The number 20

Redemption, expectancy, waiting period

Twenty carries a real Bullinger anchor and a real independent one. Number in Scripture (ch. "Twenty") cites Dr. Milo Mahan's observation that twenty falls one short of twenty-one (3x7), and reads the number as "expectancy": Jacob served twenty years for his wives and flocks (Genesis 31:38, 41), Israel waited twenty years for deliverance from Jabin (Judges 4:3), and the ark rested at Kirjath-jearim twenty years before David brought it up (1 Samuel 7:1-2). Separately, Exodus 30:14 sets twenty years old as the threshold for the atonement money paid at Israel's census, a genuine "redemption" anchor in the text itself, distinct from Bullinger's expectancy reading. Both senses are defensible from Scripture and neither should be presented as the number's single fixed meaning.

The mathematics

The fourth tetrahedral number: twenty spheres stack into a perfect triangular pyramid.
20 = 2² + 4², and it is the number of ways to choose three things from six.
Two of the five Platonic solids are built on twenty — the dodecahedron has twenty vertices, the icosahedron twenty faces.

Every property here was checked before it was printed.

The same number, in what He made

The standard genetic code specifies twenty amino acids — the alphabet every protein in every living thing is spelled from, the same twenty in a cedar and in a man.

A child grows twenty primary teeth, ten in each jaw, before the permanent set replaces them (American Dental Association eruption charts).

And twenty digits — ten fingers, ten toes.

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

Expectancy — one short of completion, and so the number of waiting. Bullinger counts seven twenty-year waits in Scripture: Jacob, Israel under Jabin, Samson, the ark at Kirjath-jearim, Solomon's building, Jerusalem, Jeremiah.

“Twenty, being one short of 21, it would signify what Dr. Milo Mahan calls expectancy.”

E. W. Bullinger, Number in Scripture (1894)

“Expectancy and redemption.”

Troy Brewer, Numbers That Preach (2007)

In Hebrew and Greek

Hebrew

Esrim (עֶשְׂרִים) - twenty

Greek

Eikosi (εἴκοσι) - twenty

First occurrence

Genesis 6:3

And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

The pattern in Scripture

Jacob served Laban 20 years
Solomon's building projects took 20 years
20 years under Jabin (Judg 4:3)
Age of military service (Num 1:3)

Key verses

Genesis 6:3

And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his da...

Genesis 11:24

And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah:

Genesis 18:31

And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be tw...

Genesis 23:1

And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah.

Genesis 31:38

This twenty years have I been with thee; thy ewes and thy she goats have not cast their young, and t...

20:20 verses

Exodus 20:20

And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be bef...

Leviticus 20:20

And if a man shall lie with his uncle’s wife, he hath uncovered his uncle’s nakedness: they shall be...

Numbers 20:20

And he said, Thou shalt not go through. And Edom came out against him with much people, and with a s...

Deuteronomy 20:20

Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them d...

Judges 20:20

And the men of Israel went out to battle against Benjamin; and the men of Israel put themselves in a...