Number of Angels (Hebrews 12:22)

2024-01-10

But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels (Hebrews 12:22)

How many angels are there? We cannot know for sure. Here, the word “innumerable” can just mean “myriad,” in which the Greek word corresponds to this English cognate. But it is also interesting that the word can mean the number 10,000. That number is significant elsewhere in Scripture.

Consider the angels praising God around His throne when it was found that the Lion of Judah could open the seals of the book. “And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands” (Revelation 5:11). We see the same word here, but duplicated: “ten thousand times ten thousand” with additional thousands of thousands. Doing the math, 10,000 times 10,000 is 100 million, and thousands of thousands are millions. The minimum this could be is 102 million, though it could be more than that.

We see that this agrees with an Old Testament account. “I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened” (Daniel 7:9-10).

We also see the Lord has heavenly chariots as well with a multitude of angels. “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place” (Psalm 68:17).

Because we see that the word “ten thousand” can also mean innumerable or myriad, and that the word is sometimes duplicated, we can see that whatever number of angels there are, it is a huge quantity.