One of our members, while reading the instructions for the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16, asked about the significance of the High Priest sprinkling blood seven times in front of the Ark of the Covenant. It's really a two-part question, for there is significance in both the blood and in the number seven. Accordingly, let's spend a moment exploring the number here, and then we'll turn to the theme of blood later.
In our cover-to-cover reading of the Bible, we will see the prominence of the number seven from beginning to end. In the beginning, seven is the number of days in the complete Creation story. In the end, seven is the number of churches to which the Book of Revelation is addressed, as well as the number of angels, seals, trumpets, and more within that book.
And seven emerges as prominent all along the way in between.
Noah takes with him on the ark seven pairs of every clean animal. The Feast of Unleavened Bread was to be obseved each year for seven days. The stand in the Holy Place featured seven lamps. The ordination of Aaron and his sons, as well as other elements of Israel's cleanliness code, was prescribed to last seven days. Naaman was to wash himself in the Jordan seven times, the Feast of Pentecost was calculated based on seven weeks, and the land was to enjoy a Sabbath rest every seven years.
That's just a sampling, and it's just from the Old Testament. When we turn to the New Testament, we hear Peter propose that seven is the requisite number of times a brother should be forgiven, we see the Sadducees ask about seven brothers in the afterlife, and we watch the early church select seven men for special service within the Jerusalem church.
For the people of Israel in Bible times, the number seven connoted completeness, wholeness, or even perfection. Just as seven days comprised a complete week, so it was with many things. A task was complete when it was done seven times (see Naaman), a process was complete when it lasted seven days (e.g., the annual Jewish festivals), and a group was complete when it was comprised of seven participants (e.g., the servers in the early church).
Against the backdrop of that understanding, then, it is easy to see why the blood was sprinkled seven times on the Day of Atonement. To sprinkle it fewer times was to leave the task incomplete. To sprinkle it more times would have been superfluous. Sprinkling the blood seven times got the job done. And no occasion deserved to be more closely associated with wholeness and perfection than the Day of Atonement.
That is why the blood was necessarily sprinkled seven times. Later we shall consider why it was necessarily blood that was sprinkled.
In our cover-to-cover reading of the Bible, we will see the prominence of the number seven from beginning to end. In the beginning, seven is the number of days in the complete Creation story. In the end, seven is the number of churches to which the Book of Revelation is addressed, as well as the number of angels, seals, trumpets, and more within that book.
And seven emerges as prominent all along the way in between.
Noah takes with him on the ark seven pairs of every clean animal. The Feast of Unleavened Bread was to be obseved each year for seven days. The stand in the Holy Place featured seven lamps. The ordination of Aaron and his sons, as well as other elements of Israel's cleanliness code, was prescribed to last seven days. Naaman was to wash himself in the Jordan seven times, the Feast of Pentecost was calculated based on seven weeks, and the land was to enjoy a Sabbath rest every seven years.
That's just a sampling, and it's just from the Old Testament. When we turn to the New Testament, we hear Peter propose that seven is the requisite number of times a brother should be forgiven, we see the Sadducees ask about seven brothers in the afterlife, and we watch the early church select seven men for special service within the Jerusalem church.
For the people of Israel in Bible times, the number seven connoted completeness, wholeness, or even perfection. Just as seven days comprised a complete week, so it was with many things. A task was complete when it was done seven times (see Naaman), a process was complete when it lasted seven days (e.g., the annual Jewish festivals), and a group was complete when it was comprised of seven participants (e.g., the servers in the early church).
Against the backdrop of that understanding, then, it is easy to see why the blood was sprinkled seven times on the Day of Atonement. To sprinkle it fewer times was to leave the task incomplete. To sprinkle it more times would have been superfluous. Sprinkling the blood seven times got the job done. And no occasion deserved to be more closely associated with wholeness and perfection than the Day of Atonement.
That is why the blood was necessarily sprinkled seven times. Later we shall consider why it was necessarily blood that was sprinkled.