Someone writes, “I would like to know the biblical meaning for the number ‘2.’” One resource claims, “In a mystical sense, one is Unity; two, represents Unity repeated…” (McClintock and Strong). Fausset’s Bible Dictionary records respecting the number two:
Two notes intensification (Gen 41:32), requital in full (Job 42:10; Jer 16:18; Isa 61:7; Rev 18:6); the proportions of the temple were double those of the tabernacle; two especially symbolizes testimony (Zech 4:11; 11:7; Isa 8:2; Rev 11:3), two tables of the testimony (Ex 31:18), two cherubim over the ark of the testimony. God is His own witness; but that witness is twofold, His word and His oath (Heb 6:13,17), Himself and His Son (John 8:18).
The number “two” appears 835 times in our English Bible (e.g., KJV). Whereas numbers in the Bible may refer in given instances to some figurative application, numbers frequently appear in the Bible in a literal sense (i.e., as counting or assessing quantity). The context in which numbers appear determines their figurative or literal use. Largely, even when the Bible employs numbers figuratively, a fair degree of conjecture or interpretation may be necessary to discern the way in which they are being used in a certain passage. One rule of hermeneutics (biblical interpretation) is that words should always be considered first in their literal sense before assigning them some figurative application (and then only for good, contextual reason).
