Seven thousand

I heard the story of Elijah's flight from Jezebel again today. The odd thing that struck me had to do with how we view the "literalness" of the Scripture text. Specifically, is God's reference to the 7,000 who have not bowed to Baal a precise number or is it a number that illustrates a point to Elijah and those who followed after him?

The exact question that popped into my head was, "Would Elijah have been more encouraged by a precise number (like a census) or by knowing that God had preserved a complete number of faithful people?" What if the text said, "I have reserved 2,863 in all Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal"? Or "I have reserved 64,551 in all Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal"?

I think real encouragement comes from knowing that the completeness and perfection of God's remnant has been preserved. The way this number works is 7 x 10 x 10 x 10. Seven and ten are significant in themselves, but a thousand is also important as a complete number. So 7,000 would have told Elijah, "You are not alone. I have preserved exactly the people who needed to be preserved in order to accomplish my purposes."

This gets back to the doctrinal question. Is it a lie if it's not a precise number? Or did God pick the number and then ensure that there actually were 7,000? Or is the Bible not a product of late Modernism? I've long been an "inspired, inerrant" kind of Bible guy. I still am, but I think the definitions are changing. I now tend to see the importance of the number as one that communicates best to Elijah, and in this case, it's emotionally rather than numerically.