The Symbolism of 10 - Creation, Plagues, and the Ten Commandments

The biblical authors make heavy use of number symbolism. But they do not use it in the sort of weird number symbolism of books like The Bible Code, where in 2012 Saddam Hussein does this or that. Rather, they use number symbolism in a similar way to how color symbolism is used in literature.

A color may have its own symbolic nature. Red can symbolize love or lust or passion, or white can symbolize purity. Sometimes a color can allude back to other situations where that color has been used before. In a similar way, we are going to look at the symbolism of the number 10.

Last week, we saw that the book of Genesis is organized into 10 sections, and there is a symbolic reason for that design. But before we can understand that, we need to look at how the Bible uses the number 10 more broadly.

Genesis 1: Creation by Ten Words

The first time Scripture uses the symbolism of the number 10—the place where it actually sets up the symbolism—is in Genesis 1.

In Genesis 1, that symbolic use is subtle. It is not as if the author comes out and says, “And God did something 10 times.” You have to look a little bit more carefully.

In Genesis 1, God creates the heavens and the earth. It is fascinating to see what specifically our narrator wants to point our attention to about creation: he wants to point our attention to the means, to how God creates the world. And God creates it by speech, by speaking. Ten times the narrator tells us, “God said.” God said, “Let there be light.” God said, “Let there be an expanse.” And so on.

So in Genesis 1, a foundational symbolic connection is established between the number 10 and creation.

Now, you may be thinking, “That is a sort of slim connection, just counting up 10 verbs.” I would agree with you if this were the only time it appeared. But time and time again, the biblical authors will later layer on further examples of this number 10 symbolism.

The Plagues of Egypt: De-Creation

The next time the number 10 symbolism is prominently used is in the plagues of Egypt. There are, of course, 10 plagues. But the numerical connection is not the only connection. There is an explicit creation connection.

If you remember back to Genesis 1, the way God designs the universe is in three parts: heaven (or sky), land, and sea. He keeps coming back to these three parts, first creating the spaces and then filling them with inhabitants or rulers.

How does this work? On day 1, God creates light. On the second day, among other things, he creates the sea and sky expanse. On the third day, he creates land. Then he starts this pattern over again. On day 4, he goes back to that sky area where he created light, and he creates the sun, moon, and stars set to rule over those spheres. On the next day, he makes fish to fill the sea. And on the final creation day, he makes land creatures, including that great land creature, man.

These are the three spheres. This is the architectural space of the universe. It will come back in the tabernacle, and then in the temple, and in fascinating variations on that theme.

When we look at the 10 plagues, those three spheres of creation come up again. God goes through those three spheres over and over in a systematic way, cursing, punishing, and plaguing things in those spaces.

Think about these plagues:

• In the sky, what does he do? He turns the day dark, day to night. And he sends gnats flying in the sky area.
• In the sea, he turns the water to blood. And he sends flies, presumably coming out of the water.
• On the land, God plagues the livestock and multiplies the frogs.

He is deliberately forging a connection between 10 and these creation spaces.

What is the point? Here is the wonderful insight: what God is doing is de-creating the Egyptian world. He is going through these spheres and deconstructing them, disordering them. Because Egypt is oppressing and enslaving the Hebrews, this beautiful, well-designed world that God put together in the beginning is unraveled. If you rebel against God and his little image-bearers, he will take your world apart.

The Ten Commandments: Moral and Social Order

The third use of 10 in creation symbolism comes with the Ten Commandments. Once again, there is a connection to the number 10, but that is not all. There is something hidden in most of our English translations that comes through clearly in the Hebrew: they are not actually called the “Ten Commandments.” They are called the “Ten Words.”

Why call them words? Some of them are commandments, certainly. But Moses calls them words because he wants to make a direct connection to the speaking creation words in Genesis 1.

What is the point of that allusion? The point is that God is not merely creating physical matter here; he is creating social order. He is creating moral order. Moses makes that connection so we understand that the law is not just a random collection of commandments. Rather, it is a means of organizing and structuring social and moral space.

Ordering the Darkness in Genesis

What does this have to do with the structure of Genesis?

Moses organizes the book of Genesis into 10 sections because he wants to communicate that the book itself is bringing order. The book itself is an act of organizing. Moses is doing the exact same thing here that God does in Genesis 1 and in the Ten Commandments: he is bringing structure right at the beginning, in the very first book of the Bible.

That insight is vital for reading Genesis. There will be times in Genesis that are deeply evil and dark, where characters do things that are horrible—murder, rape, betrayal. When we understand that the book’s very architecture represents bringing order out of chaos, we can understand that even in those horrific situations, God is going to bring order, even if we cannot immediately see how.

In the final act of Genesis, this is the exact point that the protagonist Joseph makes. After their father Jacob dies, Joseph’s brothers come to him terrified. Earlier in life, they had sold him into slavery, and they worry that Joseph will now take revenge on them.

Joseph responds with that climactic statement: “What you meant as evil, God meant for good.”

Joseph embodies what the reader needs to understand by the end of the story: the author is bringing all of this history into an order and a design that you might not be able to see when you are standing in the middle of it. And that is why the Bible is art.

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