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The Sevens · Room I of V
The Name Above Every Name
counted, in the Book that was written to name Him
“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.”Philippians 2:9
Six counts follow. Where God opens His mouth, what the angel says over the cradle, how often the Saviour is named, how those namings fall across the New Testament, the name joined to the office, and the one phrase nobody else in Scripture ever uses. Every figure was recounted from the Cambridge text before it was published, and every search rule is printed beside its number.
Where God opens His mouth.
The Old Testament begins in Genesis 1. The New Testament begins in Matthew 1. In both first chapters, count only the words God speaks directly, and nothing else.
Genesis 1
God speaks seven times seven times seven words.
Words spoken directly by God in the first chapter of the Bible
Eleven times in Genesis 1 the text says And God said, or God blessed them, saying. Count the words inside those quotations, from Let there be light to I have given every green herb for meat, and the total is 343. Nothing else in the chapter is counted: not the narrative, not the refrains, not the naming of the days.
343 on its own is a number you would walk straight past. Written the way the Book writes it, it is seven, times seven, times seven. God's number for a finished work, laid down three times over, in the chapter where He finishes the work and calls it good.
7 × 7 × 7 = 343 words
The count, span by span
| Verse | First words of the utterance | Words |
|---|---|---|
| 1:3 | Let there be light | 4 |
| 1:6 | Let there be a firmament | 20 |
| 1:9 | Let the waters under the heaven | 18 |
| 1:11 | Let the earth bring forth grass | 27 |
| 1:14 | Let there be lights in the firmament | 31 |
| 1:15 | And let them be for lights | 18 |
| 1:20 | Let the waters bring forth abundantly | 26 |
| 1:22 | Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters | 18 |
| 1:24 | Let the earth bring forth the living creature | 23 |
| 1:26 | Let us make man in our image | 47 |
| 1:28 | Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth | 37 |
| 1:29 | Behold, I have given you every herb | 39 |
| 1:30 | And to every beast of the earth | 35 |
| Total words spoken by God · 7 × 7 × 7 | 343 | |
Counted from the Cambridge Concord text. Where an utterance runs to the end of a verse and the narrative resumes with and it was so, the narrative words are excluded.
Matthew 1
And in the New Testament, seven times seven.
Words spoken by the angel of the Lord in the first chapter of the New Testament
In Matthew 1 the only message delivered from heaven is the angel of the Lord's word to Joseph, and the Book treats a message sent by angels as God's word delivered: the word spoken by angels was stedfast (Hebrews 2:2).
He speaks 49 words. Seven sevens. And among them is the name of the Saviour, which is the whole reason the New Testament exists.
7 × 7 = 49 words
words
His name, and His number.
Peter asked how often he must forgive. The answer our Lord gave was not a rule of arithmetic but a measure of mercy without end. Now count His name.
The name Jesus
The number He gave Peter.
Mentions of Jesus in the King James Bible, where the name means the Lord Jesus Christ
The name appears 983 times in all. Three of those are other men: Joshua, called Jesus in Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8, and Jesus surnamed Justus in Colossians 4:11. Set those three aside and the total comes to 980.
980 is nothing. It is a number you would never look at twice. Until you write it the way the Lord Himself wrote it, when Peter came and asked how many times he was obliged to forgive his brother, and offered seven as a generous answer. I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
Seventy times seven. Forgiveness with no floor under it and no ceiling over it. And 980 is that number, twice.
He came, the angel said, to save his people from their sins. The number He gave for the forgiving of sins is the number of times His saving name is written in the Book that says so.
(70 × 7) + (70 × 7) = 980 mentions
The search rule
| Search | Scope | Mentions |
|---|---|---|
| Jesus | Entire Bible | 973 |
| Jesus' | Entire Bible | 10 |
| Raw total | 983 | |
| Less Acts 7:45, Hebrews 4:8 (Joshua) | −2 | |
| Less Colossians 4:11 (Justus) | −1 | |
| Mentions of the Lord Jesus Christ · (70×7) + (70×7) | 980 | |
The exclusion rule is fully enumerable: it is three verses, named above, and you can read all three. Nothing else is set aside. Counts include the Psalm superscriptions and the epistle colophons, which is the whole printed text.
Luke 3:23 to 38
And He is the seventy seventh from God.
Luke traces the line backwards, from Jesus to God. Read it forwards.
Matthew begins his genealogy at Abraham and works down. Luke does the opposite: he starts at Jesus and walks back up the line, name by name, past David and Abraham and Noah and Adam, and does not stop until he reaches which was the son of God.
Turn it round and read it the way it happened. God is first. Then Adam, then Seth, and on down the generations. Jesus is the seventy seventh.
- 1God
- 2Adam
- 3Seth
- 4Enos
- 5Cainan
- 6Maleleel
- 7Jared
- 8Enoch
- 9Mathusala
- 10Lamech
- 11Noe
- 12Sem
- 13Arphaxad
- 14Cainan
- 15Sala
- 16Heber
- 17Phalec
- 18Ragau
- 19Saruch
- 20Nachor
- 21Thara
- 22Abraham
- 23Isaac
- 24Jacob
- 25Juda
- 26Phares
- 27Esrom
- 28Aram
- 29Aminadab
- 30Naasson
- 31Salmon
- 32Booz
- 33Obed
- 34Jesse
- 35David
- 36Nathan
- 37Mattatha
- 38Menan
- 39Melea
- 40Eliakim
- 41Jonan
- 42Joseph
- 43Juda
- 44Simeon
- 45Levi
- 46Matthat
- 47Jorim
- 48Eliezer
- 49Jose
- 50Er
- 51Elmodam
- 52Cosam
- 53Addi
- 54Melchi
- 55Neri
- 56Salathiel
- 57Zorobabel
- 58Rhesa
- 59Joanna
- 60Juda
- 61Joseph
- 62Semei
- 63Mattathias
- 64Maath
- 65Nagge
- 66Esli
- 67Naum
- 68Amos
- 69Mattathias
- 70Joseph
- 71Janna
- 72Melchi
- 73Levi
- 74Matthat
- 75Heli
- 76Joseph
- 77Jesus
Seventy seven names, and no room to argue about where to start or stop, because Luke supplies both ends himself. The line begins at God because Luke says it does, and it ends at Jesus because that is whose genealogy it is.
God at 1 → Jesus at 77
A balance that should not balance.
Number the books of the New Testament, one to twenty seven. Take the odd numbered books, then the even numbered ones. They are not the same size. They are not close.
Odd books against even books
Seventy times seven on each side.
Four measures of the same two halves
Each pair is drawn to its own taller bar. Three of them lean hard. One does not.
The odd numbered books hold nearly twice the text of the even numbered ones, by every measure you can take of them. Any word that is merely common falls across that divide roughly two to one. Nearly every word does.
Every New Testament word mentioned between 700 and 1,400 times
Twenty two words qualify. No word was chosen by hand: the band is the rule, and the name of Jesus happens to fall inside it. Hover or focus a pair for its counts.
Twenty one of the twenty two lean the way the text leans, between 1.1 and 3.0 to one. One does not. Jesus stands at 490 and 490, and it is not close to level, it is level: the same integer on both sides.
490 mentions in the odd books. 490 in the even books.
One word in the New Testament refuses the two to one ratio and lands dead level: the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. 490 on the one side. 490 on the other. And 490 is seventy times seven, the same number He gave Peter, standing now on both sides of a scale that has no business balancing.
This is the pattern that is hardest to explain away, because it is not one number that happens to be tidy. It is two sevens held equal across an uneven divide, and the divide itself is decided by an ordering of books that no translator invented and no translator could adjust.
70 × 7 and 70 × 7 = 490 and 490
Add the title to the name.
Jesus is the name given by the angel. Christ is the office: the Anointed. Count both.
Jesus + Christ
Seven hundred and seventy seven, twice over.
Every mention of Jesus and of Christ in the King James Bible
Count the name and the title together and the total is 1,554. Split it down the middle and you have 777, and 777. The name that saves and the office that anoints, each half carrying the perfect number three times over.
And here is a smaller thing worth noticing before the larger one. There are two honest ways to make this count, and they disagree about which mentions belong. Count it strictly, taking every occurrence of the two words as printed, with no judgement about who is meant: 983 and 571. Count it by sense, setting aside the three men who are not the Lord and the two false christs, and gathering in the three places the Book calls His people Christians: 980 and 574. The two methods disagree on six individual mentions. They arrive at the same total.
777 + 777 = 1,554 mentions
The search rule
Strictly, as printed. Every occurrence of the two words, no verse set aside, no judgement about who is meant. The plural Christs, which the Book uses only of the false ones, is not part of either search.
| Search | Scope | Mentions |
|---|---|---|
| Jesus | Entire Bible | 973 |
| Jesus' | Entire Bible | 10 |
| Christ | Entire Bible | 555 |
| Christ's | Entire Bible | 16 |
| Total · 777 + 777 | 1,554 | |
By sense, which is what Brandon Peterson calls the pure count. Set aside the three mentions of Jesus that are other men, Joshua in Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8 and Justus in Colossians 4:11, and the two plural Christs that are the false ones, in Matthew 24:24 and Mark 13:22. Gather in the three places the Book calls His people by His name.
| Search | Scope | Mentions |
|---|---|---|
| Jesus, meaning the Lord | Entire Bible | 980 |
| Christ + Christ's | Entire Bible | 571 |
| Christian + Christians | Acts 11:26, 26:28, 1 Peter 4:16 | 3 |
| Total · 777 + 777 | 1,554 | |
Two rules that disagree about six individual mentions, landing on the same number.
And then it happens again
Walk the same total across the books, and it splits level too.
The name of Jesus alone falls 490 and 490 across the odd and even books of the New Testament. Now do the same walk with the name and the title together, one book, then the next, all the way through. It comes out 777 in one hand and 777 in the other.
The rule here is not quite the rule above, and that difference should be stated plainly rather than glossed. The Jesus count alternates by book number, straight through all twenty seven. This one alternates across the books that contain a mention, and there are twenty six of those. Third John is the exception: in its fourteen verses it names neither Jesus nor Christ anywhere, so it takes no turn in a walk that is counting mentions.
Jesus and Christ, book by book, alternating
Twenty six books carry a mention. Third John carries none, marked hollow, and the walk steps over it.
Four measures of the two halves of that walk
Each pair is drawn to its own taller bar. Three of them lean. One does not.
Every word in that walk mentioned between 1,200 and 2,200 times
Seventeen words qualify, and the two names make an eighteenth pair. Same twenty six books, same alternation, different words. Hover or focus a pair for its counts.
The nearest rival is the word I, at 1,096 against 1,078: eighteen apart, and worth naming rather than hiding. Every other word in the band runs from 1.24 to 1.72 to one. Jesus and Christ are nought apart.
This one carries an extra degree of freedom, and it is only fair to say so. Choosing to alternate across the books that hold a mention, rather than across all twenty seven, is a choice. It is a defensible choice, since a book with nothing in it cannot take a turn in a walk that is counting mentions, and the walk itself is the same walk. But it is a second rule, not the first one applied twice, and anyone shown this deserves to know which.
What is not a choice is where it lands. Under the by-sense count the two halves come out at 777 and 777 exactly. Under the strict count the same walk gives 776 and 778, and the total is 1,554 either way. Both figures are printed here, because a pattern that needs its weaker number hidden is not worth showing.
The search rule for the alternation
| Step | What it means | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Books in the New Testament | Matthew to Revelation | 27 |
| Books naming Jesus or Christ | Third John names neither | 26 |
| Odd positions in that walk | Matthew, Luke, Acts, 1 Corinthians and nine more | 777 |
| Even positions in that walk | Mark, John, Romans, 2 Corinthians and nine more | 777 |
| Total | 1,554 | |
Counted with the by-sense rule set out above: Jesus meaning the Lord, 980; Christ with its possessive and with Christian and Christians, 574. The three mentions of Jesus that are other men and the two plural Christs that are the false ones are out.
Under the strict rule, taking both words exactly as printed, the same walk gives 776 and 778. The total is 1,554 under either rule.
777 and 777 = 1,554 mentions
The phrase no one else says.
Search the whole Bible for the words Verily I say unto you. Every one of them is in the mouth of Jesus Christ. Nobody else in Scripture ever uses it.
Verily I say unto you · Verily I say unto thee
Seventy seven times, and His alone.
His signature phrase, in the whole of Scripture
The word rendered Verily is the same word rendered Amen, and Amen is a title He takes for Himself: These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness (Revelation 3:14). His signature phrase begins with His own name, and He signs it seventy seven times.
The search rule
| Search phrase | Scope | Mentions |
|---|---|---|
| Verily I say unto you | Entire Bible | 68 |
| Verily I say unto thee | Entire Bible | 9 |
| Total | 77 | |
The doubled form Verily, verily, I say unto you, which John records twenty five times, contains the phrase and is counted once each, exactly as a plain phrase search returns it. Count the four forms separately instead and the total is the same seventy seven.
Further up and further in.
Two smaller than the rest, and both of them plain enough to check in a minute.
God
Four thousand four hundred and forty four.
Every occurrence of the word God, in every case the Book prints it
Capital God, small capitals GOD where the Hebrew has Jehovah, and lower case god where a false one is meant: four thousand four hundred and forty four in all. Four Gospels. Four corners of the earth. Four beasts before the throne.
Father and Son, in the Revelation
Seven, in the book of sevens.
Mentions of Father and of Son in the Revelation of St. John the Divine
Seven churches. Seven candlesticks. Seven stars, seven spirits, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven thunders, seven vials. And in that same book, the Father and the Son are named exactly seven times between them: four and three.
The Holy Spirit
Once. In the whole Bible, once.
Occurrences of the words Holy Spirit, capitalised, in the King James Bible
The King James Bible says Holy Ghost ninety times. It says Holy Spirit, with the capital, exactly once, in Luke 11:13.
one
Worth holding onto, because a modern version prints Holy Spirit everywhere and Holy Ghost nowhere. Whatever a reader thinks of that as a translation choice, it means a count that stands at one in the King James Bible stands at ninety one in the others. The distinction the King James keeps is the distinction the arithmetic is built on, here and on every page in this section.
The Father, the Son, and the Three that are one.
Three more counts, and not one of them needs a judgement call you cannot check for yourself. The first names its exclusions verse by verse. The other two have no exclusions at all.
Father and Son, the whole Bible
Seventy times seven, between the two of them.
Father 259, which is 7 × 37 · Son 231, which is 7 × 33
Both names capitalised, both singular, both meaning the Persons. Father comes to 259, which is seven times thirty seven, and which is also 777 divided by three. Son comes to 231, which is seven times thirty three, and which is also 77 taken three times. Together they make the number the Lord gave Peter.
Six mentions are set aside, and they are not a vague category. They are six verses, and here they are.
9:2
21:28
2:5
15:31
16:25
16:24
× 61
Every one of the five excluded Sons is a man being called son by somebody: a sick man, a labourer, a sulking brother, a rich man in hell. That is not a filter invented to make a number come out. It is the difference between the Son of God and a man addressed as son, and the King James Bible marks it with a capital letter.
Then look at how the 490 falls across the Gospels, the epistles and the Revelation.
Romans through Colossians, the first seven epistles, hold seven times seven. The remaining fourteen hold seventy seven. The Gospels hold seven cubed. Revelation holds seven. The other fourteen stand in Acts and the Old Testament. And the whole Bible holds seventy times seven.
The search rule
| Search | Scope | Mentions |
|---|---|---|
| Father | Capitalised, singular, no possessive | 260 |
| Less Luke 16:24, Father Abraham | −1 | |
| Son | Capitalised, singular, no possessive | 297 |
| Less the five men addressed as Son | Matthew 9:2, 21:28; Mark 2:5; Luke 15:31, 16:25 | −5 |
| Less Ezekiel, where God addresses the prophet | Son of man, 61 times | −61 |
| Father 259 + Son 231 | 490 | |
A detail worth the fine tuning it took: in Hebrews 3:6, where the writer speaks of Christ as a son over his own house, the King James Bible prints son in the lower case, and it did not always. It was capitalised until about 1769. Had it stayed capitalised, this count would read 232 and the pattern would be gone.
259 + 231 = 490, which is 70 × 7
1 John 5:7 · the most attacked verse in the Bible
The Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost.
The three named in 1 John 5:7, counted through the whole Bible
“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.”
1 John 5:7–8Read it whole, because the whole of it is the proof. Three in heaven, three in earth, and the second three only make sense as an answer to the first. Take the three titles exactly as verse seven gives them and count each one through all sixty six books. 218, and 469, and 90. No exclusions. No judgement about who is meant. Nothing set aside but the possessive forms, which are a different word.
Now sit with which verse this is. 1 John 5:7 is the single most attacked verse in the King James Bible. Nearly every modern version brackets it, footnotes it, or removes the heavenly witnesses outright, on the ground that the earliest Greek manuscripts do not carry it. The three phrases it names, counted through the Book that contains it exactly as printed, come to three sevens.
And here is the sharper edge. The phrase the father is printed in italics three times in the King James Bible: in Acts 7:16, where it names Emmor, and in Colossians 1:19 and 1 John 2:23, where it names God. Holy Ghost carries an italicised word in Matthew 12:31. Italics mark what the translators supplied for the sense rather than found in the underlying text, and they are the first thing a critic calls an addition. Take those four out and the total is not 777.
Now make the search strict. Match the capitals exactly, so that only the forms that name God are counted: the Father 122 times, the Word 6 times, Holy Ghost 90 times. Together, 218. And 218 is exactly how many times the Father is printed in the whole Book when the capitals are set aside. The open count and the strict count lock onto the Father’s own number.
And the two meet in one verse. For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven (Psalm 119:89). The word in that verse is the 218th time the Bible says word, and the 777th time it says Father or Word.
The search rule, and what the modern versions give
| Search phrase | Scope | Mentions |
|---|---|---|
| the Father | Entire Bible, no possessive | 218 |
| the Word | Entire Bible, no possessive | 469 |
| Holy Ghost | Entire Bible | 90 |
| Total | 777 | |
The possessives excluded are three in all: the Father's in John 6:39 and John 14:24, and the word's in Mark 4:17. Counted case insensitively, as a plain phrase search returns them.
The strict search, capitals matched exactly: the Father 122, the Word 6, Holy Ghost 90, total 218. Psalm 119:89 holds the 218th word (any capitals) and the 777th Father or Word (any capitals, the whole printed text). The strict count and the Psalm 119:89 link are documented in Brandon Peterson’s Sealed by the King, pages 132 to 133 and 407, and were recounted from the Cambridge text here.
The same three phrases in the modern versions, substituting Holy Spirit for Holy Ghost, and counted by Brandon Peterson: New King James 784, English Standard Version 811, New American Standard 757, New International Version 817. The 1611 edition gives 776. Not one of them lands on 777.
218 + 469 + 90 = 777
And once more, in the New Testament
God, Father, Word, Holy Ghost.
In the even numbered books of the New Testament
Four plain words this time, not phrases: God, Father, Word, and Holy Ghost. Count them through the even numbered books of the New Testament, the same alternation that holds the name of Jesus level, and the total is 777.
The whole New Testament comes to 2,002, which is 26 times 77. The odd books take 1,225, which is thirty five squared. The even books take 777. Three numbers, and every one of them built on seven.
No exclusions at all in this one. Four words, counted exactly as they are printed, in thirteen named books. It is the plainest count on this page and it is the one hardest to wave away.
The search rule
| Search | Scope | Mentions |
|---|---|---|
| God | Even numbered books of the New Testament | 494 |
| Father | Even numbered books | 193 |
| Word | Even numbered books | 72 |
| Holy Ghost | Even numbered books | 18 |
| Total | 777 | |
The thirteen even numbered books are Mark, John, Romans, 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 2 Timothy, Philemon, James, 2 Peter, 2 John and Jude. Plain words, any case, no possessives, no verse set aside.
494 + 193 + 72 + 18 = 777
Could forty seven scholars have built this?
They were the finest Hebraists and Grecians in England. If they wanted their book to carry sevens, they had four hundred years of admirers ready to find them.
The objection, stated as strongly as it can be put
It is written
Then consider what the work would have taken. Six companies of men in three cities, Westminster, Cambridge and Oxford, without a computer, without a calculator, without an agreed spelling of English, each company reviewing the others by post over seven years. To land the name of Jesus on seventy times seven doubled they must track every mention across sixty six books. To land seventy times seven in the odd books and seventy times seven again in the even ones they must also decide, in advance, that the count will one day be sliced by an ordering of books they did not choose, and hold both halves level while the halves themselves are of unequal size.
Then multiply that by every other pattern on this page, and by the ones on the three pages beside it, and hold them all at once while keeping the sense of the text, its readability and its doctrine.
And then face the harder fact. Several of these counts did not exist in 1611. In the first edition Genesis 1:11 read whose seed is in it selfe, two words. English later closed it up to itself, one word, and only then did God's speech in Genesis 1 come to rest on seven times seven times seven. The translators could not have engineered a number that the language itself had not yet made. It settled into place over a century and a half of standardisation, in printing houses that were correcting spelling, not counting words.
Random chance is a hard sell. Human design is harder. See the fuller answer to the statistical objection.
Do not take this page's word for it
Every figure above was counted from the standard Cambridge text before it was published here, and every search rule is printed beside its number. You can repeat all of it with King James Pure Bible Search, which is free, and compare the results against other translations while you are there. The fuller documentation is at kjvcode.com.
Or run these counts again yourself, right now, in your own browser →
The patterns on this page were found and documented by Brandon Peterson, whose book Sealed by the King is free to download, and whose channel Truth is Christ walks through them verse by verse. Used with permission. The counts here were reproduced independently before publication.
Before you go
“What must I do to be saved?”
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.Acts 16:31 Read the Gospel