NUMBER THIRTEEN (13)
(Message by Tanny Keng)
0. Introduction
a) This number has been considered in connection with the number eight, to which the reader is referred.
b) The numbers eight and thirteen together that we may afterwards compare and contrast the two. For this purpose we must consider the number thirteen here, and out of its otherwise proper order. As to the significance of thirteen, all are aware that it has come down to us as a number of ill-omen. Many superstitions cluster around it, and various explanations are current concerning them. Unfortunately, those who go backwards to find a reason seldom go back far enough. The popular explanations do not, so far as we are aware, go further back than the Apostles. But we must go back to the first occurrence of the number thirteen in order to discover the key to its significance. It occurs first in Genesis 14:4, where we read
@1. "Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and the thirteenth year they REBELLED."
c) Hence every occurrence of thirteen, and likewise of every multiple of it, stamps that with which it stands in connection with rebellion, apostasy, defection, corruption, disintegration, revolution, or some kindred idea.
d) The second mention of thirteen is in connection with Ishmael, Genesis 17:25. He was thirteen years old when Abraham circumcised him and admitted him into the covenant to which he was a stranger in heart, and which ended in his rebellion and rejection.
e) We see it stamped upon the very forefront of Revelation. For while the opening statement of Genesis 1:1 is composed of seven words and twenty-eight letters (4x7), the second verse consists of Fourteen words, but Fifty-two letters; Fifty-two being 4x13 tells of some apostasy or rebellion which caused the ruin of which that verse speaks.
f) But it is when we come to Gematria (substituting numbers for letters) that the most wonderful results are seen. These results may be stated thus, briefly: That the names of the LORD's people are multiples of eight, while the names of those who apostatized, or rebelled, or who were in any sense His enemies, are multiples of thirteen. This statement, if it be proved, is one of the greatest evidences of verbal inspiration which the world has yet seen. The effect of this law can hardly be estimated in establishing the presence of an ever-present working of the Holy Spirit in the very words and even the letters of Scripture. No human foresight or arrangement could have secured such a result beforehand; no human powers could have carried it out in such perfection. No matter where we look, we find the working of the law without cessation, without a break, without a flaw from beginning to end.
g) The number thirteen is associated with rebellion and depravity and is used fifteen times in the Bible. All the names of Satan are divisible by thirteen. Nimrod, the chief rebel after the flood, was the thirteenth in the line of Ham. In their thirteenth year of servitude, the kings of the nations rebelled (Genesis 14:4). Twelve represents the government of God and thirteen represents the governments of men in rebellion against God.
h) Moses wrote of Israel’s 21 rebellions in Deuteronomy 31:
@1. "for I know your rebellion and your stiff neck. If today, while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the Lord, then how much more after my death?" (Deuteronomy 31:27, NKJV)
i) When this scriptural reference is added across (3 + 1 + 2 + 7), you get the number 13, which represents rebellion.
j) The longest name of a book, Thessalonians, is 13 characters.
The End ...
0. Introductiona) This number has been considered in connection with the number eight, to which the reader is referred.
b) The numbers eight and thirteen together that we may afterwards compare and contrast the two. For this purpose we must consider the number thirteen here, and out of its otherwise proper order. As to the significance of thirteen, all are aware that it has come down to us as a number of ill-omen. Many superstitions cluster around it, and various explanations are current concerning them. Unfortunately, those who go backwards to find a reason seldom go back far enough. The popular explanations do not, so far as we are aware, go further back than the Apostles. But we must go back to the first occurrence of the number thirteen in order to discover the key to its significance. It occurs first in Genesis 14:4, where we read
@1. "Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and the thirteenth year they REBELLED."
c) Hence every occurrence of thirteen, and likewise of every multiple of it, stamps that with which it stands in connection with rebellion, apostasy, defection, corruption, disintegration, revolution, or some kindred idea.
d) The second mention of thirteen is in connection with Ishmael, Genesis 17:25. He was thirteen years old when Abraham circumcised him and admitted him into the covenant to which he was a stranger in heart, and which ended in his rebellion and rejection.
e) We see it stamped upon the very forefront of Revelation. For while the opening statement of Genesis 1:1 is composed of seven words and twenty-eight letters (4x7), the second verse consists of Fourteen words, but Fifty-two letters; Fifty-two being 4x13 tells of some apostasy or rebellion which caused the ruin of which that verse speaks.
f) But it is when we come to Gematria (substituting numbers for letters) that the most wonderful results are seen. These results may be stated thus, briefly: That the names of the LORD's people are multiples of eight, while the names of those who apostatized, or rebelled, or who were in any sense His enemies, are multiples of thirteen. This statement, if it be proved, is one of the greatest evidences of verbal inspiration which the world has yet seen. The effect of this law can hardly be estimated in establishing the presence of an ever-present working of the Holy Spirit in the very words and even the letters of Scripture. No human foresight or arrangement could have secured such a result beforehand; no human powers could have carried it out in such perfection. No matter where we look, we find the working of the law without cessation, without a break, without a flaw from beginning to end.
g) The number thirteen is associated with rebellion and depravity and is used fifteen times in the Bible. All the names of Satan are divisible by thirteen. Nimrod, the chief rebel after the flood, was the thirteenth in the line of Ham. In their thirteenth year of servitude, the kings of the nations rebelled (Genesis 14:4). Twelve represents the government of God and thirteen represents the governments of men in rebellion against God.
h) Moses wrote of Israel’s 21 rebellions in Deuteronomy 31:
@1. "for I know your rebellion and your stiff neck. If today, while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the Lord, then how much more after my death?" (Deuteronomy 31:27, NKJV)
i) When this scriptural reference is added across (3 + 1 + 2 + 7), you get the number 13, which represents rebellion.
j) The longest name of a book, Thessalonians, is 13 characters.
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