Biblical Numerology (The Number 42) Good or Bad?

Aug18
The Number 42 In The Bible (And Other Places) Posted by JRed
I've often said that nowadays it's important for students of Bible prophecy to continue to hone their skills when it comes to reading-between-the-lines.One area where that should always be specifically applied to is when it comes to various news headlines and bylines we encounter on a daily basis.Case in point, you can imagine my sheer amazement and bewilderment when I came across a headline a few days ago that mentioned Israel, the Six Day War, and the number 42 -- all in the same line!Here's the headline that caught my eye:Dropping Water Level Exposes 42-Year-Old Ordinance From Six Day WarSeriously? Boy, the good Lord is truly working overtime these days to get the world's attention before it's too late. How else do you explain spiritual convergence like that? What's even more remarkable is how the first two words "Dropping Water" tie into this as well, but I'll leave that for the exciting conclusion.The number 42 appears in several places throughout the Holy Bible. If I'm remembering correctly, then:> Israel camped 42 times in the wilderness during the exodus.> The goat's hair and linen curtains covering the sanctuary have a length of 42 and 40 cubits.> Jesus was 42 generations from Abraham (Matthew 1).> 42 cities are given to the Levites in addition to 6 cities of refuge (Numbers 35:6).> Two female bears kill 42 children after they ridiculed the prophet of God (2 Kings 2:24).> Later in 2 Kings, Jehu slaughters 42 relatives of Ahaziah of Judah during his purge of the house of Ahab (2 Kings 10:14). The young men of Bethel are leaders of idolatry, as our the 42 relatives of Ahaziah. In both cases, you have Yahweh’s avengers (cf. 1 Kings 19) destroying 42 men, so the number links the work of Elisha with the work of Jehu.What is God trying to teach us here? Well, one thing is obvious. God doesn't much like the number 42, or maybe I should say that bad things are associated with it (ok, not all of the things associated with it are "bad things" as evidenced by Jesus Christ being 42 generations from Abraham, but I think you get the point that a majority are).The number 42 is also a number that's clearly connected with the Antichrist. An important part of his career is to last for 42 months (Revelation 11:2, 13:5), and thus this number is fixed upon him. Another number associated with the Antichrist is 1260, and this is 30 x 42. Its factors are 6 and 7 (6x7=42), and this shows a connection between man and the Spirit of God, and between Jesus Christ and the Antichrist.Being a multiple of seven, it might be supposed that it would be connected with spiritual perfection, but it is the product of six times seven. Six, therefore, being the number of Man, and man's opposition to God, 42 becomes significant of the working out of man's opposition to God.Hmmm, I wonder if there may be something more in the common phrase about things being all "sixes and sevens." They are so, indeed, when man is mixed up with the things of God, and when religious "flesh" engages in spiritual things.Taking this "association with the coming Antichrist" idea to a whole new and ridiculous level, we all know that many have speculated that Nimrod (or his resurrected spirit) would be (embody) the future Antichrist. Well, in Gematria, 42 is a factor in the number of Nimrod's name, which is 294, or 42 x 7.My research turned up a few additional facts that left me equally stunned:> 42 men of Beth-azmaveth were counted in the census of men of Israel upon return from exile (Ezra 2:24).> The first book to be printed with movable type, the Gutenberg Bible, is also known as the "42-line Bible", after the number of lines of print on each page.> 42 is the number with which God creates the Universe in Kabalistic tradition.My absolte favorite? The fact that 42 is the angle in degrees for which a rainbow appears! Of course, after The Flood during Noah's day, the Bible relates that the rainbow gained meaning as the sign of God's promise that terrestrial life would never again be destroyed by flood.Genesis 9:13-15 -- "I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh."Wow! Talk about "spiritual convergence" once again, huh? I mean, here we are in the midst of examing all the numerous signs indicating that the beginning of Daniel's 70th Week is at hand, and Jesus Himself even told us that these days would be "as in the days of Noah..." so it's remarkable that there's this incredible connection between the number 42 (pointing to the Antichrist; a prominent figure in the last days scenario) and the rainbow, which reminds us of God's judgment and also His promise. It all leaves me breathless!Whatever few remaining breaths I had left were thrown out the window when I looked at Ancient Mythology's explanation of the rainbow. Now, remember what King Wells, Jr. and I concluded about the existence and role of Ancient Mythology as it pertains to the Bible and especially end times prophecy. Now, consider the following intriguing facts to add to this entire study today:> In Greek Mythology, the rainbow was considered to be a path made by a messenger (Iris) between Earth and Heaven.> In Hindu Mythology, the rainbow is called "Indradhanush", meaning the bow (Sanskrit & Hindi: dhanush is bow) of Indra, the God of lightning, thunder, and rain.> In Norse Mythology, a rainbow called the Bifröst Bridge connects the realms of Ásgard and Midgard, homes of the gods and humans, respectively.> In the Dreamtime of Australian Aboriginal Mythology, the Rainbow Snake is the deity governing water. Regular readers will remember this from our look at the Wandjina a few months back during the whole Asperatus Clouds news.> Messier object M42, a magnitude 5.0 diffuse nebula in the constellation Orion, also known as the Orion Nebula.It didn't end there though because I also found several key references to the number 42 throughout pop culture:> Douglas Noel Adams was an English author, dramatist, musician, and fervent atheist who popularized the number 42 in his best known work called the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. The number 42 and the phrase, "Life, the universe, and everything" have attained cult status on the Internet. If you type the answer to life, the universe and everything into Google (without quotes or capitalising the small words), the Google Calculator will give you 42; also, if you go to Wolfram's Computational Knowledge Engine and type "answer to life, the universe, and everything", it provides you with the result 42. Microsoft's Bing search engine will also give you 42. Alphasmart 3000's calculator, when given any equation that results in 42, will display, "The answer to life, the universe, and everything". In the online community "Second Life," there is a section on a sim called "42nd Life."> In the Stargate Atlantis Season 4 episode "Quarantine", 42 are the last two digits in Rodney McKay's password. After John Sheppard explains to Teyla the meaning of the previous twelve digits, she asks him what 42 is. Then, John says, "It's the ultimate answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything," at which point Teyla looks confused.> In the TV show Lost, 42 is the last of the mysterious numbers, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42.> In the PC game Spore, once reaching the center of the galaxy, Steve the UFO will present you with the Staff of Life that can make any planet livable, but can only be used 42 times.> In Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, Alex browses through records in a record store and we see a record of the, at this time fictional, band Level 42.> Tower 42 is the tallest skyscraper in the city of London and the fifth tallest in London as a whole. It was originally built for the National Westminster Bank (NatWest), hence its former name, the NatWest Tower. Seen from above, the tower closely resembles the NatWest logo (three chevrons in a hexagonal arrangement; interesting symbolism there, isn't it?).> In New York City, 42nd Street is a main and very popular two-way thoroughfare. Landmarks on it include the Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station, the main branch of the New York Public Library, and Times Square. Hmmm, "Orion", "Heaven and Earth", a "bow", "gods mingling with humans", and references in pop culture that all have a common theme too, huh? Unreal! Do you seen what I mean now? Spiritual convergence all the way!I also found that, historically, a rainbow flag was used in the German Peasants' War in the 16th century as a sign of a new era, of hope, and of social change (where have we heard that before?). Rainbow flags have also been used as a symbol of the Cooperative Movement; as a symbol of peace, especially in Italy; to represent the Tawantin Suyu, or Inca territory, mainly in Peru and Bolivia; by some Druze communities in the Middle East; and by the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.A "rainbow flag" has been in use as a symbol of "gay pride" and LGBT social movements since the 1970s. But let's refocus on the Jewish connection for a minute. First, here's the Jewish Autonomous Oblast flag:Would you believe it if I told you that we have a Russian-Israel direct link in all of this? Obviously, we've been seeing this sort of "message" come up a lot lately in the news and it's forced us to be mindful of the prophesied Gog-Magog War. In this particular case, we have this Jewish Autonomous Oblast connected to Russia in the sense that it had to do with a "land for peace" type of political movement.Stalin's theory on the "National Question" held that a group could only be a nation if they had a territory, and since there was no Jewish territory, per se, the Jews were not a nation and did not have national rights. Jewish Communists argued that the way to solve this ideological dilemma was by creating a Jewish territory, hence the ideological motivation for the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Politically, it was also considered desirable to create a Soviet Jewish homeland as an ideological alternative to Zionism, and the theory put forward by Socialist Zionists such as Ber Borochov that the "Jewish Question" could be resolved by creating a Jewish territory in Palestine. Thus, they created a rainbow flag to represent this new territory. Remarkable!One final note before moving on, but I also dug up the fact that Valery Solomonovich Gurevich, government vice-chairman of Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Oblast, is the force behind the China and Russian construction of the Amur Bridge Project that began at the end of 2007. The bridge will link Nizhneleninskoye in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast with Tongjiang in Heilongjiang Province. The 2,197-meter-long bridge, with an estimated investment of nearly $230 million, is expected to be finished by the end of 2010. Gurevich said that the proposal to construct a bridge across the river was actually made by Russia, in view of growing cargo transportation demands. Yeah, I'm sure that's true, but not the kind of benign "cargo" the rest of the world might think they're referring to.Let me just throw this out there for pure speculation purposes. The Jewish Autonomous Oblast is situated in the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia and has been since the 1928. The rainbow flag design was adopted during October 1996, or almost 70 years later. The flag consists of a rainbow on a white background, with 7 narrow horizontal colored stripes: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and blue. The 7 colors symbolize the branches of a menorah. The Oblast's website states that, "the horizontal axis is located a color strip symbolizing a rainbow."Odd giving all the signs of the times that are occurring these days. Why? Because I wonder whether or not the coming Antichrist will be of Jewish descent. Personally, I think the Antichrist will likely be Jewish because the Jews will not receive a Gentile as their promised Messiah. Jesus predicted that Israel will someday foolishly receive the Antichrist as their savior.John 5:42 -- "I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive"The Bible does hint that the Antichrist might have a Jewish background. In Daniel 11:37 it says "Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers." Although the verse could mean any deity, the wording strongly matches Jewish heritage of faith in God.I know that there has been some debate over this for several years now, but this has me wondering especially in light of what we're told in Revelation (the only place the word "bow" appears in that entire book!):Revelation 6:2 -- "And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer." (emphasis mine)I know that we traditionally think of this verse as representing the Antichrist's rise to power as he establishes his One World Government through peace. At the same time, others ignore the color of this First Horseman and interpret it to mean that he "conquers" using a weapon of warfare -- a bow and arrow. Let me throw a question out there. If the coming Antichrist is going to be of Jewish descent, then might this famous passage be describing him coming onto the world's stage as a king in all his perceived splendor and glory to save the day so to speak? If so, then is it POSSIBLE (that's all I'm asking) that this individual is somehow connected to the Jewish Autonomous Oblast since this would then describe a king riding in on his white horse, wearing his crown, and carrying the flag (his bow) of the kingdom he already represents? I'm just asking.So, what are we supposed to make of all of this if anything? You know, I get how some people might read what I wrote here and just scratch their heads. The risk is that to some I may come off as "over-analyzing" things and/or traveling too deep down a dark rabbit hole again. I guess I would just respond by saying that my intent here is to simply document the immediate thoughts I have once the Holy Spirit leads me to a particular headline or news story that's of interest.What begins as me simply cataloguing those experiences often turns into an in-depth presentation of how the good Lord in all His wonderful grace and mercy is using ANYTHING and EVERYTHING He can to try to get the same message across to the world and the people He so desperately wants to save if we'll only let Him. That message is always that time is very short, the beginning of Daniel's 70th Week and the fulfillment of some major end times prophecies are at hand, and that the Antichrist's reign is coming sooner than we think.I'll wrap things up by looking back at the one news headline that started it all: Dropping Water Level Exposes 42-Year-Old Ordinance From Six Day War."Dropping Water" = Resonates with Noah's Flood"42" = Negative connotation associated with this number throughout the Bible"Ordinance" = A powerful weapon of warfare"Six Day War" = Jerusalem the focus of the world; Miraculous victory for Israel; Resonates with Psalm 83 War, Destruction of Damascus, Gog-Magog WarI pray that you can see all of this too and heed the warning to either get saved, or get right with God by repenting for your sins before it's too late. The veil is being lifted and the separation between the physical realm and the spiritual realm is thinning.As these things continue to happen with greater frequency and with a growing intensity keep looking up!Luke 21:28 -- "And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draws near