The number 490
Seventy sevens — forgiveness beyond counting; the decreed weeks
Four hundred ninety is seventy times seven — the number Jesus gives Peter when he asks the limit of forgiveness: 'I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven' (Matthew 18:22), deliberately reversing Lamech's seventy-sevenfold vengeance (Genesis 4:24). In Daniel, 'seventy weeks [sevens] are decreed upon thy people and upon thy holy city' (Daniel 9:24) — 490 prophetic years running from the commandment to restore Jerusalem 'unto the anointed one, the prince,' the count the church has read toward Messiah ever since (the five reading traditions are laid out on the Seventy Weeks study).
The mathematics
- 490 = 7 × 70 = 7² × 10 — seven, the number of completion, taken seventy times.
- The arithmetic is the meaning here: the seventy sevens decreed upon Daniel's people, and the seventy-times-seven Jesus set against Lamech's seventy-sevenfold revenge. Unlimited vengeance answered with unlimited forgiveness, in the same numbers.
Every property here was checked before it was printed.
What they have said about this number
Seven times seventy — the seventy sevens determined upon Jerusalem.
“This is the period of the 70 sevens… the spiritual significance of the number itself as being seven times seventy.”
In Hebrew and Greek
Hebrew
Daniel's word is shavu'im — 'sevens' — the text says seventy sevens, not seventy weeks of days.
First occurrence
Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people and upon thy holy city.
The pattern in Scripture
- 70 × 7 — vengeance (Gen 4:24) inverted into forgiveness (Matt 18:22)
- Daniel's seventy sevens, divided 7 + 62 + 1 (Dan 9:25-27)
Key verses
Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.
Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven.
If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.
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.