Brewer's: End of the World

(The). According to rabbinical mythology, the world is to last six thousand years. The reasons assigned are (1) because the name Jehova contains six letters; (2) because the Hebrew letter m occurs six times in the book of Genesis; (3) because the patriarch Enoch, who was taken to heaven without dying, was the sixth generation from Adam (Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch); (4) because God created the world in six days; (5) because six contains three binaries—the first 2000 years were for the law of nature, the next 2000 years the written law, and the last 2000 the law of grace.

Seven would suit this fancy quite as well: there are seven days in a week; Jehovah contains seven letters; and Enoch was the seventh generation of the race of man; and the first two binaries were not equal periods.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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