What's a Hundredfold?

Upon consulting a dictionary, specifically Messrs. Merriam-Webster, the ordinary dictionary meaning of the term “fold” is found to substantially be a “doubling.” Many people these days seem to misunderstand a “fold” to be the same as a “times” with a two fold being two times, a five fold being five times, and an hundredfold being an hundred times, for example. Please consider the below observations that an hundredfold is very much more, incomprehensibly more than a mere hundred times, however.

Given the ordinary dictionary meaning of the term “fold” as a doubling, a one fold return is a return of double what was sown, or invested, not merely returning one time, which is only the investment alone, the seed. A two fold return is to fold the investment and then fold that result, folding the investment twice. The original seed becomes doubled to two and that two becomes doubled to four. Thus, a two fold return is four times, not merely two times.

The pattern of folding may already be seen as an exponential of the number two. A three fold makes this sequence clear. Taking the two fold and folding that again is three fold. Thus, the original one unit investment becomes doubled to two units, that two becomes doubled to four, and that four becomes doubled to eight, which is much more than merely three times!

According to common contemporary usage of the term fold, however, the above scenario is not understood. According to common contemporary usage, a four fold return is merely a four times return in contrast to the sixteen times return of the true four fold.

Consider a kernel of corn, for example. A kernel of corn will commonly grow and produce at least an ear of corn. Years ago I heard that a normal ear of corn will have an even number of rows. Well, over those years, I have looked for the ear with an odd number of rows and have found ears with fourteen rows or with sixteen rows, even eighteen! Some other ears had ten or twelve rows, which seem to have been small ears of sweet corn. Most ears of corn seem to have had about fourteen or sixteen rows, though.

Further, most ears of corn for eating, that is typical “corn on the cob,” seem to be about eight to ten inches long with the kernels being about one eighth of an inch wide along each row. These casual observations indicate that an average ear of corn may be about nine inches long and yield about seventy-two kernels per row and about one thousand eight (1,008) kernels in its fourteen rows. That is one kernel of corn, one seed, yielding one thousand eight times! If the stalk produces two ears, then one seed produces two thousand sixteen (2,016) times! A bit more than merely an hundred times.

Let’s take this kernel of corn to the next generation by sowing one average ear of kernels. If each of the one thousand eight (1,008) seeds sown produce only one average ear of one thousand eight kernels, that is a yield of 1,016,064 times (1008 x 1008), over a million times! Replanting that generation into a third generation yields over 1 Billion kernels.

Jesus spoke of sowing good seed on good ground and yielding a thirty fold, a sixty fold, and an hundredfold (Matthew 13:23). If an hundredfold is a hundred times, then did Jesus say that God’s best is a mere fraction, about a tenth, of what one kernel of corn provides on average?

This is not the character of abundance, of “cup overflowing” excess of the god whom I serve! One may, then, consider that equating an hundredfold with an hundred times, in a biblical context, is placing Jehovah, the God of Abraham, within a very small context of human thought capacity, which is contrary to at least Isaiah 55:09, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts,” King James translation.

No, Jesus is the voice of the God of abundance (John 10:10). Jesus was not saying merely a thirty times, a sixty times, nor an hundred times. Jesus was speaking in “God terms,” which are abundant, extreme, and beyond mere human comprehension. Accepting and living in God’s terms requires faith!

Jesus is the incarnate Word of God, speaking only what The Father spoke. Jesus spoke in God’s terms, namely, a thirty fold, a sixty fold, and an hundredfold. Thirty fold is 1.07 Billion [1,073,741,824], which can be said to be an agriculturally large number. Again, consider generations of any cultivated crop, namely, corn, apples, peas, or oranges, for example.

There was a story I read of an Englishman who experimented with a common farm crop, the crop may have been peas. He planted one seed and harvested its yield. In the next season he planted a tithe of the former crop’s yield, ten percent of the harvest. He harvested the second crop’s yield and again returned a tithe of the crop by planting ten percent of the yield for a third crop. This experiment continued something on the order of seven crops, being seven years. The experiment was forced to stop, however, because the seventh crop required thousands of acres of land to plant and not enough land could be either purchased nor leased to plant the eighth crop. There was a lack of land, not a lack of seed or of funding. The experiment also proved quite profitable as the man could not consume all of the ninety percent of the harvest that was not sown. He sold the excess and became a very successful farmer because of the experiment.

While the thirty fold can be said to be an agriculturally large number, namely, 1.07 Billion, the sixty fold may be considered astronomically large, namely, 1.15 Quintillion [1,152,921,504, 606,846,976]. Can someone say light-years of distance between galaxies? The hundredfold may, then generally be considered incomprehensible, a God size number, at about 1.27 Nonillion [1,267,650,600,228,229, 401,496,703,205,376].

Remember, Jehovah, our Father in Heaven, is immense, far more than merely astronomical! Our Father is certainly NOT less than a mere kernel of corn.

“The Fold” in a table:
1 fold = 2 times
2 fold = 4 times
3 fold = 8 times
4 fold = 16 times
5 fold = 32 times
6 fold = 64 times
7 fold = 128 times
8 fold = 256 times
9 fold = 512 times
10 fold = 1,024 times
20 fold = 1.0486 Million times
* 30 fold = 1.0737 Billion times
40 fold = 1.0995 Trillion times
50 fold = 1.1259 Quadrillion times
* 60 fold = 1.1529 Quintillion times
70 fold = 1.1806 Sextillion times
80 fold = 1.2089 Septillion times
90 fold = 1.2379 Octillion times
* 100 fold = 1.2677 Nonillion times