The Astonishing Pattern of SEVENS in Genesis 1:1

by Grant R. Jeffrey (from his book "The Signature of God")

          "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1)
 

A Partial Listing of the Phenomenal Features of Sevens Found in Genesis 1:
1. The number of Hebrew words = 7
2. The number of letters equals 28 (7 x 4 = 28)
3. The first three Hebrew words translated "In the beginning God created" contain 14 letters
     (7 x 2 = 14)
4. The last four Hebrew words "the heavens and the earth" have 14 letters (7 x 2 = 14)
5. The fourth and fifth words have 7 letters
6. The sixth and seventh words have 7 letters
7. The three key words: God, heaven and earth have 14 letters (7 x 2 = 14)
8. The number of letters in the four remaining words is also 14 (7 x 2 = 14)
9. The shortest word in the verse is the middle word with 7 letters
10. The Hebrew numeric value of the first, middle and last letters is 133 (7 x 19 = 133)
11. The Hebrew numeric value of the first and last letters of all seven words is 1393 (7 x 199 =
1393)
12. ...
 

When professors on the mathematics faculty at Harvard University were presented with this biblical
phenomenon they naturally attempted to disprove its significance as a proof of divine authorship.
However, after valiant efforts these professors were unable to duplicate this incredible mathematical
phenomenon. The Harvard scientists used the English language and artificially assigned numeric
values to the English alphabet. They had a potential vocabulary of over 400,000 available English
words to choose from to construct a sentence about any topic they chose. Compare this to the
limitations of word choices in the biblical Hebrew language which has only forty-five hundred
available word choices that the writers of the Old Testament could use. Despite their advanced
mathematical abilities and access to computers the mathematicians were unable to come close to
incorporating 30 mathematical multiples of 7 as found in the Hebrew words of Genesis 1:1.

The number "seven" permeates the totality of Scripture because the number speaks of God's divine
perfection and perfect order. The actual number 7 appears 287 times in the Old Testament (7 x 41
= 287) while the word "seventh" occurs 98 times (7 x 14 = 98). The word "seven-fold" appears
seven times. In addition, the word "seventy" is used 56 times (7 x 8 = 56).

Ivan Panin discovered literally thousands of such mathematical patterns underlying all of the books of
the Old Testament before his death in 1942. I refer the interested reader to Panin's book, The
Inspiration of the Scriptures Scientifically Demonstrated, which discusses these phenomena
extensively. Panin and others have examined other Hebrew literature and have attempted to find
such mathematical patterns, but they are not found anywhere outside the Bible.

The Pattern of SEVENS in Matthew 1:18-25 - The History of Christ's Birth
1. The number of words in the seven word passage is 161 (7 x 23 = 161)
2. The number of Vocabulary words is 77 (7 x 11 = 77)
3. Six Greek words occur only in this passage and never again in Matthew. These six Greek words
contain precisely 56 letters (7 x 8 = 56)
4. The number of distinct proper names in the passage is 7
5. The number of Greek letters in these seven proper names is 42 (7 x 6 = 42)
6. The number of words spoken by the angel to Joseph is 28 (7 x 4 = 28)
7. The number of Greek forms of words used in this passage is 161 (7 x 23 = 161)
8. The number of Greek forms of words in the angel's speech is 35 (7 x 5 = 35)
9. The number of letters in the angel's 35 forms of words is 168 (7 x 24 = 168)

This phenomenal discovery by Panin has been examined by numerous authorities and the figures
have been verified. In total, Panin accumulated over forty thousand pages of detailed calculations
covering most of the text of the Bible before his death. These incredible, mathematical patterns are
not limited to the number seven. There are numerous other patterns. These amazing patterns appear
in the vocabulary, grammatical forms, parts of speech, and particular forms of words. They occur
throughout the whole text of the Bible containing 31,173 verses. When you consider the amazing
details of this mathematical phenomenon you realize that the change of a single letter or word in the
original languages of Hebrew or Greek would destroy the pattern. Now we can understand why
Jesus Christ declared that the smallest letter and grammatical mark of the Scriptures was persevered
by God's Hand: "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall
in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled" (Matthew 5:18).

What was Panin's own view of the Scriptures after a lifetime of diligent study? He wrote the
following statement in one of his essays after warning of the limitations of wisdom found in secular
philosophy. "Not so, however, with The Book. For it tells of One who spake as men never spake,
who was the true bread of life, that which cometh down from the heavens, of which if a man eat he
shall never hunger." Ivan Panin's conclusion of the matter was the following challenge. "My friend of
the world, whose you are: Either Jesus Christ is mistaken or you are. The answer that neither might
be is only evading the issue, not settling it. But the ages have decided that Jesus Christ was not
mistaken. It is for you to decide whether you shall continue to be."

Reference: Jeffrey, Grant R., "The Signature of God", Frontier Research Publications, Inc. (1996),
p.230-237

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