Universality and complete representation
The number seventy represents universal completeness and the entirety of people and leadership. According to the genealogy in Genesis 10, seventy nations descended from Noah's sons, making this number a symbol for all humanity. Moses chose seventy elders to help lead the people of Israel (Num 11:16–17). The exile in Babylon lasted seventy years, as the prophet Jeremiah had predicted (Jer 25:11–12), and Daniel continued this theme with his vision of seventy weeks that encompassed the entire span of salvation history (Dan 9:24). In the New Testament, Jesus sent out seventy disciples to preach to all nations (Luke 10:1). Thus, the number is consistently linked with complete representation – of all nations, of full leadership, and of God's entire plan of salvation. According to Genesis 46:27, seventy members of Jacob's family went down to Egypt, emphasizing the number as an expression of the people's wholeness already from patriarchal times. The Jewish Sanhedrin consisted of 70 members plus the high priest, modeled after the 70 elders Moses chose. This council represented the entire nation's legal and religious authority. The name Septuaginta (LXX) comes from the tradition that 70 (or 72) Jewish scholars independently translated the Torah into Greek with identical results, which was seen as a sign of divine inspiration. Some manuscripts of Luke 10:1 have 72 instead of 70 disciples. Textually, this question is debated, but both numbers connect to the symbolism of the nations list (70 nations in the Hebrew text, 72 in the Septuaginta). In rabbinic tradition it is said that the Torah has 'seventy faces' (shiv'im panim la-Torah), meaning seventy valid levels of interpretation – an expression of the inexhaustible richness of God's word.*