“By the seventh day God finished what he had been doing and stopped working. He blessed the seventh day and set it apart as a special day, because by that day he had completed his creation and stopped working.” — Genesis 2:2-3
Seven is one of the most significance numbers in all of Scripture. In fact, the number itself is used more than 700 times. God loves to point out meaningful events by using numbers. For example: There are Seven Days of Creation (Genesis 1); Seven Colors of the Rainbow (Genesis 9:13-16); and Seven Promises and Blessings to Abraham (Genesis 12:2-3). Then there is the Fall of Jericho which included Seven Priests, Seven Trumpets, and a Seven Days march around the city (Joshua 6:4). In addition, the Sabbath Day is the Seventh Day of the Week (Deuternomy 5:12-15); Seven times the word “Gospel” is used in the book of Mark and there are Seven Churches of the Book of Revelation (Revelation 2-3). Just to mention a few.
But perhaps my favorites of all, are the attributes of God that are listed in identical verses seven times in the Old Testament. You’ll find them in Exodus (34:6); Nehemiah (9:17); David three times (Psalm 86:15, 103:8, 145:8); Joel (2:13); and Jonah (4:2). Here they are!
The Lord is merciful. The Hebrew word for mercy is rachamim, which describes the emotion of “mercy” or “compassion.” Interestingly, it is derived from the name of the most motherly organ in the human body—the womb (rechem). This is where the strongest connection of compassion and love are bonded between the mother and her baby. Notice the English translation is “merciful” or put another way, “full of mercy,” like a mother toward her soon to be born child and beyond.
The Lord is gracious. There is a beautiful song that we often sing at our church called, “Grace After Grace,” taken from the apostle John’s gospel when he says about Jesus, “And from His fulness have we all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:16). In other words, our Lord’s grace (unmerited favor) toward us never runs out!
The Lord is slow to anger. We are admonished in the New Testament, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Ephesians 4:26). Since the Holy Spirit is the author of that verse, certainly it represents God’s view of anger which is dedicated and designed to bring us to a place of repentance. It is a righteous anger that is slow to be observed or materialized because it is only used as a result of our continued disobedience. It is designed to bring us back to His perfect will for our lives. It is not His wrath. That is reserved for the unrepentant and rebellious who remain in unbelief and in opposition to His lovingkindness.
The Lord is abounding in steadfast love. There may be no more significant Old Testament description of how God relates to His people than the Hebrew word hesed, here translated as steadfast love,” writes the late R.C. Sproul, who maintained that the “best translation of this term would be loyal love. God loves His people genuinely, immutably, and loyally. Both the love and the loyalty are, of course, tightly bound together . . . God is for His people, and will never cease to be for them.” Here we see that it is also described as a love that is “abounding” which means plentiful and abundant. It, too, like the other qualities of God will never run out! — Maranatha!
