21: The Importance of Numbers in the Bible

“I’ve got the key to the door, never been twenty-one before!” Twenty-one, also known as the age we pretend we are (“twenty-one again”)! Although the age of adulthood has changed to eighteen in the United Kingdom, twenty-one is still the age of majority in many countries. Other than age-related things, where else does the number twenty-one appear in our lives?
 
Twenty-one is the atomic number of scandium, a rare-earth element. There are a total of twenty-one spots on a standard die (1+2+3+4+5+6). It is the highest winning score in a game of Blackjack. There were twenty-one shillings in a guinea. 
 
There is a discrepancy about the meaning of the number twenty-one in the Bible. Some say that as twenty-one is the result of three times seven, both considered perfect, the number is perfect by default. Others, however, believe twenty-one represents wickedness, rebellion and sin. 
 
In 2 Timothy 3, the apostle Paul lists twenty-one sins that humans will fall prey to during the end of days:

1. Lovers of themselves
2. Lovers of money
3. Boastful
4. Proud
5. Abusive
6. Disobedient to their parents
7. Ungrateful
8. Unholy
9. Without love
10. Unforgiving
11. Slanderous
12. Without self-control
13. Brutal
14. Not lovers of the good
15. Treacherous
16. Rash
17. Conceited
18. Lovers of pleasure
19. Reject the love of God
20. Pretend to be Godly
21. Deny God’s power

 
Also in relation to sin, 1 and 2 Kings reference the sins of Jeroboam, the first King of the Northern Tribes, twenty-one times.
 
It has been recorded that the number twenty-one only appears seven times in the Bible, however, I have only been able to locate one of them:

• 2 Kings 24:18 (NIV): Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

 
There are, however, times where the number twenty-one has been substituted for another phrase, for instance, three weeks (7 days x 3 = 21 days):I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips; and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over. (Daniel 10:3, NIV)
 
The most interesting thing I have discovered while conducting my research is there are a total of twenty-one dreams in the Bible. They are as follows:

1. Genesis 20:3 (NIV): But God came to Abimelek in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”
2. Genesis 28:12 (NIV): [Jacob] had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. (Jacob’s Ladder)
3. Genesis 31:10-11 (NIV): “In breeding season I once had a dream in which I looked up and saw that the male goats mating with the flock were streaked, speckled or spotted. The angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob.’ I answered, ‘Here I am.’
4. Genesis 31:34 (NIV): Then God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream at night and said to him, “Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.”
5. Genesis 37:5-7 (NIV): Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”
6. Genesis 37:9 (NIV): Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”
7. Genesis 40: 9-11 (NIV): So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. He said to him, “In my dream I saw a vine in front of me, and on the vine were three branches. As soon as it budded, it blossomed, and its clusters ripened into grapes. Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup and put the cup in his hand.”
8. Genesis 40:16-17 (NIV): When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favourable interpretation, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: On my head were three baskets of bread. In the top basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.”
9. Genesis 41:1-4 (NIV): When two full years had passed, Pharaoh had a dream: He was standing by the Nile, when out of the river there came up seven cows, sleek and fat, and they grazed among the reeds. After them, seven other cows, ugly and gaunt, came up out of the Nile and stood beside those on the riverbank. And the cows that were ugly and gaunt ate up the seven sleek, fat cows. Then Pharaoh woke up.
10. Genesis 41:5-7 (NIV): He fell asleep again and had a second dream: Seven heads of grain, healthy and good, were growing on a single stalk. After them, seven other heads of grain sprouted—thin and scorched by the east wind. The thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven healthy, full heads. Then Pharaoh woke up; it had been a dream.
11. Judges 7:13 (NIV): Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. “I had a dream,” he was saying. “A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.”
12. 1 Kings 3:5 (NIV): At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”
13.  Daniel 2:31-35 (NIV): “Your Majesty [Nebuchadnezzar] looked, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.
14. Daniel 4:10-12 (NIV): These are the visions I [Nebuchadnezzar] saw while lying in bed: I looked, and there before me stood a tree in the middle of the land. Its height was enormous. The tree grew large and strong and its top touched the sky; it was visible to the ends of the earth. Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit abundant, and on it was food for all. Under it the wild animals found shelter, and the birds lived in its branches; from it every creature was fed.
15. Daniel 7:2-3 (NIV): Daniel said: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea.  Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea.
16. Matthew 1:20-21 (NIV): But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
17. Matthew 2:12 (NIV): And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
18. Matthew 2:13 (NIV): When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
19. Matthew 2:19-20 (NIV): After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”
20. Matthew 2:22-23 (NIV): Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee,and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.
21. Matthew 27:19 (NIV): While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.”

 
There are several words that appear twenty-one times in the Bible:

• Frankincense
• “The Father”
• James (the Great) and James (the Less)
• Flood
• Star
• Capacity (twenty-one times in Revelation alone)

 
The numbers 16, 2000, 5000 and 20,000 are each used twenty-one times.
 
There are twenty-one chapters in the Gospel of John and the book of Obadiah contains a single chapter with only twenty-one verses. The book of Hebrews contains twenty-one references to the Old Testament. There are twenty-one epistles in the New Testament: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John and Jude. (Paul wrote the first thirteen listed.)
 
So, does the number twenty-one represent sin, perfection, both, neither or something else? I welcome your thoughts.