I like what the bible does with sevens. I’ll split this into 2 posts.
See where it starts – a creation week in Genesis. We jump straight in to that week right at the start – on the first day of there week Spirit and Word come together and speak light into the creation
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Geneis 1:3-5
And that week of sevens, ends with a creation wide instantiation of rest.
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Genesis 2:1-3
The next seven is less happy
Cain has killed his brother, after being jealous and angry about being cautioned over his sacrifice, and is expelled from Garden. He is now worried that he too will be killed. But he is given this stern word of protection and warning:
But the Lord said to him, “Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.
Genesis 4:15-16
The next seven is even less good. Cain, newly expelled, starts building a city, and also has a child.
“Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch.
Genesis 4:17
It’s a sad statement. It prefigures so many of the works of man, attempting to recapture something lost in the garden, building our own ideas of legacy. Warping the potential of creativity and reproduction for our own ends.
And in that family line things will get 7 times worse.
Ina verse or two, we zip down Cain’s family tree to the 7th generation, to Lamech, and sevens are now multiplied.
Lamech has mimics and abuses the word that was over Cain, his ancestor:
Lamech says :
I have killed a man for wounding me,
Genesis 4:28
a young man for injuring me.
If Cain is avenged seven times,
then Lamech seventy-seven times
Vengeance in his own hands. Arrogance. Self righteous. A tyrant, passing off iniquity as strength.
( We also hear Lamech married two women – the first time we hear of that breaking in. We get a glimpse of other arts in their children as well – music, metalworking, agridculture – peraps hinting of more creation domains that will be tained with self will )
So the 7 fold fullness of where that line has gone – ever since the wrong sacrifice back at Cain, has lead to more willfulness, rebellion.
The narrative reboots – we go back to Adam and Eve’s next child, Seth, the child born after Abel’s death. This will be better. Before we get the line, we hear:
“ At that time people began to call on the name of the Lord.”
Genesis 4:26
This leads to a better 7.
We run down Seth’s line to Enoch, who stands as the 7th generation from creation, as a descendant from Seth.
And in the 7th generation of this line, there I a much better intsnefication of walking with God.
That is a good and wonderful intensification of sevens.
After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
Genesis 5:22
A couple of generations after him there is a another, better Lamech, the father of Noah. This side of the family is also delaing with the curse on the ground of the fallen creation, but not in such rebellion.
When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.” After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Lamech lived a total of 777 years, and then he died.
Genesis 5:28-31
Notice we end of with a 777 as if to emphasise the signal – that’s all the fullness of that genealogy for now. Part two.
—————————————————Postscript : Notes and Connections
Skip this the remainder if you just want more on the sevens. Part two is here:
But if interested, a few follup connections that can be interesting.
Literal or Symbolic
A supplementary question that might occur now: how literal is all this?
Well.. that’s often a modern concern but not really the right question to ask.
If we want to take the bible seriously, then arguing about if it is literal, or fits science, etc, is often distorting things – adding categories that do not immediately come out of the text.
We should instead learn and ponder the meaning of what it actually says. At least make sure we do that first before making it part of another discussion.
Second Supplementary question: Summarise what it means so far.
God made the heavens and the earth; and the creation week is a primary structure.
The sevens also track and underline developments of the two genealogies that emerge after the fall; a redemptive line, and a deteriorating line. One starts with the calling on the name of the Lord, the other builds a city named after his son. The progress at the 7th generation is intentionally contrasted – Lamech, who is taking vengeance in his own hands, seven times seven, and Enoch, walking with God.
(There is an Enoch and a Lamech in each line, just to keep us on our toes in reading)
City of Man
Later theology also starts to contrast the city of man, that Cain starts (and Babel etc), and Zion, that is ultimately the city above. Good gifts are still seen to come through the lessor line, but may be contaminated, orientated against the real source. See Heb 11:8-10. -Abraham leaves one to seek the other.
Enoch
Enoch is a bigger figure than we see here. He skips death, after all. For a fuller development of Enoch see the book of 1 Enoch . And also the book of Jubilees and 1 Enoch,. Both of those expand on his role and retell Genesis with emphasis on the fallen angelic hinted at in Genesis 6. But handle with care – these texts are ruled as not canonical (apocryphal) although it seems clear the New Testament writers knew of them (1 Enoch is quoted in Jude 1:14 and there are other hints). He is still coming and going from Eden.
Transfiguration
I think it is likely the transfiguration of Jesus took place at Mt Hermon, highest city in the region. It’s then partly to reclaim the place of the angelic breach named in those texts, and being transfigured there is partly to seal, to cleanse and reorder our proper orientation to the heavens with him as King,. Against the fallen ones who would misuse creation gifts and wisdom to take humanity astray. (Healing arts, art of war, metal working, arts of seduction, are all named in those texts as improperly given). But that’s another story.
Antioch Exchange 