The words “hundreds” and, especially, “thousands”, often refer to large quantities in general; they are also used simply in a superlative sense.
Hundreds
A hundred in Jesus Christ's teaching
Matthew 13:23 parallel Mark 4:20 See also Matthew 13:8 parallels Mark 4:8, Luke 8:8; Matthew 18:12 parallel Luke 15:4; Matthew 18:28; Mark 10:30
But the seed sown on good soil is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and produces a crop — a hundredfold, sixtyfold, or thirtyfold.”
Abraham becomes a father at 100
Genesis 17:17, Genesis 21:5; Romans 4:19
People who lived to over 100
Genesis 5:3–32, Genesis 9:29, Genesis 11:10–32, Genesis 25:7, Genesis 25:17, Genesis 50:22; Deuteronomy 34:7; Judges 2:8; 2 Chronicles 24:15; Job 42:16; Isaiah 65:20
Hundreds and thousands
Hundreds and thousands as military units
Exodus 18:21; Numbers 31:14; 1 Samuel 22:7; 2 Samuel 18:1; 1 Chronicles 13:1, 1 Chronicles 27:1, 1 Chronicles 28:1; 2 Chronicles 25:5
Hundreds and thousands in blessings
Deuteronomy 1:11 See also Genesis 24:60; 2 Samuel 24:3 parallel 1 Chronicles 21:3; Psalm 144:13
May the LORD, the God of your fathers, increase you a thousand times over and bless you as He has promised.
Thousands
Jesus Christ feeds thousands
Matthew 14:21 parallels Mark 6:44, Luke 9:14, John 6:10; Matthew 15:38 parallel Mark 8:9; Matthew 16:9–10 parallel Mark 8:19–20
Believers numbered in thousands
Acts 21:20 See also Acts 2:41, Acts 4:4; Romans 11:4; 1 Kings 19:18
When they heard this, they glorified God. Then they said to Paul, “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law.
God shows his love to thousands
Exodus 34:6–7 See also Exodus 20:6 parallel Deuteronomy 5:10; Deuteronomy 7:9
Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out: “The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness, maintaining loving devotion to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers on their children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
God has thousands of attendants
Revelation 5:11 See also Psalm 68:17; Daniel 7:10; Hebrews 12:22; Jude 1:14
Then I looked, and I heard the voices of many angels encircling the throne, and the living creatures and the elders. And their number was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands.
God protects one believer amidst thousands of people
Though a thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, no harm will come near you.
God helps one believer against a thousand
See also Joshua 23:10; Judges 15:15–16
God allows thousands to be defeated
Deuteronomy 32:30; Isaiah 30:17
A thousand years
As a day to the Lord: Psalm 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8; Revelation 20:2–7 the reign of Jesus Christ with believers for 1,000 years while Satan is restrained
Special numbers
Revelation 13:18 666 is a symbol of total incompleteness; Revelation 7:4 144,000 symbolises the perfect number of God's people.
God's people are without number
Genesis 16:10 See also Numbers 10:36; Revelation 7:9
Then the angel added, “I will greatly multiply your offspring so that they will be too numerous to count.”
God's people are compared to stars and sand
Genesis 22:17 See also Genesis 15:5; Exodus 32:13; Deuteronomy 10:22; 1 Chronicles 27:23; Nehemiah 9:23; Jeremiah 33:22; Hebrews 11:12
I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies.
Related themes
Dictionary of Bible Themes © 1999 Martin Manser, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, via Bible Aquifer. Formatted for this site, with Scripture from the Berean Standard Bible.