Published: December 19, 2025
How did The Echoes Bible HAPPEN?
By Bob O’Dell
President, Echoes Bible Foundation
The Echoes Bible is, without a doubt, the most surprising project I have ever undertaken. It all began twenty years ago, in 2005, while I was riding a train through the Midlands of England on my way back to London to catch a flight home to Austin, Texas. As the countryside rolled past my window, I was quietly thanking God for the completion of a fruitful series of meetings I had just finished in Germany and the UK.
Then, completely unexpectedly, God interrupted me with an assignment I never could have imagined. As I sat there in my seat, He spoke to my inner ear with a clarity and precision I had only experienced a few times before. God said, “Compare the times that God spoke to Abraham with the miracles of Jesus in the book of Matthew.”
In that moment, I had no idea how profoundly those words would shape the next two decades of my life.
I had always loved the Word of God—both the Old and New Testaments—and had spent years studying a wide range of themes across many books of the Bible. About a year earlier, I had even worked through the miracles of Jesus in Matthew simply for my own personal study. Indeed, Genesis had long been one of my favorite books.
In fact, two days prior, on that part of my trip from Germany to the UK, I had been studying the interactions between Abraham and Sarah in Genesis, hoping to glean marriage principles from their relationship. Back in Texas, my wife and I were actively involved in marriage ministry, and this business trip had even required us to slightly delay celebrating our seventeenth wedding anniversary. Two days earlier, I had even scribbled a note in the margin of my notebook: “How many times did God speak to Abraham? Need to check.” I never imagined that this passing thought would return to me later as a direct assignment from God.
Of course, I took God seriously and began the study right away. No movies for me on that long flight home—God had given this man an exciting assignment. As the weeks and months went by, I learned many things through that study, but if you had told me then where it was all heading, I probably would have just shaken my head in disbelief. After all, we all “know in part,” do we not? (1 Corinthians 13:9). Indeed, “A man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)
It would be nearly a full decade before I met Gidon in Israel and accepted his invitation to join him in launching his brilliant idea—what eventually became Root Source. A year later, in 2015, Gidon introduced me to a new friend who shared a story that immediately caught my attention.
John David Pitcher, M.D., told me that, like me, he studied the Bible extensively, but he tended to go deep rather than wide, with a particular focus on Greek. David, as he goes by, explained that back in 2008, just for fun, he had enrolled in a Bible class on Paul’s Pastoral Epistles at a local Bible college in Florida.
He told me that before class began that day, he “happened” to have his Greek Septuagint open to the book of Numbers, while at the same time his Greek New Testament was open to 2 Timothy. I remember interjecting, “Why were you looking at the book of Numbers?”
“Because that class required us to write a paper, and I was thinking about writing my paper on the word ‘seal,’ which is only used once in the three Pastoral Epistles, in 2 Timothy 2:19.”
“Why were you so interested in the word seal?” I asked.
“Because that is a very interesting word that is used in the book of Isaiah, a book which I had just finished studying.”
“OK, so does the word seal appears in Numbers?” I guessed.
“No, but immediately following the word seal in the book of 2 Timothy, Paul quotes a phrase from the book of Numbers ‘The Lord knows those who are his,’ which is what Moses said to Korah and those who were challenging Moses’ leadership. I was just looking up Paul’s quote of Numbers 16:5 in the Septuigent”
“OK, that makes sense,” I said. “Please continue.”
“So on that particular day, the instructor started the class by reading the first three verses of 2nd Timothy aloud, and then he stopped and asked the room a question: ‘Who is Paul referring to in verse 3 when he “thanks God for his forefathers”?’ When I heard this question, an idea came to my mind: if Paul has already directly quoted the book of Numbers later in 2 Timothy, could it be possible that the answer to which forefathers Paul was referring to possibly be at the beginning of the book of Numbers. So I turned to the beginning of Numbers and started looking for something about forefathers. The answer came quickly, because not only does the book of Numbers begin with a list of all the tribes, but each tribe is named along with its leader along with the name of each leader’s father.”
David then told me he began to notice something else. Other important keywords used by Paul in the opening verses of 2 Timothy were also present in the early paragraphs of the book of Numbers. And while that fact alone would not have been too unexpected, David noticed something striking: these important keywords were appearing in the exact same order in both books.
After class, David went home and, over the next week, did a side-by-side comparison of Numbers and 2 Timothy in Greek to see how far the keyword pattern continued. He found that the same pattern extended all the way through both books, even though the books were different in size. In other words when he reached the end of 2 Timothy, he was finding important keywords of the final verses of 2 Timothy in the final paragraphs of Numbers.
But was this pattern truly meaningful, or had he simply stumbled upon some odd coincidence? It was with that pondering question in his mind that David Pitcher walked through the doors of his bible classroom the following week.
Little did he know that in addition to his own internal questions, his discovery was about to be challenged.
TO BE CONTINUED!
Bob O’Dell is an entrepreneur-turned-writer, a pro-Israel Christian who has been working with Israeli Jews since 1988, and with Gidon Ariel since 2014. Bob is President of the Echoes Bible Foundation, a non-profit ministry dedicated to the discovery, dissemination, education and application of literary connections between the inspired books of the Bible. He has authored or co-authored multiple books including Five Years with Orthodox Jews, The LIST: Persecution of Jews by Christians Throughout History, Forty Days of Repentance, Jubilee Now, and Israel FIRST!
The Echoes Bible Foundation has just launched the first three volumes of The Echoes Bible on Amazon for just $6.99 each.
Leviticus & Romans (Vol. III)
Numbers & 1 Corinthians (Vol. IV)
Deuteronomy & 2 Corinthians (Vol. V)
For learn more go to https://echoesbible.org/ and https://echoesbible.com/