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The meaning of 51--Overcoming enemies

The number 51 is written in Hebrew with the letter noon (or nun) and alef.

Noon (נ) is a school of fish darting here and there, signifying life and activity. Alef (א) is an ox, signifying strength or something that is first or “Number One.” The number 51, along with all of the numbers from 50-59, pictures some manifestation of life in the Jubilee, or the law of grace (50).

The number 51 is 3 x 17. Therefore, it is an enhancement of the number 17, “victory.” It is the number of “overcoming enemies.” Psalm 52 is the 51^st psalm, which says in the prologue, “A Maskil [Instruction] of David, when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul and said to him, ‘David has come to the house of Ahimelech’.”

In other words, David wrote this psalm to commemorate the incident that is recorded in 1 Samuel 21. It is the story of David’s escape from Saul’s wrath. We read in 1 Samuel 21:1,

¹ Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest…

David and his men were hungry, so Ahimelech gave them the bread from the table of showbread (1 Samuel 21:6). We then read in 1 Samuel 21:7,

⁷ Now one of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord; and his name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s shepherds.

Later, we read in 1 Samuel 22:9,

⁹ Then Doeg the Edomite, who was standing by the servants of Saul, said, “I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub.”

As a result, Saul came to Nob, and when it was confirmed that Ahimelech had given David provisions, he told his soldiers to kill Ahimelech. They refused, so he told Doeg the Edomite to kill Ahimelech and the other priests who ministered before the ark of the covenant. 1 Samuel 22:18, 19 says,

¹⁸ Then the king said to Doeg, “You turn around and attack the priests.” And Doeg the Edomite turned around and attacked the priests, and he killed that day eighty-five priests who wore the linen ephod. ¹⁹ And he struck Nob the city of the priests with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and infants; also oxen, donkeys, and sheep he struck with the edge of the sword.

This massacre was commemorated in Psalm 52, which is the 51^st psalm. There we are given a description of Doeg and others who are like him. Psalm 52:3-5 says,

³ You love evil more than good, falsehood more than speaking what is right. ⁴ You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue. ⁵ But God will break you down forever; He will snatch you up and tear you away from your tent, and uproot you from the land of the living.

Prophetically, this speaks into the alliance between Saul (the church) and Edom, which, according to The Jewish Encyclopedia, is in modern Jewry, having been absorbed into Jewry in 126 B.C. This alliance has resulted in the deaths of many of God’s true priests.

Psalm 52 is also part of the Exodus book of Psalms, commemorating the events in Exodus 32. There the Israelites worshipped the golden calf and were struck down by the judgment of God (Exodus 32:28). In that story, the Israelites themselves were the enemies to be overcome.

The 51^st time that Israel is mentioned in Scripture is in Exodus 3:9, where Egypt was the enemy to be overcome:

⁹ Now behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.

The 51^st time that Joshua’s name appears is in Joshua 4:20,

²⁰ Those twelve stones which they had taken from the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal.

The twelve stones represent the divine government of the overcomers at the time of the first resurrection (Revelation 20:5, 6). These stones came from the Jordan River, the place of baptism (from death to life), after God dammed the river upstream at the city called Adam (Joshua 3:16). This prophesies of the reversal of the sentence of death, which traces back to Adam.

Death is the greatest (and final) enemy, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:26,

²⁶ The last enemy that will be abolished is death.

Jesus’ name appears for the 51^st time in Matthew 13:1,

¹ That day Jesus went out of the house and was sitting by the sea.

What follows is the parable of the Sower. The most relevant part of this (for our purposes) is in His explanation in Matthew 13:18, 19,

⁸ Hear then the parable of the Sower. ⁹ When anyone hears the word of the Kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on which seed was sown beside the road.

In this case, “the evil one” is either the devil himself or one of his servants who oppose the word (seed) in order to destroy the man’s faith. Those who receive the seed of the word, whose hearts are fertile ground for the truth, are described at the end in Matthew 13:23,

²³ And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundred, some sixty, and some thirty.

These are the ones who overcome the enemy of faith.

Jesus’ name appears for the 51^st time in the gospel of John in John 5:15,

¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus [51] who had made him well. ¹⁶ For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus [52], because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.

The Jews persecuted Jesus—and later his followers—and so they were His enemies. Jesus overcame His enemies by truth that was demonstrated by healing the lame man at the pool of Bethesda.

The 51^st time that Peter’s name is mentioned in the book of Acts is in Acts 12:7,

¹¹ And behold, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared and a light shone in the cell; and he struck Peter’s side and woke him up, saying, “Get up quickly.” And his chains fell off his hands.

Here the angel delivered Peter from prison, where his enemies had bound him. Recall that Herod had killed James, the brother of John (Acts 12:2). James and Peter illustrate the two works of Christ. In Leviticus 14, the first bird (dove) was killed, and the second released. In Leviticus 16 the first goat was killed, and the second released. Both of these examples depict the two comings of Christ, wherein Christ was killed in His first coming but released alive into the world in His second coming.

James represented Christ’s first coming, and so he was killed as a martyr. Peter represented Christ’s second coming, and so the angel released him alive. As in the case of Jesus Himself, James appeared to be overcome by the enemy, but this was all part of the divine plan. So in the aftermath of Christ’s own death, many in the early church were persecuted and killed by their enemies.

Peter, however, was released, because the story prophesied of the great release at the time of Christ’s second coming. This release coincides with the overthrow of Mystery Babylon, the overcomers’ victory over death, and the establishment of the Kingdom.

The 51^st time that Paul’s name appears is in Acts 19:11, 12,

¹¹ God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, ¹² so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out.

All sickness and death, as well as evil spirits, function as the enemy to be overcome. In this case, we are given a fuller explanation when Luke tells us the story of Sceva and his sons who tried to imitate Paul’s power of healing. Acts 19:13-16 says,

¹³ But also some of the Jewish exorcists, who went from place to place, attempted to name over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, “I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.” ¹⁴ Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. ¹⁵ And the evil spirit answered and said to them, “I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” ¹⁶ And the man, in whom was the evil spirit, leaped on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

Here we see the contrast between Paul and Sceva. Paul knew Jesus, but Sceva did not. So Paul was able to overcome the enemy—in this case, evil spirits—but Sceva and his sons failed and were injured in their attempt to exorcise the evil spirits.

If we relate this to the golden calf incident in Exodus 32, we can see how Sceva, “a Jewish chief priest” in Ephesus, can be compared to the idolatrous Israelites in the wilderness. Paul, on the other hand, can be compared to the Levites who were loyal to Yahweh (Christ) and who did not participate in the worship of the golden calf (Exodus 32:26).