The Number 2

The Number “2”

(Unity & Duality)

Meaning and Symbolism

• The number 2 conveys the meaning of unity as well as contrast. It is the next number after 1 wherein there is nothing with which to compare or judge anything to.
• The number 2 represents the beginning of measured time. for with-out 2 objects moving in relation to one another there is nothing with which to measure time.
• If 1 is the essence, 2 is the existence.
• Symbol of the duality, the opposition, the separation, the antagonism.
• Symbolize the love, the charity, since there is necessarily duality between which gives and which receives.
• Symbol of sexuality since 2 represents also the division of the unit in male and female.
• Duality: Good & Evil, Up & Down, Right & Left, North & South, East & West, Black & White, etc…..

In the Bible

• The two great divisions of the Bible: the Old and the New Testament.
• The earliest reference to the number 2 is when that God ordered Noah to put two of every unclean animal into the ark (Gen. 7:2)
• Moses brought down two tablets from Mount Sinai
• By group of two Jesus-Christ sent his apostles to preach the Gospel. (Mk 6,7)
• The two turtledoves and the two doves of the purification. (Lk 2,24)
• The two witnesses of the Revelation. (Rv 11,3-4)
• The two fishes of the multiplication of bread. (Mt 14,19)
• The two swords of Peter. (Lk 22,38)
• The two thieves. (Mt 27,38)
• The two kinds of baptism: water and spirit. (Jn 3,5)
• The two angels of the tomb. (Jn 20,12)
• The two angels of the Ascension. (Act 1,10)
• The two sons of Abraham. (Ga 4,22)
• The two coins of money given by the widow. (Mk 12,42)
• The two coins of money that the hotel keeper receives. (Lk 10,35)
• The two silver trumpets that God asked Moses to forge. (Nb 10,1)
• The two olive-trees situated on both side of the golden lamp, in the vision of Zechariah. (Zc 4,3)
• The two marriages of Jacob. (Gn 29,15-30)
• The two stone tablets on which were registered the Ten Commandments of God given to Moses on the Mount Sinai. (Ex 31,18)
• The two cherubs of the ark. (Ex 25,18)
• The two expiatory goats.
• The two sons of Rebekah. (Gn 25,23-24)
• The two kingdoms of Juda and Israel. (1 K 12,19)
• The two golden calves of Rehoboam. (1 K 12,28)
• The two angels of Heliodorus. (2 M 3,26)
• In Jewish law, the testimonies of two witnesses are required to verify and validate events, such as marriage, divorce, and a crime that warrants capital punishment.
• The two columns in front of the Hall of the Temple of Solomon: Jachin and Boaz. (1 K 7, 15-22)
• The two trees in the garden of Eden. The “Tree of knowledge of good and evil” and the “Tree of Life” (Gen 2-3)
• The number 2 conveys the meaning of a union, division or the verification of facts by witnesses. A man and woman, though two in number, are made one in marriage (Genesis 2:23 – 24). There is also the union between Christ and the church (see 1Corinthians 12). The testimony of God is divided into Old and New Testaments. His agreements with mankind are divided into Old and New Covenants. And, though two in number, God the Father and God the Son (Jesus Christ) compose a single Godhead.
• The first man, Adam, sinned and brought death and destruction into the world. Jesus, however, as the second (or last) Adam brings the hope of the resurrection and eternal life (1Corinthians 15:21 – 22, 45 – 49).
• Those who ultimately refuse to repent and obey God will be put to death FOREVER by being thrown into the lake of fire, which is called the SECOND death (Revelation 21:8). This act will eternally divide those who are righteous from those who practiced evil.
• At the minimum, the testimony of at least 2 people was needed in the Old Testament to convict someone of a crime or sin. The validity of this teaching was confirmed by the Apostle Paul (1Timothy 5:19, Titus 3:10). In the End Time, two witnesses will appear on the world scene to testify and uphold the truth of God against the Beast and the False Prophet (see Revelation 11). Jesus sent the disciples out in pairs so that they could not only testify about his teachings and miracles but also be witnesses of those who accepted or rejected the gospel (Mark 6:7 – 13).
• Two can also convey comparison and contrast. The Old Covenant was based on physical blessings for obedience while the New is based on those that are spiritual. In the Old Testament, physical circumcision was required in order to be considered part of God’s people, while the New requires circumcision of the heart. God formerly required obedience only to the “letter” of his laws but now calls upon man to obey their spiritual intent as well.
• The 2 is the first number to deviate from the unit, said Hugues of Saint Victor, and because of that, it symbolizes the sin. It is also the first number which admits the division, symbolizing the corruptible things.
• The principle of the duality can be represented in the form of couple or pair and would imply the idea of direct and reciprocal reports of simple complementary relations. According to Eckarthausen, “2 is the Number by which one is united to the other and by what only all parts of the world make one.”
• The second term of a duality is often considered as a negation or a limitation of the first: the Devil, “telling always no”, and the Evil which it personifies, have the number 2 for a symbol. According to Claude of Saint Martin, “2 is the opposition to the Unit, of its production; 2 comes out of 1 only by violence, because nothing from 1 is removed; it is to make pass the entire to the quality of half; it is the origin of the Evil”. Madrolle tells that 2 is a false number, ugly, weak, sterile and unhappy. The original sin has consisted to steal to the tree of the garden of Eden (symbol of the unit) the fruit of the knowledge of the good and the evil (symbol of the dualism).
• Twice in her life, the Blessed Virgin was deeply disturbed in herself: when to the temple the great priest wanted to give her in marriage and during the Annunciation.
• The two Twin Son (Gold and Silver Ray) resulting from God which express the Verb.
• “At the time when you were One, you have made the two,” tells the Gospel of Thomas.

Occurrence

• The number 2 is used 835 times in the Bible.
• In the Bible, 76 numbers are used twice. Among them, there are the following numbers: 34, 36, 48, 49, 55, 66, 74, 85, 95, 96, 153 and 360.
• The number 2 is used 141 times in the Koran.
• The words wave (Ws 5,10 and 10,18) and infinity (Si 37,25; Ep 3,10) are used twice in the Bible.

In Other Religions

• Mormons send out missionaries in pairs.

In General

• General
• The soul is attached to the body by two silver cords: one behind the head linked to the center of the thought of the brain, and the other linked to the astral body near of the solar plexus.
• The two snakes of the Hermes caduceus, coiled around a golden stick, looking on both sides of the stick in the superior part.
• In the man, the mechanism of the thought operates by dichotomy. The man cannot get any idea in himself of an absolute manner, but he recognizes the relationship between two ideas. “It is necessary that the Intelligence, when thinking, is double”, tells Plotin. “All notion is clear and perfect, tells Lacuria, only when it becomes complicated by two opposite terms. (…) All idea has its negation by which it is clear and distinct”.
• The number 2 is the first plural number and all plural is a ratio of N/1. There exists then a relationship between an unspecified reality N and the abstract concept of a Singularity 1.
• According to the Cabal, all that exists, all that has been formed by the Ancient, subsists by a male and by a female.
• In Hebrew, the number 2 is designated by a word that, according to Fabre of Olivet, means etymologically: “product of a relative duration, mutation, transition, diversity, variation”.
• The key of any duality consists in the antithesis. Only the nothingness would escape this law.
• In Hebrew, the number 2 is represented by the letter Beth, which means a ray of light on two horizons, or the house of God and the man between the two columns of the temple of nature. According to the Cabal, God made this letter the foundation of the world.
• The number two incarnates all oppositions: the two sexes, the day and the night, the two great lights (the sun and the moon), the life and the death, the soul and the body, the left and the right, the chosen and the reprobate, the north pole and the south pole, the good and the evil…
• Anniversary of marriage: cotton’s wedding.
• The most common philosophical dichotomy is perhaps the one of good and evil, but there are many others. See dualism for an overview. In Hegelian dialectic, the process of synthesis reconciles two different perspectives into one.
• The ancient Sanskrit language of India, does not only have a singular and plural form for nouns, as do many other languages, but instead has, a singular (1) form, a dual (2) form, and a plural (everything above 2) form, for all nouns, due to the significance of 2. It is viewed as important because of the anatomical significance of 2 (2 hands, 2 nostrils, 2 eyes, 2 legs, etc.)
• Two (二, èr) is a good number in Chinese culture. There is a Chinese saying, “good things come in pairs”. It is common to use double symbols in product brand names, e.g. double happiness, double coin, double elephants etc. Cantonese people like the number two because it sounds the same as the word “easy” (易) in Cantonese.
• In Finland, two candles are lit on Independence Day and put on a windowsill, to remind passersby of the sacrifices of past generations in the struggle for independence and democracy.
• In pre-1972 Indonesian and Malay orthography, 2 was shorthand for the reduplication that forms plurals: orang “person”, orang-orang or orang2” people”.
• In Astrology, Taurus is the second sign of the Zodiac.

Mathematics

• Two is the base of the binary system
• Two is the third Fibonacci number
• Two is the smallest prime number
• The smallest field has two elements

Science

• The number of polynucleotide strands in a DNA double helix.
• The first magic number.
• The atomic number of helium.
• The atomic mass of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen.
• The ASCII code of “Start of Text”.
• Group 2 in the Periodic table of the elements consists of the alkaline earth metals whose usual valence is +2.
• Period 2 in the Periodic table consists of the eight elements lithium through neon.
• 2 Pallas, a large asteroid in the main belt and the second asteroid ever to be discovered.
• The Roman numeral II (usually) stands for the second-discovered satellite of a planet or minor planet (e.g. Pluto II or (87) Sylvia II Remus).
• A binary star is a stellar system consisting of two stars orbiting around their center of mass.
• The number of brain and cerebellar hemispheres.