete., 1 P 2%). Josephus, too, was content to write in the Προοίμιον to his ᾿Αρχαιολογία (§ 4) that Moses says some things in an enigmatic way (αἰνίττεσθαι). Yet he did not interpret the nun:bers of Gn 1 in Ant. I. i. The same is the case in Midrash Bereshith rabba, and a simple counting of the number of occurrences of ὍΝ in Gn 1**” without an explanation of the significance of the number is all that we find in Mishna Aboth ν. 1. But, among the Hellenistic Jews, Aristobulus had already, according to Eusebius (Prep. Evang. xiii. 12, 13 ff.), inter- preted the number ‘seven,’ and Philo followed zealously in his footprints in his work Περὶ τῆς Μωυσέως κοσμοποιίας. Further, the interpretation of numbers was cultivated in the Haggadic portions of the Talmud and other Jewish writings (cf. e.g. Schegg, Bibl. Archéol. 1888, p. 419), and in Jesirah and Zohar. Such a reference of biblical numbers to the sphere of ideas might have its basis in the ape or in the secondary origin of many num bers, ut—