Just as wordsmiths used keywords to weave the biblical text together, the Bible bursts with repeating number wavelengths. Not to be ignored, the numeric language is intended to convey a deeper understanding. A word or number can communicate a whole idea or story. We can easily see Hebrew word plays by repetition of letter sequence, their reversal, or mixing. Since all Hebrew letters (alphabet of 22) have a numeric value, number plays also occur by repetition and sequence variation. It is why “Fun Factors” are a part of my blogs.

In Blog 2, we saw that God created time measurement on days one, four, and seven (1-4-7), and Blog 4 showed time marked by sevens units of days, weeks, months, years, and millennia. Today, we will look at Genesis’s first literary unit (Gen.1-2:1-3) to grasp a basic numerical sense.

The first sentence has 7 Hebrew words (Gen. 1:1).
The second sentence has 14 words (Gen. 1:2).
These 21 words are followed by 7 paragraphs of 7 creation days (Gen. 1:3-2:3).¹
The seventh day has three concluding sentences of 7 words (3 × 7 = 21). Three emphasizes certainty.
Twenty-one is the value of Exodus 3:14’s “I AM,” His work’s surety (3) leading to the Sabbath (7).

Keywords, such as light, heavens/firmament, earth, and good, are used 7 times or multiple of sevens.¹
On the second and third days, water occurs 7 times.¹
On the fifth and sixth days, “living” thing (Strong’s 2416), chiah, occurs 7 times.¹
In verses 29-30, “every” appears 7 times; “every/all” 17 times in Genesis 1-2:1-3.
Elohim occurs 35 times (5 × 7) in Genesis 1-2:1-3.
The seventh day has 35 words (Gen. 2:1-3).
“And Elohim saw” appears 7 times (numerical value of 217, 7 × 31; El = 31).
The total word count in Genesis 1 is 434, (7 × 62), with letter sum 100099, 31(50² + 27²).
The sum of Genesis 1:1-2:3’s 469 words, (7 × 67, 67 is the 19^th prime, 4 + 6 + 9 = 19), is 110,601, 3² × 12289; 12289 is the 1-4-70^th  prime number.

In addition to introducing the idea of seven as building toward wholeness, a journey of time that liberates to completeness and rest, other numeric meanings are seeded in Genesis’s first week.

“And Elohim said,” sum 343, 7³, appears 10 times (7 direct and 3 indirect, “Let us…”), seeding 10 generations, 10 plagues, and 10 commandments, a unit of the entire, measured amount.
“Elohim created” (3x) sums to 289, or 17²; 17, the 7^th prime, marks victory, a combination of 7 + 10.
“Appointed times,” (1x) mow-a-dim, the only word used for YHWH’s sacred feasts, is 170, 17 × 10.
“good,” tov (7x) has a value of 17.
“And the Spirit of Elohim” (1x) adds up to 306, or 2 × 153, (153 = 3² × 17, 144 + 9, or 12² + 3² ).
“garden,” gan, has a number value of 53.
“And there was evening and there was morning” (6x) sums to 636, 12 × 53.
“And Elohim called” (3x) total is 403, 31 × 13.
In Genesis 1:14-19 two words for light occur 8 times. “Light,” owr (3x) is 207; and light(s) m^aowr (5x) adds to 246, (6 × 41).
“Living,” chiah (7x) adds to 23, “life” chi (1x) = 18.
“seed” (6x) has a number value of 277, (14² + 9²), 277 is the the 59^th prime and 27^th Pythagorean prime².
“And behold, it was very good,” (1x) totals to 128, 2⁷, or 8² + 8².

“gathering” of waters into seas (1x, Gen. 1:10), מִקְוֵא, mikveh, 147, 3 × 7², out of which rose the dry land.

“YHWH” sums to 26; the oldest written form of YHWH on the Mount Ebal tablet is YHW,³ equal to 21.
Genesis 2:1’s “And God finished” = 152, 8 × 19, referencing the eighth days and 19-year Metonic cycle.
Genesis 2:1-3 total letter sum of the seventh day’s 35 words is 10502, a play on “And God finished.”

Takeaway:
The use of numbers, especially the number seven, in the Bible’s first literary unit cannot be accidental but intends to develop a conceptual language via numeric figures.