Past commentators have usually agreed that at least four numbers—three, four, seven, and twelve—and their multiples have symbolic meanings in Revelation.
- Seven as a number of completeness is also apparent from the seven days of creation in Genesis 1, which is the complete period of God’s work of creating; likewise, the Hebrew notion of a full week being seven days enhanced the association of seven with completeness.
- Four is also a number of completeness, especially connoting something of universal or worldwide scope. For example, Sib. Or. 4.24–26 says, in referring to the completeness of either God’s creation of humanity or God’s purpose that humanity dominate the entire earth, that “it is God himself who fashioned Adam of four letters, the first-formed man, fulfilling by his name east, west, south, and north”
- Twelve also represents completeness as well as the accompanying idea of unity in diversity, as in the one nation Israel composed of twelve tribes. The twelve apostles mirror the same reality for the people of God in the NT period. There are also twelve months in one year and two sets of twelve in a day of twenty-four hours (for further examples of figurative uses of twelve see on 7:4–8). Ten also represents completeness.