It’s 12x12,000 …the fact is it IS literal…just as it was a literal as with King David when he had 288,000 praising the Lord in the temple.144,000 responsible for the fall feasts and 144,000 for the spring feasts.
The Hebrews did use numbers for counting, but to them numbers also carried significant symbolic meanings. The number 12 referred to the totality of the people of God. Multipliers of 10, 100, and 1,000 meant “this is really important.” Therefore, David ensured that the literal number of worshippers equaled the number that had symbolic importance. By aligning the two, David could make the inference that God is worshipped by “all of the people of all of the tribes, and this is really, really important.”
In the Book of Revelation we have a different statement. Chapter 7 verses 4-8 tallies a symbolic twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes, and verses 9-10 show how that tally is literally fulfilled by an uncountable number of people from all over the earth.
Rev 7:4-10 And I heard the number of the sealed, a hundred and forty-four thousand sealed, out of every tribe of the sons of Israel, twelve thousand sealed out of the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand of the tribe of Reuben, twelve thousand of the tribe of Gad, twelve thousand of the tribe of Asher, twelve thousand of the tribe of Naphtali, twelve thousand of the tribe of Manasseh, twelve thousand of the tribe of Simeon, twelve thousand of the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand of the tribe of Issachar, twelve thousand of the tribe of Zebulun, twelve thousand of the tribe of Joseph, twelve thousand sealed out of the tribe of Benjamin.
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Two things are especially significant about this passage from Revelation. First, compare the names of the tribes to those in 1st Chronicles. They are different.
1st Chronicles Chapter 27 lists them as Reuben, Simeon,
Levi, Aaron, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Naphtali,
Ephraim, Manasseh, Benjamin, and
Dan.
Revelation Chapter 7 lists them as Judah, Reuben,
Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon,
Levi, Issachar, Zebulun,
Joseph, and Benjamin.
The Book of Numbers Chapter 1 lists the twelve tribes as Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun,
Ephraim, Manasseh, Benjamin,
Dan, Asher, Gad, and Naphtali
Only nine of the twelve tribes match between 1st Chronicles and Revelation, and only eight of the twelve match on all three lists. Therefore, the Davidic (human) rendering of “144,000” in 1st Chronicles does not compare to the Heavenly rendering in Revelation.
The second point is this: Revelation verse 9 says the “144,000” is actually “a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation.” Now, clearly David could count to 144,000, so describing the crowd in Revelation as too big for men to number means that we must be dealing with symbolic numbers. The only way this passage could possibly be read and have any sensical meaning is as a symbolic, not a literal, 144,000.
Also, if you were to hold to the literal reading of the passage, you would have to admit that neither you nor any other Gentile Christian could be part of the 144,000 in the Book of Revelation.
Nan
