The number 14
Deliverance, salvation, Passover
Fourteen carries two of Scripture's clearest anchors. The Passover lamb was killed on the fourteenth day of the first month (Exodus 12:6), the day that became the hinge of Israel's deliverance and the pattern Paul later applies to Christ as "our Passover" (1 Corinthians 5:7). Matthew also builds his genealogy of Jesus into three sets of fourteen generations, Abraham to David, David to the exile, the exile to Christ (Matthew 1:17). E. W. Bullinger's Number in Scripture (ch. "Fourteen") reads 14 as 2x7, a doubled measure of the sevenfold completeness he assigns to seven, and cites Matthew's pattern as his chief example. The link to deliverance and salvation rests on Passover itself, not on the arithmetic; the arithmetic is real but interpretive, not a claim Scripture makes about itself.
The mathematics
- 14 = 2 × 7 — a doubled seven, which is exactly how Scripture uses it.
- The third square pyramidal number: 1 + 4 + 9, the count of cannonballs in a three-tier square stack.
- Beyond that, fourteen has no deep arithmetical distinction — and it does not need one. Its weight in Scripture is textual: Matthew builds his genealogy in three sets of fourteen and says so out loud, because fourteen is the letter-value of DAVID.
Every property here was checked before it was printed.
The same number, in what He made
Each human hand holds fourteen finger bones — three in each finger, two in the thumb (Gray's Anatomy, 41st ed.).
Sources are named in the line itself. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”
What they have said about this number
A doubled seven — spiritual perfection in double measure, with two's witness carried in.
“Being a multiple of seven, partakes of its significance; and, being double that number, implies a double measure of spiritual perfection.”
“Generational promises and the fear of the Lord — to love what God loves and hate what He hates.”
In Hebrew and Greek
Hebrew
Arbaah asar (אַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר) - fourteen
Greek
Dekatessares (δεκατέσσαρες) - fourteen
First occurrence
And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, an...
The pattern in Scripture
- Passover on 14th of Nisan
- 14 generations x 3 in Matthew 1
- 14th day of first month (Exod 12:6)
Key verses
And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephai...
Thus have I been twenty years in thy house; I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and ...
These are the sons of Rachel, which were born to Jacob: all the souls were fourteen.
And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the co...
In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until...
14:14 verses
And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his ...
The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.
And the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and the priest shall put it up...
And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that thou Lord art among ...
And every raven after his kind,
Related numbers
The works behind these readings
- E. W. Bullinger, Number in Scripture (1894)The standing catalogue of what each number means and where it returns: the spine of this whole section. Public domain; free to read in full.
- John J. Davis, Biblical Numerology (1968)The counting discipline: which numbers the text itself repeats, and which readings run past what it says.
- Ryken, Wilhoit & Longman (eds.), Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (1998)The entries on Three, Seven, Twelve and Forty: how each image works across both testaments.
- Chuck Missler, Cosmic Codes (1999)The letter-value material and the design case built on it.
- Troy Brewer, Numbers That Preach (2007)What each number preaches: the founder's named guide, quoted here within the cap on living authors, with the book named so you can go and read it whole.