The most famous conundrum is the catch of 153 fish (John 21:11).
Augustine noted that 153 is the sum of numbers from one through seventeen, and
that seventeen is the sum of ten plus seven. Since ten signifies the Ten
Commandments and seven corresponds to the seven gifts of the Spirit, the total
number of fish marks the fulfillment of the law through the Spirit. Jerome, on
the other hand, held that it corresponds to the number of species of fish in
the sea, so that the catch signifies the universal scope of the church’s
mission. More recently it has been suggested that the number marks the
fulfillment of Ezek 47:10, which promises that in the age of salvation people
will be able to catch fish in the Dead Sea from En-gedi to En-eglaim. When the
numerical value of each letter in those names is added, the totals are 17 and
153, respectively.
The interpreter’s frame of reference plays a crucial role in the
interpretation of numbers. Augustine is a good example, since he explains the
numbers in the Gospel with considerable consistency, using the dichotomy
between imperfection under the Mosaic Law and perfection in faith, love, or the
Spirit (2 Cor 3:6–9). He said that the disciples began following Jesus at “the
tenth hour” (John 1:39) since there were Ten Commandments and the time had come
for the law to be fulfilled by love. The five books of Moses were signified by
the Samaritan woman’s five husbands (4:18); by the five porticoes at Bethzatha,
which were ineffective for salvation (5:2); by the five barley loaves (6:9);
and by the crowd of five thousand people (6:10). Later the disciples rowed for
twenty-five to thirty stadia (6:19), a journey from imperfection under the Law
of Moses, signified by five times five, to perfection under the Gospel,
signified by five times six—six was the number of days it took God to complete
the world. The invalid at Bethzatha was ill for thirty-eight years (5:5), which
is forty minus two. If forty brings work to its perfection—as in the forty-day
fasts of Moses the lawgiver, Elijah the prophet, and Jesus the bringer of the
gospel, as well as in the proclamation of the Ten Commandments to the four
corners of the earth—the law rests on the two commands to love God and
neighbor. Thus the thirty-eight-year illness shows that the law cannot be
fulfilled apart from the two commands of love. Augustine’s interpretation of the
153 fish in terms of law and Spirit follows in the same vein.
Few contemporary interpreters discern symbolism in all these numbers,
yet Augustine’s relative consistency challenges us to ask about the functions
of all the numbers in the Gospel as we try to assess the significance of any
one of them. Numbers may acquire significance through association with the
central images, persons, and actions in an episode, but the primary meaning of
an episode never depends on a number. As a way of testing the significance of a
number, it is useful to ask whether the meaning would change if the text cited
a different number or made a more general statement about quantity.
In this interpretive framework, we find that numbers referring to
people may occasionally contribute to the symbolism of a scene. The observation
about the Samaritan woman’s five former husbands and current partner (4:18) has
no independent significance, but enhances her role as a representative figure
by suggesting similarities between her personal and national histories: she had
five former husbands and Samaria had been settled by colonists from five
foreign nations. No other number of relationships would suggest this parallel
(pp. 47–50). On the other hand, the observation that Jesus fed five thousand
people with a bit of bread and fish highlights Jesus’ power by showing that
there were “so many” (6:9–10), but the effect would be the same if he had fed four
thousand, as in Mark 8:6–9. (Craig R. Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth
Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community [2d ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2003], 312-14)
