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Bible: Old Testament: English Standard Version
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BetaSymbols & Motifs
Numbers
While in some cases, numbers simply represent quantifiable amounts, certain numbers in the Old Testament also carry symbolic significance; particularly the numbers seven, twelve, and forty. Seven carries connotations of perfection or fulfillment, especially concerning God’s purposes for an item or event. This connotation likely has a linguistic derivation because the consonant pattern in the word for seven is identical to the pattern in the word for “complete” or “full,” and as ancient Hebrew was often written without its vowels, the two words would look indistinguishable in writing. The symbolic significance of seven can be seen in the seven days of creation, the seven-year calendrical pattern leading up to the Year of Jubilee, the Israelites being told to march around the walls of Jericho seven times, and the seven major Jewish festivals.
The number 12 is likewise significant, symbolizing perfection in authority or governance. The most prominent example of its use is the 12 sons of Jacob, who became the patriarchs of the 12 tribes of Israel. The number 12 also appears elsewhere, including in the number of minor prophets (whose collected works were called “the Book of the Twelve” in Jewish tradition), the number of Israelite spies sent to scout the land of Canaan, the number of governors appointed by Solomon, and the number of priests appointed by Ezra.
Another number, 40, is used to designate a symbolically significant passage of time. If a sequence of time in the Old Testament is referred to with forty units, this is a sign to the reader that the events being described are particularly important to the history of God’s people. This symbolic usage can be seen in the 40 days and 40 nights of Noah’s flood, in the 40 years the Israelites were forced to wander in the desert, the 40 days of Moses’s sojourn on Mount Sinai, and the 40-year reigns ascribed to King David and King Solomon.
The Staff
Throughout the Old Testament, staffs are symbols of authority, governance, and the care of others. Staffs were the most basic and common of implements in the ancient Near East, but they came to be associated particularly with rulers and herdsmen. These two contexts merge in the person of Moses, who is both a herdsman (having worked for 40 years as a shepherd in Midian) and a ruler, leading the Israelites through the wilderness. Moses’s staff is at the forefront of his activities, used in drawing down plagues on Egypt, parting the Red Sea, and bringing a spring of water gushing out of a rock. The staff thus symbolizes a kind of leadership that guards and provides for the people, a usage that persists throughout the rest of the Old Testament. Another prototypical leader, David, is also both a shepherd and a ruler, and he has a staff in his hands when he begins his ascent to power by defeating the giant Goliath (see 1 Samuel 17:40). A staff is also sometimes used to describe the guidance and authority of God, seen most prominently in the famous lines from Psalm 23:4: “[…] your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” This image, which puts God in the place of a shepherd, is meant to convey the security the Israelites feel by living under the watchful authority of their God.
The Rainbow
The rainbow is a symbol that appears rarely in the Old Testament, but its appearance is a significant part of the overall story. At the end of Noah’s flood, God enters into a covenant with Noah, with his descendants, and with all living things. As a provision of his side of the covenant, God pledges never again to destroy the earth with a flood of such magnitude. The rainbow is established as a sign of this covenant, a visible assurance of God’s promise to show mercy and to withhold the judgment of ultimate destruction. Because the rainbow is a sign relating to God’s commitment to his covenant, it gradually comes to symbolize the beauty of his divine existence in Jewish literature, as can be seen in Ezekiel’s vision of the throne of God: “Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance […] of the likeness of the glory of the LORD” (Ezekiel 1:28). This usage would later be picked up in Christian depictions of God’s heavenly glory (see Revelation 4:3).
Mountains
The geography of the ancient Near East had a shaping influence on the way that the Israelites conceived of their religious practice, and this is particularly evident than in their symbolic use of mountains to represent the security and strength of God’s abode. Mountains were particularly important in two episodes of Israelite history: First, at Mount Sinai, where God met them after their exodus from Egypt and delivered the law to them; and second, at the mountains of Jerusalem, where the temple of God was to be built. The geographical landscape of ancient Israel was centered around mountains, because the heartland of early Israelite settlement was a highland ridge that ran north-to-south through the center of the country, with the coastal plain of the Mediterranean Sea on one side and the deep rift of the Jordan River’s valley on the other side. Jerusalem sat astride this central ridge, at one of the highest points in the country, affording a defensible site for the national capital. Since Israel’s initial encounter with God had been at a mountain, it likely seemed fitting that God’s permanent abode in Israel—the temple—should also be built on the summit of a mountain, variously described as Mount Moriah or Mount Zion (both the names of peaks in Jerusalem’s vicinity). Symbolically, mountains convey a place of refuge and security, made all the more secure by God’s presence there: “As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people, from this time forth and forevermore” (Psalm 125:2).
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