God is a God of order. He is also a God who divides. Even on the first day of creation,
He divided the light from the darkness. And, He expects His servants to
rightly divide His word (2Timothy 2:15).
Therefore, it should
not surprise us that God has provided natural divisions in the Bible. These
divisions, interestingly enough, are sevenfold. Each level of division
is a subdivision of the unit above it.
The sevenfold division
has the mark of God upon it. The number seven in scripture identifies
the perfect work of God. The creation of this world began with
seven days (six days of creation and one day of rest). There
are seven colors of the rainbow and seven notes in the major scale. Joshua
marched seven times around Jericho on the seventh day. But most
important for this article is Psalm 12:6 which says:
�The
words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth,
purified seven times.�
God speaks of the
sevenfold purification of His Book. He introduces a seven-sealed
book in the book of Revelation (Revelation 5:1). And we see a natural
(should we say providential?) sevenfold level of divisions in the Bible. The
seven divisions are as follows:
TESTAMENTS: The
Bible is clearly divided into two testaments. A testament is
related to the idea behind a last will and testament. It
refers to something received after something or someone dies. Hebrews
9:16-17 refers to this:
�For
where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of
the testator. For a testament is of force after men are dead:
otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.�
The �old testament� (2Corinthians 3:14) was in force
during the time that men�s sins were covered upon the sacrifice of animals. The section of the Bible known as the Old Testament deals with this time. The �new testament� (2Corinthians 3:6) deals with that time when people come
to God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. This is what Jesus
referred to when He initiated the Lord�s Supper. Read Matthew 26:26-28:
�And
as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it,
and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And
he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink
ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed
for many for the remission of sins.�
Through
His shed blood, Jesus became �the mediator of the new testament� (Hebrews 9:15). The
part of the Bible known as the New Testament records the coming of
Christ to earth as a man, His sacrifice for us on the cross and the
early record of His followers.
WRITINGS: This
refers to the major sections of the Bible that are distinct as
to type of writing. This division is the most difficult to
define both as to title (I chose �writings�) and to exact number
of them in the Bible (usually given as from 6 to 10 for the entire
Bible). However, even though some may disagree as to where
to make the divisions, the concept is of God. Jesus Himself
accepted the standard Jewish division of the Hebrew Bible in His
time. Luke 24:44 tells of when He appeared to His disciples
after His resurrection:
�And
he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while
I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written
in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning
me.�
Notice,
He speaks of the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms. These
were the writings of the Old Testament as defined at that time. Today,
some Bible teachers may separate the minor prophets from the major
prophets and some may not. Some may include the book of Acts
with the gospels and some may not. However, the distinction of
writings in scripture is very clear. Here is my personal division
of the Bible into seven major sections:
qLaw
oGenesis � Deuteronomy
oFive
(5) books
qHistory
(Old Testament)
oJoshua � Esther
oTwelve
(12) books
qPoetry
oJob � Song
of Solomon
oFive
(5) books
qProphecy
(Old Testament)
oIsaiah � Malachi
oSeventeen
(17) books
oSometimes
divided into Major Prophets (5 books) and Minor Prophets (12 books)
qHistory
(New Testament)
oMatthew � Acts
oFive
(5) books
oSometimes
divided into Gospels and Acts
qEpistles
oRomans � Jude
oTwenty-one
(21) books
oSometimes
divided into Gentile Epistles (13 books) and Jewish Epistles (8 books)
qProphecy
(New Testament)
oBook
of Revelation
oOne
(1) book
BOOKS: This
is the original separation between the individual books as originally
written. The word Bible actually mean a collection
of writings or library of books. The Apostle John refers to his prophetic work as a book in Revelation
22:10:
�And
he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book:
for the time is at hand.�
The
Bible has a total of 66 books; 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the
New Testament. Each of these books is a whole within itself and
yet each book relates to the other books of the Bible.
CHAPTERS: Chapters
separate the Bible into blocks of text suitable for public reading,
study or teaching. The Bible was first divided into chapters
about 1250 by Cardinal Hugo for the purpose of reference in a Latin
concordance. For this reason, many have questioned the validity of
the chapter divisions.
Yet,
the concept of chapter divisions is based on Biblical practice. The
Psalms are individual songs and were separate from the beginning. In
a sermon, Paul quotes from the �second psalm� (Acts 13:33). Lamentations
was divided into five separate poems. Four of these five poems
are 22 verses each (the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet). Of
all the chapters in the Bible, the most common length is 22 verses. It
seems clear that this size of text was providentially chosen for reading,
study, etc.
The
Bible has a total of 1,189 chapters. The Old Testament has 929 chapters and the New Testament has 260 chapters.
VERSES: Verses
separate the Bible text into lengths suitable for reference, quotation
and memorization. New Testament quotations from the Old Testament
set the pattern for the length of a verse. Matthew 1:22-23
gives an example where Isaiah 7:14 is quoted as a promise of the
virgin birth:
�Now
all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the
Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child,
and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel,
which being interpreted is, God with us.�
The
New Testament was first divided into verses in 1551 by Sir Robert Stephens
in his Greek New Testament. In 1560, the Geneva Bible, an English
translation of the Bible made by the English exiles in Geneva, divided
the entire Bible into the verses that we still use today.
An
old source said that the number of verses in the Bible totaled 31,173
and many to this day have quoted this number. However, this number is wrong. Also wrong is the common teaching
that the middle verse in the Bible is Psalm 118:8. I have checked
this myself and have had it verified by a number of sources. The Bible
has 31,102 verses and the middle verses (two verses are required because
of the even number of total verses) are Psalm 103:1-2.
WORDS: Words
distinguish between individual mental concepts. Language
is made up of words and God speaks to man in words. Proverbs
30:5 teaches that �every word of God is true.� Men are warned
against taking any words from the book of Revelation (Revelation 22:19).
It is the words that are pure and preserved in Psalm 12:6-7:
�The
words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth,
purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve
them from this generation for ever.�
By
one count, there are 773, 746 words in the King James Bible. This
means that the average verse is approximately 25 words long. There
are approximately 8,000 different words in the English Bible. The
power of God in using words can be seen when this is compared with
Shakespeare. He used about 25,000 different words in his writings. God said much more with fewer words.
LETTERS: The
last division is that of the letters. They separate between
the distinct sounds which make up the words. They are important
because a change in them can create a new word and meaning. Paul
distinguishes between the meaning of seed and seeds in
Galatians 3:16. Someone, I do not know who, has said that
there are 3,556,480 letters in the Bible. This means that
the average word has slightly less than five letters.