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Study on the Number Four


Summary

God often uses the number four to signify all-encompassing.

Examples

Satan’s deceitful work spreads through the entire world:

And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth. (Revelation 20:8)

God gathers his people from all over the planet:

And he shall send his angels with a great trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to another. (Matthew 24:31)

The number four can be used in connection with the points of a compass which covers all possible directions:

In four quarters were the porters, toward the east, west, north, and south. (1 Chronicles 9:24)

On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates. (Revelation 21:13)

When warning of the destruction that God plans to bring upon the entire land of Israel He speaks of it as a destruction that will come upon the four corners of the land:

Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD unto the land of Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land. (Ezekiel 7:2)

The “four corners of the land” is another way of saying the “whole land&rduo;:

Thus shalt thou say unto him, The LORD saith thus; Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land. (Jeremiah 45:4)

Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD’s wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land. (Zephaniah 1:18)

They have made it desolate, and being desolate it mourneth unto me; the whole land is made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart. (Jeremiah 12:11)

We saw in the above paragraph that the desolation was in the “whole land.” God also speaks of this desolation as being “four sore judgments” through “four kinds,” all of which is an illustration of total destruction in the whole land:

For thus saith the Lord GOD; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast? (Ezekiel 14:21)

And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the LORD: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy. (Jeremiah 15:3)

God lists four synoyms of “people” to signify all people:

And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. (Revelation 17:15)

In Zechariah 6:1-5 we read about the four chariots which represent the four spirits of the heavens that go forth from the Lord of all the earth.