The number 22
Light, revelation, the Word
The "light, revelation, the Word" label sits uneasily against what Bullinger actually says. Number in Scripture (ch. "Twenty-two") reads twenty-two as double eleven, and eleven, for Bullinger, marks disorganization and disintegration, particularly of God's word. He notes that Jeroboam and Ahab, two of Israel's worst kings, each reigned twenty-two years (1 Kings 14:20; 16:29), and raises, as speculation rather than a settled claim, a possible tie to the Hebrew alphabet's twenty-two letters and the ways a text can be corrupted, altered, added to, or subtracted from. The "the Word" half of the popular label likely grew from that same twenty-two-letter alphabet fact read the opposite direction, as the fullness of the Word rather than its corruption. Bullinger's own reading here is cautionary, not celebratory.
The mathematics
- 22 = 2 × 11, and the fourth pentagonal number.
- 22/7 is the classical approximation of π, and it is not a guess: Archimedes proved 223/71 < π < 22/7 by inscribing and circumscribing 96-sided polygons in a circle. 22/7 = 3.142857…, high by four hundredths of one percent.
Every property here was checked before it was printed.
The same number, in what He made
The Hebrew alphabet has twenty-two letters, and the Bible's great acrostics are built on that count — Psalm 119 running eight verses to a letter, and Lamentations giving grief the whole alphabet to say itself in.
Twenty-two amino acids build every protein in every living thing (Ambrogelly, Palioura & Söll, Nature Chemical Biology 3, 2007).
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
Double eleven — disorganisation intensified, especially concerning the Word of God.
“Being the double of eleven, has the significance of that number in an intensified form — disorganization and disintegration, especially in connection with the Word of God.”
“Personal revelation and light — 22 chapters in Revelation; 'light' used 22 times in John.”
In Hebrew and Greek
Hebrew
The 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet
Greek
Eikosi duo (εἴκοσι δύο) - twenty-two
The pattern in Scripture
- 22 Hebrew letters
- Psalm 119 has 22 sections
- 22 books in Hebrew Bible (Jewish count)
- Jeroboam reigned 22 years
22:22 verses
And Chesed, and Hazo, and Pildash, and Jidlaph, and Bethuel.
Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child.
Blind, or broken, or maimed, or having a wen, or scurvy, or scabbed, ye shall not offer these unto t...
And God’s anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adver...
If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both t...
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.