ALPHA MAAMA (A.M.)

Tusite Ma’asi 21, 2023

God's Favorite Number

KO E FIKA FAKA-‘OTUA

EXODUS 20:9-10

"SIX DAYS YOU SHALL LABOR, AND DO ALL YOUR WORK, BUT THE SEVENTH DAY IS A SABBATH TO THE LORD YOUR GOD."

‘EKISOTO 20:9-10

Ko e ‘aho ‘e ono te ke ngāue, ‘o fai ai ho ngaahi nafa kehekehe; 10 ka ko hono ‘aho fitu ko e Sāpate ia ‘a Sihova ko ho ‘Otua:

If God has a favorite number, it's sheva ("seven"). The opening sentence of the Bible is seven Hebrew words. He completed his work of creation on the seventh day (Gen. 2:2). This law about the seventh day begins with the seventh letter of the Hebrew alphabet (zayin). Seven categories of humans and animals rest on the Sabbath (you, son, daughter, male servant, female servant, livestock, sojourner). Later, God will establish the spring festival of Shavuot ("weeks," a word derived from sheva). God's number is seven. We might say that as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, his number of completeness and totality and perfection is 777.

The number of sinful humanity ("of a man"), however, and of every anti-God power ("of the beast") is 666 (Rev. 13:18). This number is not mystical but pathetic: it's man aping God, the devil straining toward divinity. But we are a falling-short, imperfect 666, and he is a perfect and complete 777. He is God and we are not. Yet our perfect God also perfectly loves us. He forgives us seventy times seven-and beyond. By joining us to Christ, who rested in the tomb on the seventh day, he brings us into wholeness in his resurrection perfection.

O Lord, "seven times a day I praise You, because of your righteous ordinances" (Ps. 119:164 NASB).