And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

Exodus 34.28

The Number Ten plays many roles in Scripture. It is the base of the Biblical Number system as can be seen quite clearly in the Alphabet Table. It relates to the Hand through the value of the Hebrew Letter (Yod, Hand) - and hence becomes a symbol of Personal Action and Person Possesion, which integrates with how Yod functions in the Hebrew grammar. Thus we understand the Ten Commandments - the premier Biblical statement of how we are to control our Actions.

Another highly significant application of the Number Ten emmerges from the relation between the numerical values of semantically related Greek and Hebrew words. In the Algebra of God's Word, the Number Ten functions much like a magnifying glass. Multiplication by Ten does not so much alter, as amplify the meaning. It is frequently found in the transform from Hebrew to Greek and in the fulfillment of prophecies. A few examples should make this function clear.

The foundation of the Christian Faith rests upon the sin atonement accomplished through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the Cross. In the Old Testament, this was foreshadowed in the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb, and in 1 Corinthians 5.7 Paul explicitly identifies the two, saying, "Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us." The Hebrew word for Passover is:

This relates to the fulfillment of the symbol of the Passover in Christ:

Thus the symbol relates to its fulfillment via the Number Ten:

Christ (Greek) = 10 x Passover (Hebrew)

Another premier example is found in the symbol of the Dove. Luke 3.22 reports that when Jesus was baptized, "the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him." In Hebrew, we have:

And in Greek:

The Number 71 is prime. It appears in the text of Scripture when God distributed His Spirit upon Moses and 70 elders (Numbers 11.17f):

And the LORD said unto Moses, Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee. And I will come down and talk with thee there: and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone.

It is important to note that these four ideas - The Passover, Christ, Dove, and The Holy Spirit - encompass some of the richest symbols that reside in the very heart of the Gospel message.

Another extremely significant example of God's use of the Number Ten is found in the value of this phrase:

This phrase does not occur in Scripture, but it is a perfectly formed Hebrew way to express this concept. It integrates with this Divine Title revealed in Revelation 1.8:

I am Alpha and Omega (801), the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Most modern translation render the highlighted phrase as "who is, and who was, and who is to come." The most literal rendering would be "The One who is, and who was, and who is to come." In any case, we have the identity:

As an aside, the title "Ho On" - translated as "THE BEING" - is how the Septuagint renders the Divine Title I AM THAT I AM in Exodus 3.14. This means that it is very likely the early church understood this as a title of the Eternal God.

As a final example, we have this First Commandment (Exodus 20.3):

This relates by a factor of Ten to the words spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ during His Temptation. The exact words written are (Luke 4.8):

Exactly the same words are found in Matthew 4.10, with the only variation being that some manuscripts change placement of "proskuneseis", which doesn't matter since it leaves the numerical weight invariant.

Here now is a summarization of the results derived above:

These last identities also integrate with the previous results:

What can we say in light of such revelation, but praise to the Lord God who has shed His light upon us?

Yet we have just begun. There is a long tradition concerning the meaning of the Number Ten and its relation to the Alphabet, which is clearly based on powers of Ten. But this will require yet another another article ... there's so much work to do!

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