How to Interpret Dreams and Visions Perry Stone

mark of the beast is 666 (Rev. 13:18). The number seven is alluded to in Genesis 2. When God completed His creative work, “He rested on the seventh day” (Gen. 2:2). This imagery of the number seven alludes to a cycle of rest, completion, or perfection. The rest cycles are: each seventh day is a Shabbat (rest); followed by each seventh year, called a Sabbatical cycle; followed by seven years of seven sabbatical cycles (forty-nine years). In each cycle of seven days, seven years, or seven cycles of seven years, the people, animals, and the land rested (Lev. 25:1–7). The use of seven in representing completion or perfection can be seen in the seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven vial judgments in Revelation (chapters 5, 8, 15). Jesus spoke seven sayings from the cross before completing His redemptive work. The word seven or seventh is used 583 times in Scripture and is always linked to the things of God, the kingdom of God, or the prophetic future as it relates to God. One other number commonly found in the Bible is the number forty. This number has represented a period of testing. It is alluded to in the story of Noah’s flood, where the rain fell for forty days and nights. After the rain concluded, Noah experienced a second period of testing as he waited in the ark an additional forty days before the dove returned with an olive branch. Later we read where Goliath taunted the Hebrew army for forty days before being slain by David. Christ was tempted of the devil for forty days in the desolate Judean wilderness! Clearly, the number forty is a number of testing and chastisement; Israel wandered through the wilderness for forty years—one year for every day that they doubted God!