Thursday, November 4

An Infinite Number

Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.
Revelation 5:11

In 2002, the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D. C., updated its estimate of the number of humans who ever lived on earth to approximately 106 billion. Behind population counts and estimates is an underlying premise: The number of humans who have ever existed is finite. If we could identify them all, we could count them and arrive at the exact number of people who have lived.

This is not possible when it comes to angels. The largest number associated with angels in the Bible is in Revelation 5:11: "ten thousand times ten thousand." That "number" (100,000,000) is in a verse that mentions the 24 elders and four living creatures--exact numbers. If John had been able to give the exact number of angels he probably would have, but his "100,000,000" number is likely a metaphor for either "too many to count" or an "infinite" number (like in Matthew 18:22 where "seventy times seven" means "infinite").

Thank God today that God knows the number of angels as well as the number of hairs on your head! (Matthew 10:30)

In prayer we act like men; in praise we act like angels.
Thomas Watson

Read-Thru-the-Bible
Acts 24:1-26:32