153 Fishes
“Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, and hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken” (John 21:11).
After the death of Jesus, a number of disciples returned to their fishing business. After a night of casting their net, they caught nothing. Standing on the shore, Jesus instructed them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. They immediately made such a catch that they were not able to draw in the net. John 21:11 says the catch totaled 153 fish.
What is mathematically special about the number 153?
Ponder this, 153 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4+ 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11+ 12+ 13 + 14 + 15 + 16 + 17. In other words, it is equal to the sum of all the integers from 1 to 17. Seventeen was the age of Joseph when sold by his brothers. Joseph was a picture of Jesus. He was the perfect one (seven) who came to earth (10) to redeem us. Perhaps these 153 fish represent those redeemed from earth by Jesus during the first age of redemption.
153 Great Fishes
The sum shown above makes 153 what thePythagoreans called a triangular number, ThePythagoreans promoted the idea of representing numbers by dots arranged in patterns. For a triangular number the pattern of dots forms a triangle all of whose sides have an equal number of dots. The first triangular number is 3: two dots below a single dot. Put a row of three dots below the two dots and you have 6, the second triangular number. The sixteenth triangular number is 153. Is this meaningful?
In King David’s division of the priesthood, there are two groups: the heads of families descending from Eleazar (16) and the heads of the families descending from Ithamar (8). Those from Eleazar may represent the elect who will reign with Christ, and those from Ithamar those who comprise the Great Company. In this case, the 16 families from Eleazar relate to the faithful Church class, as the 16th triangular number relates to the elect pictured in the 153 great fish.
Maybe there is a further echo of the church class in the form of cubes. The number 153 is the sum of the cubes of its digits (1 x 1 x 1, plus 5 x 5 x 5, plus 3 x 3 x 3). New Jerusalem is a picture of the Bride class in Revelation 21:16, and its dimensions suggest a cube. “The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.”
There is still more of interest in the number 153. It can be expressed in another fundamental way. For 153 = 1 + (1 x 2) + (1 x 2 x 3) + (1 x 2 x 3 x 4) + (1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5). Contemporary mathematicians would write this equation more economically: 153 = 1! + 2! + 3! + 4! + 5! (The exclamation mark represents the factorial function. That means multiply all integers up to that number).
Above, we mentioned that 153 is the sum of the cubes of its digits. In 1961, according to paradoxologist Martin Gardner, Phil Kohn of Yoqneam, Israel, informed the British weekly New Scientist that 153 lies dormant in every third number. We leave it to you to figure out what Kohn told New Scientist, but here is a hint: Take any multiple of three. Sum the cubes of its digits. Take the result and sum the cube of its digits. Keep doing this indefinitely.
The question that comes to mind regarding the miraculous catch of fish is, why 153? Was this just a random number of fish or is there a hidden message in this interesting number? If the Lord had some intention here in causing 153 fish to be caught, it shows that he conveys a message in many different ways.
There is one additional item of interest in the number 153. Gematria is a system of assigning numerical values to a word or phrase. The Hebrew phrase “Beni Ha-Elohim,” or “Sons of God,” equals 153. That is, 2 + 50 + 10 + 5 + 1+ 30 + 5 + 10 + 40.
– Adapted from Science Digest, May 1985
Supplemented from material by Bullinger,
“Number in Scripture,” and other suggestions.