Ten

The number ten is sometimes used as an indefinite figure rather than a strict count — a stand-in for "many" or "fully completed." Four passages illustrate this idiomatic use.

Wages Changed Ten Times

When Jacob recounts Laban's mistreatment to Rachel and Leah, "ten times" stands for repeated acts: "And your⁺ father has deceived me, and changed my wages ten times; but God didn't allow him to hurt me" (Gen 31:7). The number is not a literal count but a measure of how many times Laban shifted the terms of payment.

Ten Women at One Oven

In the covenant curses of Leviticus, "ten women" baking at one oven figures the scale of famine: "When I break your⁺ staff of bread, ten women will bake your⁺ bread in one oven, and they will deliver your⁺ bread again by weight: and you⁺ will eat, and not be satisfied" (Lev 26:26). The point is not exactly ten women but the compression of households around scarce ovens, with the bread weighed out and still insufficient.

Tested These Ten Times

The wilderness generation is reckoned to have tried Yahweh "these ten times": "because all those men who have seen my glory, and my signs, which I wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tried me these ten times, and haven't listened to [my Speech]" (Num 14:22). The number summarizes a sequence of provocations rather than naming a literal tally of incidents.

Ten Men of the Nations

In the Zechariah promise of nations seeking Israel, the figure is again ten: "Thus says Yahweh of hosts: In those days [it will come to pass], that ten men will take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, they will take hold of the skirt of him who is a Jew, saying, We will go with you⁺, for we have heard that [the Speech of] God is with you⁺" (Zech 8:23). The picture is of many — drawn from "all the languages of the nations" — taking hold of one Jew. Ten functions as the round figure for that fullness.