Doors allow access to or prevent us from entering a room or home. Gates are usually more imposing and important. They guard the access to large spaces: cities, estates, and the way to eternal life. In Bible times, most cities of any size were surrounded by walls, so gates were a constant feature in people’s’ lives. No wonder, then, that the role of gates became symbolic of other values and ideas. Continue reading BIBLE SIGNS AND SYMBOLS (GATE)
The number thousand (or thousands) in the Bible is sometimes a literal number, but in many cases it is used to create a large round number. Hebrew and the other Semitic languages used approximations to express large numbers because they were rarely needed for small populations and tiny kingdom. Examples of this can be found in Exodus 20:6; Deuteronomy 5:10 and 7:9; 1 Samuel 18:7; and Psalms 50:10, 90:4 and 105:8. Ten
The number 144,000 is used in only one book of the Bible: Revelation. The number relates to a group mentioned in Revelation 7:4-8 made up of twelve thousand people from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. The significance of twelve is heightened by using twelve times twelve as a number. This large, exact number is immediately followed by an even larger and more expansive number in verse 9 (“a large crowd from every
Continue reading BIBLE SIGNS & SYMBOLS (ONE HUNDRED FORTY-FOUR THOUSAND)
AQUILA (uh QUILL uh)
Akylas, Greek
“egale”
First century AD
Problem: The psalmist affirms that “evildoers shall be cut off.” Elsewhere (Ps 73:27; Prov 21:28), it says they will perish (see comments on 2 thess. 1:9). But does being cut off forever mean they will be annihilated?
Continue reading WHEN THE WICKED ARE CUT OFF, WHY ARE THEY ANNIHILATED?
