When I hear someone giving import to the middle book, chapter, or verse in the Bible then I perceive that they have an inclination toward the superstitious, or are appealing to those that do.
Though spreading superstition is bad, what makes it worse is when they get the chapter and verse wrong. Either they do not do the counting on their own and copied someone else’s miscalculation, or they have an agenda to manipulate the Bible to fit a pet theory. Both are shameful.
If you are curious about the middle words, let’s get it right. The numbers below are from the King James Bible.
Middle Books
There are 66 books which means there is no middle book of the Bible. Micah and Nahum are the 33rd and 34th book respectively.
What does this mean about Micah and Nahum? Nothing.
Middle Chapter
There are 1,189 chapters in the Bible. The middle chapter is the 595th chapter which is Psalm 117.
What does this mean about Psalm 117? Nothing. It is divinely inspired the same as every other chapter. Psalm 117 is in the context of the Bible talking about Israel’s kingdom.
Middle Verses
There are 31,102 verses in the Bible. There is no middle verse, but Psalm 103:1-2 are the 15,551st and 15,552nd verses, respectively.
Does this add any more meaning to Psalm 103:1-2 that we didn’t already know? No, it doesn’t.
Middle Words
The middle word of the Bible is either “in”, “that”, “thou”, “of”, or “awake” depending on if you include the superscriptions in the Psalms and the epistle postscripts.
There are 789,629 words in the Bible without any of those extras. The 394,815th word in the Bible is found in Psalm 59:3. It is “in”.
What does this mean? It means nothing. To get the meaning of that short preposition requires reading more words that are not middle words… oh my.
Stop Counting and Read It!
I believe every word of the King James Bible is inspired and preserved by God, but what matters is not the numbers we assign those words, but what the words say, and to whom they say it.
The way to learn from God’s word is by reading and comprehending the words in it, not by creating new meanings by chopping up books, and verses, and taking words out of context.
There is no hidden meaning behind the page counts, table of contents, leather binding, verse numbers, or middle book, chapter, or word in the Bible despite what you’ve read in email chain letters, and silly teaching.
Do you want to know what is at the center of the Bible? The answer is the preaching of Christ and him crucified. I discovered that by reading it.
For His glory,
Justin “stuck in the middle with you” Johnson