17 is for Victory
596 words long.
Published on 2024-03-09
This number speaks of conflict and victory. If seven is divine completeness and ten is human completeness, what is seventeen?
17 = 7 + 10
This sum shows us a conflict between the divine and the human. Biblestudy.org lists occurrences of the number seventeen and counts of items that total seventeen in Scripture. Comparison to the original languages shows that some of them are artifacts of translation. For example, in the Greek original, the word love does not show up seventeen times in 1 Corinthians 13 or even in the whole book, but only sixteen. Also, the best evidence shows Jesus was not resurrected on 17th of Nisan, 30 AD, but in the year 33 AD, on the 16th of Nisan (according to the Jewish lunar calendar).
That being said, the site lists many useful connections. Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 describe God’s enemy – whom he fights and vanquishes – as a beast having seven heads and ten horns, which adds up to seventeen. Then in Romans 8:35-39, Paul lists many enemies that Christians must face:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
(1) trouble or
(2) hardship or
(3) persecution or
(4) famine or
(5) nakedness or
(6) danger or
(7) sword?
As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither
(1) death nor
(2) life, neither
(3) angels nor
(4) demons, neither the
(5) present nor the
(6) future, nor any
(7) powers, neither
(8) height nor
(9) depth, nor
(10) anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
- Romans 8:35-39, NIV
Combining the two lists of seven material and ten spiritual enemies, you get seventeen adversaries, but Paul assures his readers that they will conquer them through Christ.
This brings us to the most persuasive and relevant example offered, God’s total victory over the wickedness of mankind in the days of Noah:
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life,
on the seventeenth day of the second month—
on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth,
and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
- Genesis 7:11-12, NIV
The battle against mankind was enjoined on the seventeenth day of the second month. When did it end?
The water receded steadily from the earth.
At the end of the hundred and fifty days
the water had gone down, and on the
seventeenth day of the seventh month
the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
- Genesis 8:3-4, NIV
The seventh month again indicates divine completeness, or in this case, divine victory. What do you get if you multiply seven by seventeen?
7 x 17 = 119
The number 119 is covered in the chapter “Psalm 119: The Shepherd’s Clock” of Peace, like Solomon Never Knew. Its role in history is mysterious and profound.
List of articles in this section:
