The number 120
A completed waiting company; the limit of days
Before the Flood God says, 'his days shall be a hundred and twenty years' (Genesis 6:3) — read either as man's shortened span or the years of longsuffering before judgment; Moses dies at exactly a hundred and twenty, 'his eye was not dim' (Deuteronomy 34:7). At the temple's dedication a hundred and twenty priests sound trumpets as the glory fills the house (2 Chronicles 5:12-14); in the upper room 'the number of names together were about a hundred and twenty' (Acts 1:15) waiting for the Spirit to fill another house.
First occurrence
'My Spirit shall not strive with man for ever… yet shall his days be a hundred and twenty years.'
The pattern in Scripture
- Moses' 120 years divide as 40+40+40 (Egypt, Midian, wilderness — Acts 7:23, 30, 36)
- 120 priests at the first temple's filling; 120 disciples before Pentecost's filling
Key verses
And Jehovah said, My Spirit shall not strive with man for ever… yet shall his days be a hundred and twenty years.
And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
And in these days Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren, and said (and there was a multitude of persons gathered together, about a hundred and twenty).
…and with them a hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets.