What Does the Number 3 Mean in the Bible?
Before we dive into the number three, we have to explore the meaning of the number in Hebrew. Many numbers in the Hebrew language tend to have a deeper meaning.
Three, shelosh[f.], sheloshah [m.] means harmony, new life, and completeness.
The number three appears in the Bible 467 times, fewer than the number seven, but more than most of the other symbolically important numbers.
Sometimes three is used as an emphatic Semitic triplet to describe the intensity of something. It’s not just holy. It’s holy, holy, holy.
We do have to keep in mind, three isn’t always necessarily something good. In Revelation, we see an evil trinity: Satan, the Antichrist, and the False prophet (Revelations 12-13).
However, typically, three means something complete and good. Satan does often like to take something good from God and corrupt it, much like the number three and the concept of the Trinity.
8 Ways the Number 3 is Significant in the Bible:
Although we don’t have time to dive into all 467 refences to the number three, let's explore a handful.
1. God says something 3 times: We see God repeating a phrase three times in several places in Scripture. Jesus goes back to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane three times (Matthew 26:4). God calls the prophet Samuel thrice (1 Samuel 3:8). Jesus repeats the phrase “feed my sheep” to Peter three times (John 21:15-17).
2. Three of the same words: We see several instances of three of the same words in a row. Woe (three of them) are called out by an eagle in revelation, foreshadowing terrible judgment (Revelation 8:13), Jeremiah repeats the word “land” thrice (Jeremiah 22:29), and we hear the triplet of holy in Isaiah (Isaiah 6:3).
3. The third day: We can’t talk three without talking about how Jesus rose after three days (1 Corinthians 15:4). In Jewish culture, three days past the time of death indicated they were truly dead. Therefore, Jesus truly conquered death by not rising until the third day.
4. Three patriarchs: In Scripture, we have three patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matthew 22:32). These were the fathers of the Israelite nation, God’s people.
5. Three prayers: This article suggests Early Christians may have had three set prayer times a day, modeled after verses like Psalm 55:17 and Daniel 6:10.
6. Three gifts: The Magi present to Jesus three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh in Matthew 2.
7. Three angels: In Revelation 14:6-16, we encounter three angels. The first, tells all the earth to worship God. The second, declares the fall of Babylon. And the third, declares that anyone who receives the Mark of the Beast will receive God’s wrath.
8. The Trinity: Of course, we can’t look at the number three without looking at the Trinity: God is three in one: the Father (1 Corinthians 8:6), the Son (Colossians 2:9), and the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17).
What Should Christians Remember about the Number 3?
Even numbers aren’t outside of God’s grasp. God has ordered the world to follow mathematical and numerical patterns. We can see his design in how numbers operate even in nature, knowing that everything on earth points back to the fact that God exists, so we have no excuse not to praise him.
Also, three is important in terms of the Trinity. If God was one in one, he would either be dependent on humans to satisfy his loneliness (which would make him limited in his power), or worse, created humans to appease any of his needs. In essence, in that model, humans would be slaves to God, like the Canaanite gods of old, such as Moloch.
God doesn’t need us. He has love in his very essence. The dance of the Trinity, allows for God not to be dependent on our existence, but for every part of his being to be so, so full of love, each person of the Trinity giving of himself to the other members. Therefore, he created us as an act of love, not dependence.
Three carries an extreme significance throughout Scripture in prophetic fulfilment to the nature of our prayers. As Christians, we should remember to keep an eye out for any instance we see something thrice in Scripture. It’s either emphatically pointing to the essence of something, or showing the completeness of something.
Numbers are important in the Bible. We can often overlook these because our culture doesn’t have the same emphasis on number symbolism that the original audience had. But by looking at Scripture in context, we can dive even more into the richness of God’s word.
Signifying completeness, the number three carries an extreme significance throughout Scripture.
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