The Bible’s Number 13 — The spirit of God, spiritual things, or our inability to understand God. Many think of 1st Corinthians 13, the love chapter, when they think of number 13 and naturally imagine 13 is related to love but in western culture we more naturally think of number thirteen as an “unlucky” number and that is actually a closer description.
When not seen in relationship to spiritual things we often see number thirteen associated with man’s inability to grasp God’s laws and our constant desire to do things our own way. It would make sense it is considered a number of bad luck but luck does not have anything to do with how God’s laws work. We should think of number 13 as being associated with our inability on a consistent basis to get things right.
Man’s dim understanding – 1Corinthians 13:11-12 “When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. v12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known”.
An example of number 13 in text that reveals how man’s ways are not God’s ways – Ester 3:13 “Letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces to destroy, to kill and to annihilate all the Jews, … in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to seize their possessions as plunder”.
We find the numeric map also reveals this theme to number 13 – Jeremiah 6:13 “For from the least of them even to the greatest of them, Everyone is greedy for gain, And from the prophet even to the priest Everyone deals falsely“ and Matthew 6:13 “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil...”.