Sacred or widely used: the number 7 meaning
Beliefs about what the number 7 mean prevailed in most peoples of antiquity, and their echo reaches to this day, irritating the mind of today’s man. The number 7, what does it mean?
The number 7 is considered sacred and symbolic and encloses a mysterious power. One can hardly list everything in this mysterious number, as one will need an entire book. But let’s look at some applications of number 7:
First of all, the number 7 has a special place in the Old Testament. The days of Creation were 7, on the 7th day God created man, and the 7th day of Creation is a day of rest and holiday and symbolizes completion and perfection.
Easter lasted 7 days. Noah put 7 pairs of animals and birds in the ark, while the Flood began 7 days after Noah entered the ark. On the 7th day after the Flood, Noah sent the dove out, and for 7 days and 7 nights, the dove travelled until it returned to the ark.
Pharaoh dreamed of 7 fat and 7 skinny cows and 7 fruiting and 7 barren ears. Moses’ lamp was seven lights. King David praised God 7 times a day and had 7 braids in Samson’s hair, which gave him strength.
The number 7 is used in the Old Testament 70 times!
In church 7 are the sacred sacraments: Marriage, Baptism, Anointing, Eucharist, Communion, Confession, Priesthood. 7 are the miracles of Christ according to the Evangelist John, 7 the main virtues (humility, mercy, purity, philanthropy, grace, kindness, diligence), 7 the deadly sins.
Also, 7 are the wishes contained in the “Our Father”, 3 for God (sanctify your name, come to your kingdom, be born your will) and 4 for the needs of man (give us our bread, let go of debts, do not enter into temptation, run away
For the Pythagoreans, the number 7 is lucky since it is not a product of factors. It is also the sign of perfection because it is the sum of 3 and 4, which express the two perfect geometric shapes, the equilateral triangle and the square.
The ancient Greeks considered 7 a mysterious number for its geometric properties because 7 points can not create symmetry in a circle!
The Pythagoreans still considered the number 7 as an image and model of order and harmony in nature. The number that twice included the sacred number three (symbol of the divine trinity in all peoples, Christian and pagan), to which one of the religious units is added (3×2 + 1 = 7).
Ancient Greece had 7 sages (Socrates, Chilon, Pittacus, Periander, Cleobulus (damaged section), Bias, Thales, and Solon.), and the education of boys in ancient Sparta began at the age of seven
The free arts in antiquity were 7 (grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) and 7 the wonders of the ancient world (Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Pyramids of Giza, Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, Statue of Zeus in Greece, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, Colossus of Rhodes, Lighthouse of Alexandria.).
Rome was built on seven hills, as was Constantinople, which also had seven names (Byzantium, New Rome, Antonia, Treasure of Islam, Divider of the World, Istanbul, and Constantinople.), Besieged by the Muslims 7 times after the Muslims from 7 weeks by the seventh Sultan of the Ottomans.
The spectrum and the rainbow colours are 7 (red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, deep blue, violet). There are reasonable suspicions that Newton, who first spoke about colours, distinguished six colours and added the colour indigo – deep blue, indigo – to complete the “magic” number seven.
The above are just some of the references to sacred number 7, which seems to “mark” our lives from antiquity to the present day in its unique way.
