In Scripture, numbers indicate something beyond just an enumeration of something. The authors of Scripture were usually not concerned with literalistically counting things. Their primary purpose in presenting numbered things was to convey a message through their symbolic meaning. The literalistic meaning can be true as well (such as the days of Creation), but often it is not. Here are some of the numerical values and their meanings as I understand them.
Matthew's Genealogy: The Gospel according to Matthew lists 14 generations between three key people/events (Abraham-David, David-Exile, Exile-Jesus). This doesn't exactly match the Old Testament, but Matthew wasn't trying to be so accurate. He was conveying a certain message to us through his numeration. David's name in Hebrew (transliterated) is DVD. (There were no vowels in the alphabet then). The numerical values of the letters D V D add up to 14. This indicates that Jesus is the Davidic heir & king, the prophesied Messiah and Savior. Three 14's indicates the absolute, strongest and perfect meaning. (Hebrew didn't have the modifiers -er and -est. (as in big,bigger,biggest). To describe something as the biggest they would say big-big-big. An example is in Revelation4 & Isaiah6, the angels are exclaiming "holy holy holy is the Lord" meaning God is the absolute perfectly holy one.) As we read this genealogy we can see hidden in it "DAVID DAVID DAVID" concluding in Jesus. So, Jesus is the perfect fulfillment of the kingly/messianic prophecies.
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The Samaritan woman at the well had "five" husbands.
The 10 northern tribes were assimilated into "five" gentile nations. In Jesus' time the 10 lost tribes were known as the Samaritans.
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John 21:11 - 153 fish. "Simon Peter went up, and
drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and
for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken."
OT - not there? Then what's the meaning? Outside Scripture can be found this number. It's the number of known species of fish at that time. This could mean that all men will be "caught" in the salvation "net".
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Acts 2:41 - "about 3000" people were
baptized, hence brought into God's family.
Exodus 32:28 - "about 3000" people were lost from God's family
(the slain idolators)
We can see that with
the coming of the New Covenant certain bad things of the past are undone by
certain good things.
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