The number 37
The Word of God, exaltation
Bullinger's Number in Scripture has no treatment of thirty-seven; the book moves from thirty-one straight to forty. The number's real fame on this site is mathematical rather than symbolic: the numeric value of every word in Genesis 1:1 in Hebrew, summed by standard gematria, totals 2,701, and 2,701 factors exactly as 37 x 73. The full argument, its history in Bible-numerics teaching, and its critiques are covered at /featured/thirty-seven-and-seventy-three; this row states the fact and points there rather than re-arguing it. The label 'the Word of God, exaltation' (Ed F. Vallowe, Biblical Mathematics, 1998) is a separate, later tradition, not tied to the Genesis 1:1 math and not a claim scripture makes about the number itself.
The mathematics
- The twelfth prime; the third star number (a hexagram of 37 counters); and the fourth centred hexagonal number.
- Thirty-seven divides every three-digit repdigit, because 111 = 3 × 37: so 222, 333, 444, 555, 666, 777, 888 and 999 are every one of them multiples of 37.
- 37 × 73 = 2,701 — and 2,701 is exactly the 73rd triangular number. Both factors are star numbers, and 73 is 37 written backwards. All of that is ordinary checkable arithmetic. That 2,701 is also the letter-value total of Genesis 1:1 is a separate fact, and the site keeps the two apart on purpose.
Every property here was checked before it was printed.
The same number, in what He made
The human body is built of roughly thirty-seven trillion cells — 3.72 × 10¹³ of them, each one carrying the whole instruction set (Bianconi et al., Annals of Human Biology 40, 2013).
Sources are named in the line itself. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”
In Hebrew and Greek
Hebrew
Shloshim v'sheva (שְׁלוֹשִׁים וְשֶׁבַע) - thirty-seven
Greek
Triakonta hepta (τριάκοντα ἑπτά) - thirty-seven
First occurrence
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
The pattern in Scripture
- Prime number - indivisible
- Job chapter 37 - God speaks from whirlwind
- 37 recorded miracles of Jesus
Letter-value notes
37 x 3 = 111 (aleph repeated); related to 'only' (יחיד) patterns
The Gematria lens: every letter-value reading, with its scholarship →
37:37 verses
Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.
So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.
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.