2: The Importance of Numbers in the Bible

The number two is the smallest prime number (discounting one) and also the only even prime number. All even numbers are divisible by two, which makes it sound like a very special number. There is a famous saying “all things come in pairs,” and in the Bible, the number two represents a union or, sometimes, a division. For example, a man and woman are made one in marriage. This begins with Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:23-24:
23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
    for she was taken out of man.”
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
The Bible is split into two testaments, the Old and the New. As we know, this divides the Bible into the events before Jesus’ birth and those that came after. The agreements or covenants God made with mankind are also divided into old and new. 
 
There are too many mentions of the number two in the Bible to write about and most of them are insignificant. So let’s look at a few that relate to union or division:

• Mark 6:7 (NIV): “Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits.”
• Titus 3:10 (NIV): “Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them.”
• Genesis 1:16 (NIV): “God made twogreat lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”
• Genesis 7:2 (NIV): “Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate”
• Deuteronomy 17:6 (NIV): “On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.”
• Revelation 19:20 (NIV): “But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulphur.”
• Revelation 20:13 (NIV): “The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done.” This is known as the Second Death. 

 
Finally, some facts about the Bible involving the number two:

• The word God appears in every book of the Bible except two: Esther and the Song of Solomon.
• The shortest verse in the King James Version of the Bible contains just two words: “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35)
• The Book of Haggai only contains two chapters.