The number 3

Divine completeness, Trinity, resurrection

God's own numbers: unity, completeness, divine order

Three marks the resurrection pattern directly: Jonah spent "three days and three nights" in the great fish, a sign Jesus applies to himself (Jonah 1:17; Matthew 12:39-40), and Christ rose "the third day" (Luke 24:46). The seraphim's triple cry, "Holy, holy, holy" (Isaiah 6:3), and Paul's threefold description of a person, "spirit and soul and body" (1 Thessalonians 5:23), add further anchors. E. W. Bullinger reads three as the number of what is solid and complete, since three dimensions make a solid where two make only a flat plane, and ties it to the Trinity, the resurrection, and repeated triads through the Bible. The geometric picture is Bullinger's own framework for explaining why; the resurrection and holiness texts themselves carry the real scriptural weight, apart from any theory of numbers.

The mathematics

The first odd prime, and the second triangular number (1 + 2).
Three points that do not lie on a line determine a plane, and three straight lines are the fewest that can enclose any region at all: the triangle is the first polygon, and the only rigid one — which is why bridges and roof trusses are built of them.
The first case of Fermat's Last Theorem: no positive whole numbers satisfy a³ + b³ = c³, proved by Euler in 1770.

Every property here was checked before it was printed.

The same number, in what He made

Space itself has three dimensions — length, breadth, height. Everything that has ever been built, measured or inhabited stands in exactly three.

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

Divine perfection, with special reference to the Trinity; that which is solid, real, substantial and entire.

“Three, therefore, stands for that which is solid, real, substantial, complete, and entire.”

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

“Perfect completion — fullness, being complete, the resurrection; the number God stamps on divinity.”

Troy Brewer, Numbers That Preach (2007)

In Hebrew and Greek

Hebrew

Shalosh (שָׁלוֹשׁ) — three

Greek

Treis (τρεῖς) - three

First occurrence

Genesis 5:22

And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:

The pattern in Scripture

Trinity - Father, Son, Holy Spirit
Jonah three days in the fish
Christ rose on third day
Three patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob
Holy, Holy, Holy (Isa 6:3)

Key verses

Genesis 5:22

And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughter...

Genesis 5:23

And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:

Genesis 6:10

And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Genesis 6:15

And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cu...

Genesis 7:13

In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife,...

3:3 verses

Genesis 3:3

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of...

Exodus 3:3

And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.

Leviticus 3:3

And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the Lord; th...

Numbers 3:3

These are the names of the sons of Aaron, the priests which were anointed, whom he consecrated to mi...

Deuteronomy 3:3

So the Lord our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people: and we...

The works behind these readings

Where to go next

Biblical Numbers: the study →The Numerics lens →All biblical numbers →