The Biblical Cure for Anxiety

When anxiety hits, therapists today recommend something called the 5-4-3-2-1 method. It’s simple: count five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. Developed in recent decades as part of trauma therapy and widely used for panic attacks, this method grounds a person in the physical world when their mind is spinning out of control. The act of counting forces the brain to slow down, to reorient, to pay attention to what’s real rather than what’s feared.

But long before psychology textbooks or wellness influencers caught on, the Bible already knew the power of counting.

Over and over again, when the people of Israel were overwhelmed, uncertain, or wandering—God said to count. Count the days. Count the people. Count the offerings. Count the years. It wasn’t divine busywork. It was sacred recalibration.

Which leads to the question:
Why does the Bible ask us to count? What are we meant to notice when God commands us to number things?

Let’s start with one of the clearest examples: Sefirat HaOmer, the Counting of the Omer. In Vayikra (Leviticus), God commands the people to count 49 days from the second night of Pesach (Passover) until the holiday of Shavuot, the giving of the Torah at Sinai. Here’s the verse:

Why count the days from the Exodus until Sinai? Because liberation isn’t enough. Freedom must be followed by purpose. Without Torah, freedom turns to chaos. But instead of snapping His fingers and giving the Torah right away, God makes the people count. He teaches them to walk through time with intention, one day at a time, preparing their hearts.

It’s the same divine instinct behind the command to count the Israelites in the wilderness. In Bamidbar (Numbers), God tells Moses to conduct a census—kol zekhar le-gulg’lotam, “every male according to their skulls”—an incredibly intimate phrase. Every head matters. Not just for military preparedness. Not just for logistics. For dignity. For worth.

It is impossible to read the book of Numbers and miss the message: counting is not just arithmetic. It is attention. It is relationship. When God counts the people, He is saying: I see you. You are not invisible. You are not a blur in the crowd. You are a name, a face, a soul.

But the Bible doesn’t only show us good counting. It also shows us what happens when we count for the wrong reasons.

Take King David. Against the advice of his general Yoav, David insists on taking a census of the people—not by God’s command, but by his own. The text doesn’t fully explain his motivation, but it’s clear that it wasn’t right. Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was control. Whatever it was, it triggers divine wrath, and the people suffer for it.

Counting is powerful. When done with humility, it sanctifies. When done with ego, it corrupts.

This dual nature of counting—its holiness and its danger—is why the Torah introduces the concept of the machatzit ha-shekel, the half-shekel donation. When taking a census, each person must give a coin, and the coins are counted—not the people:

A plague from counting? Yes. Because human beings are not numbers. When we forget that, we risk reducing souls to statistics. The half-shekel reminds us: count with reverence.

The Bible also uses counting to give hope. The prophet Jeremiah tells the people in exile that they will return after 70 years. Not “eventually.” Not “someday.” Seventy years. Specific. Countable. Redemptive. When Ezekiel lies on his side for 390 days for the sins of Israel and 40 for the sins of Judah, each day is a counted symbol. Each one matters.

God’s message is clear: exile is not endless. Suffering is not forever. Even in darkness, there is a calendar.

And that brings us back to the modern anxiety tool.

What therapists today teach people during panic attacks—count something real—is precisely what God taught Israel in the desert, in exile, and in the sacred spaces of the Temple. Count your days. Count your offerings. Count your blessings. Not because the numbers themselves hold magic, but because the act of counting teaches presence, order, and hope.

Counting slows the chaos. It restores boundaries. It tells you: the moment is not infinite, and neither is the fear. You can move forward. Day one, day two, day three. You are not lost. You are on your way.

And maybe that’s why King David begs:

When we count the right things, we remember what matters. We make time holy. We make people seen. We turn fear into direction. And we remember that the same God who counts stars and nations also counts us.

You too can be a part of a movement that counts. We at Israel365 have launched our annual campaign with a profound mission: Be A Light For Israel. As Isaiah declared, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.” (Isaiah 60:1)
Now more than ever, in these challenging times, Israel needs your light to shine brightly. When you support this historic movement of redemption, you don’t just give—you become part of prophecy fulfilled.

Join our Wall of Light and see your impact multiply. Your gift today doesn’t just support Israel—it declares that when darkness threatened, you brought God’s light in her most critical hour.
Be the Light. Find the Blessing.