Dr. Barclay with Something to Think About - FOURTEEN

 FOURTEEN

There are many instances in which numbers are used in Scripture. In most, if not all of these cases, there is a definite significance to the use of such numerals. For instance, the number two is used to mean separation or division such as night/day, man/woman, two tablets of stone, etc. The number three is used to mean completeness, something real, or perfection; for example, the three persons of the Trinity, the three Patriarchs of Israel, the three sons of Noah, etc.

There are many other examples of where numbers are repeatedly used in the Bible and in those cases there is a definite significance to the way in which they were used; but the number fourteen is not one those used frequently. In fact, it is used only twenty-four times in the NKJV of Scripture - eight of those times is in Numbers 29 where it specifically refers to sacrifice.

You shall present a burnt offering…to the Lord; 

thirteen young bulls, two rams, 

and fourteen lambs in their first year…without blemish… 

(Numbers 29:13)

…and on each of the next six days; one less bull each day but still two rams and always fourteen lambs without blemish.

Why do you suspect that always fourteen lambs without blemish were required at each sacrifice? The first mention of a lamb without blemish in Scripture is at the time of Passover when God instructed the Hebrew people to take:

 

[A] lamb…without blemish, a male of the first year… 

(Exodus 12:5) 

The last mention of the same in Scripture is in 1 Peter when the reference is made to our redemption through Christ:

…with the precious blood of Christ, 

as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 

(1 Peter 1:19)

So, is there a connection between the fourteen lambs without blemish referred to in Numbers and the lamb without blemish which represents Christ in 1 Peter? Perhaps there is. Matthew 1 gives the genealogy of Christ; which apparently reveals the number fourteen.

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations,

from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, 

and from the captivity in Babylon until Christ are fourteen generations.

(Matthew 1:17)

Is it possible that the fourteen lambs mentioned seven times in Numbers 29 were symbolic to the generations leading up to the birth of the one lamb without blemish who would be there for us all? It may not really be so but then the number fourteen is a rarely used number in Scripture,

At least it does give one something to think about.