100: The Importance of Numbers in the Bible

We’ve made it to one hundred! Also known as five score in medieval contexts, there is so much I could tell you about this first three-digit whole number. There are almost one hundred references to the number in the Bible and I have tried to condense all the important examples in this article.
 
In science, one hundred is the atomic number of fermium. Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius or centigrade. The Karman line, which separates the Earth’s atmosphere from the rest of space, lies at one hundred kilometres above sea level. 
 
In the United States of America, there are one hundred senators in congress at one time. The $100 bill is known as the “Benjamin” because it features a portrait of founding father Benjamin Franklin. A €100 banknote features the image of a Rococo gateway on one side and a Baroque bridge on the reverse. 
 
A devout Jew is expected to say at least one hundred blessings per day. In Islam, the Koran states that men and women who commit adultery will receive one hundred lashes of a whip. In Greek mythology, the giant Argus had one hundred eyes. He could sleep with fifty eyes open, allowing him to keep an eye on whatever he was charged to guard. 
 
The fourteen epistles written by Paul have in total one hundred chapters. The apocryphal book of Barnabas claims Adam and Eve cried for one hundred days in repentance of their sins. 
 
There are one hundred years in a century and when someone reaches their 100th birthday they become a centenarian. In the Bible, there are records of events that occurred to two people who were one hundred years old – Shem and Abraham:

• Genesis 11:10 (NIV): Two years after the flood, when Shem was100 years old, he became the fatherof Arphaxad
• Genesis 17:17 (NIV): Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?”
• Genesis 21:5 (NIV): Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

 
As you can see, the above examples are from the book of Genesis. There are two more mentions of the number one hundred in this book:

• Genesis 26:12 (NIV): Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the Lord blessed him.
• Genesis 33:19 (NIV): For a hundred pieces of silver, he bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, the plot of ground where he pitched his tent.

 
Initially, I was not expecting to find so many mentions of the number one hundred in the Bible, however, when I turned to Exodus and started noting them down, I soon gave up! From chapter 25, the book of Exodus records God’s precise instruction for the construction of the Tabernacle. The courtyard of the Tabernacle (Exodus 27) was to be 100 cubits long on the north and south sides. This information is repeated in Exodus 38 when the Israelites start the building work. 
 
Exodus 38:25-27 records the cost of the building materials used to construct the Tabernacle. The silver obtained from the people in the community weighed 100 talents. “The 100 talents of silver were used to cast the bases for the sanctuary and for the curtain--100 bases from the 100 talents, one talent for each base.” (38:25 NIV)
 
Later on in the Old Testament in the book of Ezekiel chapters 40-42, we are told the of Ezekiel’s vision for the restoration of the Temple. This includes a number of measurements. The outer court was 100 cubits on the east and north side. The distance between the north gate of the outer court and the north gate of the inner court was 100 cubits. The same measurements were given for the south gates. The measurement of the court was 100x100 cubits. The temple was 100 cubits long as was its court. The building at the rear of the temple was also 100 cubits in length. The rooms for the priests were in a building that was 100 cubits long. The inner passage was the same length.  
 
Other verses from the Old Testament that mention measurements or weight include:

• 1 Kings 7:2 (NIV): He built the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon a hundred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high, with four rows of cedar columns supporting trimmed cedar beams.
• 2 Kings 23:33 (NIV): Pharaoh Necho put him in chains at Riblah in the land of Hamath so that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.
• 2 Chronicles 25:6 (NIV): He also hired a hundred thousand fighting men from Israel for a hundred talents of silver.
• 2 Chronicles 25:9 (NIV): Amaziah asked the man of God, “But what about the hundred talents I paid for these Israelite troops?” The man of God replied, “The Lord can give you much more than that.”
• 2 Chronicles 27:5 (NIV): Jotham waged war against the king of the Ammonites and conquered them. That year the Ammonites paid him a hundred talents of silver, ten thousand cors of wheat and ten thousand cors of barley. The Ammonites brought him the same amount also in the second and third years.
• 2 Chronicles 36:3 (NIV): The king of Egypt dethroned him in Jerusalem and imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.
• Ezra 7:22 (NIV): up to a hundred talents of silver, a hundred cors of wheat, a hundredbaths of wine, a hundred baths of olive oil, and salt without limit.
• Ezra 8:26 (NIV): I weighed out to them 650 talents of silver, silver articles weighing 100 talents, 100 talents of gold

 
There are quite a few times the number one hundred is used in relation to a group of people:

• Leviticus 26:8 (NIV): Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.
• Judges 7:19 (NIV): Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands.
• Judges 20:10 (NIV): We’ll take ten men out of every hundred from all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred from a thousand, and a thousand from ten thousand, to get provisions for the army. Then, when the army arrives at Gibeahin Benjamin, it can give them what they deserve for this outrageous act done in Israel.”
• 1 Kings 18:4 (NIV): While Jezebel was killing off the Lord’s prophets, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them in two caves, fifty in each, and had supplied them with food and water.)
• 1 Kings 18:13 (NIV): Haven’t you heard, my lord, what I did while Jezebel was killing the prophets of the Lord? I hid a hundred of the Lord’s prophets in two caves, fifty in each, and supplied them with food and water.
• 2 Kings 4:43 (NIV): “How can I set this before a hundred men?” his servant asked But Elisha answered, “Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the Lord says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’”

 
Other examples of one hundred in the Old Testament include:

• Deuteronomy 22:19 (NIV): They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives
• Joshua 24:32 (NIV): And Joseph’s bones, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the tract of land that Jacob bought for a hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. This became the inheritance of Joseph’s descendants.
• 1 Samuel 18:25 (NIV): Saul replied, “Say to David, ‘The king wants no other price for the bride than a hundred Philistine foreskins, to take revenge on his enemies.’” Saul’s plan was to have David fall by the hands of the Philistines.
• 1 Samuel 25:18 NIV): Abigail acted quickly. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys.
• 2 Samuel 3:14 (NIV): Then David sent messengers to Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, demanding, “Give me my wife Michal, whom I betrothed to myself for the price of a hundred Philistine foreskins.”
• 2 Samuel 8:4 (NIV): David captured a thousand of his chariots, seven thousand charioteers and twenty thousand foot soldiers. He hamstrung all but a hundred of the chariot horses.
• 2 Samuel 16:1 (NIV): When David had gone a short distance beyond the summit, there was Ziba, the steward of Mephibosheth, waiting to meet him. He had a string of donkeys saddled and loaded with two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred cakes of raisins, a hundred cakes of figs and a skin of wine.
• 2 Samuel 24:3 (NIV): But Joab replied to the king, “May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?”
• 1 Kings 4:23 (NIV): ten head of stall-fed cattle, twenty of pasture-fed cattle and a hundred sheep and goats, as well as deer, gazelles, roebucks and choice fowl.
• 1 Chronicles 18:4 (NIV): David captured a thousand of his chariots, seven thousand charioteers and twenty thousand foot soldiers. He hamstrung all but a hundred of the chariot horses.
• 2 Chronicles 3:16 (NIV): He made interwoven chains and put them on top of the pillars. He also made a hundred pomegranates and attached them to the chains.
• 2 Chronicles 4:8 (NIV): He made ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north. He also made a hundred gold sprinkling bowls.
• 2 Chronicles 29:32 (NIV): The number of burnt offerings the assembly brought was seventy bulls, a hundred rams and two hundred male lambs—all of them for burnt offerings to the Lord.
• Ezra 2:69 (NIV): According to their ability they gave to the treasury for this work 61,000 daricsof gold, 5,000 minas of silver and 100 priestly garments.
• Jeremiah 52:23 (NIV): There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides; the total number of pomegranates above the surrounding network was a hundred.

 
In the New Testament, Jesus occasionally refers to one hundred items in his parables. In the parable of the sower, which is recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, he says “Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:8; Mark 4:8; Luke 8:8) This seed refers to someone who hears the word of God and understands it.
 
In Matthew 18 and Luke 15, Jesus tells the parable of the wandering sheep. 

• Matthew 18:12 (NIV): “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?
• Luke 15:4 (NIV): Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?

 
Later in the same chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells Peter the parable of the unmerciful servant. The servant’s master had forgiven him of all his debts but the servant would not do likewise to those who owed him money. “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.” (Matthew 18:28 NIV)
 
In Matthew 19 and Mark 10, Jesus is asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” During his explanation, Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” (Mark 10:29-31 NIV)
 
The remaining two examples of the number one hundred in the New Testament come from the book of Romans and Revelation:

• Roman 4:19 (NIV): Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.
• Revelation 16:21 (NIV): From the sky huge hailstones, each weighing about a hundred pounds, fell on people. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible.

 
With so many examples in the Bible, theologians have been quick to assume the number one hundred holds a special meaning. Once again, it could be a rough estimate, particularly in relation to a number of people and, therefore, represent a large amount. The precise measurements recorded in Exodus and Ezekiel suggest otherwise.
 
Some writers have proposed one hundred represents wholeness, whereas other Christian literature uses the number as a symbol of celestial beatitude. Saint Augustine, on the other hand, associates the number with martyrdom. 
 
The meaning may derive from the nineteenth letter of the Semitic alphabet. Qoph or qop has a numerical value of 100. In an ancient Jewish interpretation of the book of Genesis, Sarah is described as “Qof years of age.” There are various other meanings of this letter, which include “sun”, “revolution”, “circle” and “horizon.” It can also mean “time” as in the complete orbit of the Earth around the sun. In some ways, this links with other ideas about the number one hundred representing wholeness or completeness. 
 
In other words, the number one hundred was a nice “round number” for the writers of the Bible to use. The measurements of the Temple and Tabernacle may be correct but the reason for building things 100 cubits long may have been due to simplicity and ease rather than divine meaning. Quite often, when the length of something was 100 cubits, the width was exactly half. 
 
When I first started writing about numbers in the Bible, people asked how high I would go. I did not expect to go up to one hundred but here we are. I am not going to continue to write about each successive number, however, there are a few more I would like to look at. My next number will be 120.