parse error: Invalid numeric literal at line 2, column 0

i am trying to read for a big json data structure and I get the message:

parse error: Invalid numeric literal at line 2, column 0

The command that I'm using is the next one:

n_rules=$(echo rulebase_list | jq '.total')

and the file has in the first hierarchy level a variable which is

"total" : 126

Do you know why im experiencing problems with that?I suppose that the problem is that 126 is a numeric value but what can I do?