seven: the cardinal number 7
This is the ordinary word for the number "seven," and in most of its appearances it does exactly what a number does: it counts things. Seven loaves, seven brothers, seven sons, seven nations, seven days, seven other spirits. Whenever the New Testament tallies a set of real items, this is the word it reaches for.
What makes seven worth a second look is that, alongside its plain counting work, it carries a weight no other low number does. Across the Bible and the wider ancient world, seven had long stood for a finished, complete whole, the way we might say a thing is done "top to bottom" or "start to finish." So a writer could choose seven not because he had literally counted seven items but because seven signaled fullness or totality. The book of Revelation leans on this constantly: seven churches, seven spirits, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls. The number is doing more than arithmetic there; it frames whole things as complete.
The same instinct lies behind the saying about forgiving "seventy times seven." The point of multiplying seven is not a precise ceiling on forgiveness but the opposite: a completeness so large it stops being a count at all.
These are not separate words or separate meanings. They are one number used in two registers, a literal tally and a figure of completeness, and a good reader watches the context to tell which is in play (and sometimes both at once).