Forward and Reverse Gematria are Very Different Beasts

4.1.1 Open vs Closed Gate for Discovery of Gematria

The highly respected medieval scholar Nachmanides writes, “no man is permitted to apply his own gematria calculation and to derive any notion that occurs to his mind. Rather, there is a received tradition which has been passed down by our rabbis, the holy Sages of the Talmud (of blessed memory), that certain known gematrias were transmitted to Moshe at Sinai in order to serve as a mnemonic device and an allusion for matters which were given orally along with the rest of the Oral Torah.”^[19] According to this view, the role of the ancient Rabbis was not to discover gematria lessons from Scripture but to pass along the divinely originated tradition.

Under a strict rendering of Ramban’s view, Revelation 13:18 could be (deliberately) breaking aspects of the Jewish religious mold (cmp. Mt 15:3), and Christians might just need to press forward (in this case) without appeal to historical Jewish background one way or the other regarding how to wisely approach resolving the question posed by our text.

However, we have found it to be a general principle that the book of Revelation is very eager to interact with Jewish literature. It follows much more a paradigm of fulfillment than of originality or novelty. Hence, the remaining subsections of this section operate under the alternative working assumption that Biblical gematria exploration was a legitimate Jewish activity for which John’s readers would have some precedent. Under such an assumption, the question is what might that process look like?

4.1.2 Forward vs Reverse Gematria

In considering the interpretations of Revelations xiii. 18, or rather the selection of words containing the number 666, it did not appear to us quite certain that it was intended that this number should be sought in a word. Such a construction, indeed, appeared to be not very consistent with the mystical process, which would rather veil numbers under words than words under numbers.^[20]

Foundationally, it is import to distinguish what we here call forward gematria, which begins with a given textual unit and looks for significance in the resultant number, from the very different process we are calling reverse gematria,^[21] which begins with a given number and searches for significant words which produce that number (see below regarding the matching of words to other words, with a number serving as their common bond).

Some mathematical terminology will be helpful as we proceed: the inverse image of a given number in this context is the entire set of all letter sequences which have that number as their value. Depending on what further parameters are required, the challenge of a reverse gematria search on a given number can either be (a) that it is very hard to find specified elements within its inverse image (e.g., if looking for properly spelled names) or, conversely, (b) that it is too easy to find loosely specified elements (e.g., if allowing arbitrary nonsense words). In either case, the difficult issue essentially comes down to having to sort through a haystack of potentially relevant information in order to find the most interesting needles.

Revelation 13:18 is the only time many Christians ever hear about gematria, and the most popular approach to this passage can lead them to instinctively associate their concept of “gematria” with the haystack search for words hidden under a given number, a process fraught with difficulty. However, forward gematria is arguably much more natural, certainly easier to perform in eras before the personal computer, and demonstrably far more common outside of the (unfortunately) dominant historic Christian treatment of the 666 case. Any one of a number of textual hints may tip off a Bible student to consider the unique numerical value of a given word for significance, sometimes with insightful and otherwise unexpected results. Of course, in Revelation 13:18, the “hint” that gematria is called for is about as explicit as any can get – we are instructed to calculate a number.

Even though forward gematria “only” produces a number (rather than a new word), numbers alone can communicate a great many interesting things (as demonstrated by several examples scattered throughout this article, most notably our main thesis itself). In 1962 Rabbi Max Munk provided a fresh, modern case in point. As is fairly well known,^[22] the dimensions of King Solomon’s molten sea (1 Kings 7:23; 2 Chronicles 4:2) imply π ≈ 30 10 = 3 . For critics, this “pathetic” approximation of an important geometric constant, even by ancient standards, makes the Bible’s naiveté an object of ridicule.^[23] The faithful have numerous solid lines of defense (beginning with the simple fact that the genre and context are clearly satisfied with using round numbers here to present an impression of scale), but the most mathematically interesting response goes beyond apologia for the imprecision of three as an implied ratio. Though almost exact parallels, the Kings passage spells the Hebrew word for “measuring line” using an extra letter which does not appear in the Chronicles passage (קוה vs קו). Or again, in the Kings passage itself, this same distinction arises between how that word is written versus how it is spoken in Jewish oral tradition,^[24] as seen in any Tanakh that displays qere vs ketiv.^[25] Investigating this curiosity using forward gematria, the numerical values of the two spellings are found to be 111 and 106, respectively. Taking these two distinct forms of “measuring line” to provide a “correction” factor^[26] for the initial estimate yields 3 * 111 106 = 333 106 = 3.1415 … , a very fine approximation to pi indeed.^[27]

Forward gematria is historically the staple, bread and butter tool that sustains the bulk of the gematria enterprise. At best, reverse gematria is “rarer” in rabbinic literature than “ordinary” (i.e., forward) gematria,^[28] but before granting reverse gematria even that level of historicity we should recognize further subdivisions. While some types of reverse gematria may occasionally be found in rabbinic literature, other types are non-existent or nearly so.

4.1.3 Text-Constrained vs Unconstrained Reverse Gematria

Let us refine our terminology by defining text-constrained reverse gematria as that which searches for a word or phrase drawn from a prespecified domain of text (e.g., the Bible) to produce a given number, whereas unconstrained reverse gematria moves even further away from forward gematria by allowing streams of letters that need not conform to objective orthographic conventions nor appear in any predetermined collection of documents.^[29]

In Christian interpretive history, unconstrained reverse gematria has given rise to an explosion of submitted names which can be mathematically linked to 666, such that this number’s usefulness as a checksum for identity confirmation has become greatly diluted in an ever-growing sea of alternatives. By contrast, consider the rabbinic observation relating Abram’s 318 trained servants in Genesis 14:14 to his explicitly named heir/servant “Eliezer” in 15:2 whose name has the value 318. Among midrashic and talmudic instances of gematria which might^[30] be classified as the reverse type, this instance is probably the best known. It is clearly text-constrained insofar as the number and the name which gives that number both come from the Bible, indeed in close textual proximity to each other and in explicitly linked pericopes (“after” in 14:17 and 15:1 maintains literary connectivity). Moreover, Bereshit Rabbah (the Genesis volume of the largest collection of midrash) addresses this correlation under both locations – 14:14 and 15:2 – so it is worth considering from which direction the correlation was likely derived.

There are two main ways the Eliezer = 318 connection could be discovered. First, gematria considerations aside, the sages found Eliezer’s name (meaning “my God helped me”) to be exegetically interesting in context. Standard Bible study questions for meditation on Genesis 15:2 include, “Who is this ‘Damashaq Eliezer’ and what is his relation to Abram? Abram had a large household, so why does the Torah reveal the name of this one particular man at this one particular time?”^[31] Eliezer has the hallmarks of an interesting character study, especially for a readership repeatedly encountering this passage in their annual reading cycle. The particularities in the textual mention of his name are the type of hint that tips us off that some interesting gematria might be at work here. If forward gematria is in your Bible study toolbox and you decide to test it out on Eliezer, the moment you calculate the value of his name you know you are likely on the track of a potentially insightful connection. A scholar studying Eliezer in Parsha Lech Lecha^[32] would not need to scour the Scriptures looking for significance to “318”!

Alternatively, say your curiosity was piqued by the specific number given in 14:14. If the text had said Abram took “300 men,” we couldn’t have blamed it for using approximation, so what is the significance of stating “318” so exactly? If you were driven to pursue text-constrained reverse gematria by searching through the values of nearby words, then it wouldn’t be too long before you hit upon “Eliezer.” Preferably though, if your interpretive community had built up a reverse gematria catalog of Torah words,^[33] you could just look up the 318 entry, and “Eliezer” would be right there, as indeed it is in Locks.

Either case – forward gematria on the suggestive name “Eliezer” or text-constrained reverse gematria on the suggestive number “318” – seems preferable over expecting unconstrained rumination on the universal inverse image space of 318 to generate the name Eliezer.

4.1.4 Research vs Teaching Methods for Gematria

During the above discussion, we have glossed over another valuable distinction: that of research methodology versus teaching methodology. The way in which material can be nicely packaged for students is often very different from the original approach to discovery.^[34] Once the observation that Eliezer’s name has value 318 has been made, subsequent generations of teachers can bring that up in their own reverse-gematria style lessons on Genesis 14:14, but creative pedagogical forms of presentation derived after the fact is known do not necessarily reflect how the observation was made in the first place. Reverse gematria’s usefulness as an occasional pedagogical tool in ancient Jewish commentary does not reflect the reality of its unwieldiness as a research tool.

Throughout this article, we are much more interested in discussing the research side than the teaching side. Our pressing question is how we are expected to actually solve John’s riddle; how best to present the results is a different matter. The special opportunities, such as cataloging, afforded by working with a text constraint are one factor which can make reverse gematria research much more manageable. We will see additional factors can also contribute to “clean” forms of gematria research.

4.1.5 Standard Form and Anagrams vs Numerically “Non-Standard” Words in Reverse Gematria

Anagramming provides one of the “cleanest” (i.e., most easily recognizable) forms of gematric equivalency. Esau’s complaint in Genesis 27:36 plays off the fact that the difference between taking “my birthright” and “my blessing” only involves interchanging two letters (“בכרתי” vs “ברכתי”). Any such pair of words necessarily have the same gematria values, although in such cases their underlying shared numerical value is often ignored since it is not necessary for making the connection.

Sometimes, the standard form of a number can unfurl a meaningful verbal expression easily by directly taking the “digits” of the number as a starting point and arranging them at will since ordering has no effect on the gematria value.

• The number 52 is written in Hebrew using the letters nun (value 50) and bet (value 2) which together, putting bet first, form the word “ben” (“son”). In other words, 52 is effectively just “son” spelled backwards.

• Similarly, the two digits making up the number 58 can either spell “Noah” or “grace” depending on which order they are put in.

• “Shaddai” is virtually the same as the number 314, only requiring permutation of the last two letters/digits.

• The numeral 666 written backwards occurs exactly once in the Hebrew Bible meaning “without” or “departed”: “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without discretion” (Pr 11:22). Solomon would have done well to listen to this piece of his own wisdom rather than multiplying bejeweled foreign wives who led his heart after their gods.

• Oberweis uses the Hebrew standard form to explain four curious numbers related to the New Testament: 666, 616, 38, and 153.^[35] Some of his suggestions are more persuasive than others (we will make use of his 616 theory when treating that variant later), but in any case, his repeated use of this tool points to the potential value of having an objective mechanism to convert a number into a fixed set of letters, which property is painfully lacking from generic reverse gematria.

• As we will see later, Oberweis’ treatment of 666 with this approach could have been more successful if he had allowed for permutation of the letters, which it seems he did not consider. Standard form anagramming arguably provides a reasonably balanced territory for reverse gematria to operate in: it provides a degree of flexibility in allowing the letters to be rearranged to find meaningful alternatives while not opening up Pandora’s box of limitless possibilities. Section 5.2 shows an anagram of the Hebrew standard form of 666 which forms a verb contextually relevant to this article’s main thesis.

• The explanation of 666 which Oberweis does offer is that its standard numeric form corresponds to a meaningful Hebrew word, namely the second person masculine plural Qal imperfect conjugation of the root רסס, which form he translates as, “you should destroy.” This particular conjugation does not appear in Scripture but the same root is found in Amos 6:11.

• Permutation of the Hebrew numeric representation of 666 gives the name “Sethur,” one of the spies who encouraged unbelief after exploring the land (Num 13:13, hence showing up in a Torah gematria catalog such as that of Locks), with the conspicuous meaning of “hidden” (Sotah 34b:5; cmp. the same root in Deut 29:28)! “Sethur” is arguably the most natural candidate for a name with gematria value 666 since it is constrained to the Biblical text, easy to discover as an anagram of the standard form of the number, etymologically meaningful, and contextually significant if we overlay the spies’ story onto Revelation.^[36] However, only a handful of commentators, such as Gill, appear to note Sethur, and that without much serious consideration relative to (what the present author would consider) much more tenuous prospects for the calculation.

• If a comparable name for the 616 variant is desired, “Yitro”/“Jethro” (“יתרו”) fits the bill as an anagram of standard form which also appears in a Chumash gematria lookup chart (Ex 3:1, as found in Locks).

In contrast, we define a numerically non-standard word, in the gematria context, as one which contains a set of letters which would never appear together as “digits” in the standard form of a number. For example, the letters in “העץ” (“the tree”) have values 5, 70, and 90, respectively. The last two letters (ayin and tsadi) would never both appear in the standard form of any number because they both represent a value in the tens slot, and there is never more than one digit in the tens slot of the Hebrew standard form. Hence, deriving this word from the number 165 (standard form “קסה”) is more difficult than the above cases of anagrams because here the letters themselves, not just their ordering, need to change.

4.1.6 Word–Number vs Word–Word Gematria

Since this article aims to resolve a challenge to “calculate the number of the name,” our terminology and discussion almost entirely center around gematria which pair a word with a number,^[37] the number carrying some significance in its own right. In addition to the Eliezer = 318 example, several Jewish gematriot have to do with words connected to 613 (the traditional number of commandments in Torah). Matthew 1 seems to leverage the fact that “David” in Hebrew has value 14.

However, it is also indirectly relevant to our purposes to momentarily consider gematria which pair two words that share the same numerical value. If the discovery of word–word gematria pairs involves forward gematria on one word, followed by a reverse gematria search on the resultant number to find a numerically equal and thematically relevant second word, then we have precedent for reverse gematria in the Biblical research setting. Nevertheless, we wish to note:

• If the two words both come from the Bible or well-known theological literature, then we are again within the realm of a text-constrained search which is a doable task, even without computers. Cataloging the gematria values of all words in the Torah (as the primary focus of centuries of Jewish Bible study) by hand, though laborious, seems a doable task for a sufficiently motivated community of scribes. For example, “the tree” (“העץ”) and “the money” (“הכסף”) are both non-standard representations of the number 165, and so it is not immediately obvious how one might arrive at the idea to connect them in the scroll of Esther.^[38] However, since both appear in Genesis (1:29 and 23:16, respectively), this word–word gematria connection can quickly and easily be derived from such a catalog.^[39]

• In cases where the standard form of a number has semantically meaningful permutations, reverse gematria searches can be quite easy:

  1. If, for example, your curiosity is piqued in Genesis 24:1 by reading that God blessed Abraham “in/with everything,” and you do a forward gematria calculation on that phrase, then the word for “son” immediately pops out from the resultant value of 52 (as shown above). Genesis 24:1 is the beginning of a story about (finding a bride for) Abraham’s son, so formulating a derash lesson correlating Abraham having “everything”^[40] to having “a son” flows quite naturally.

  2. If you are intrigued by the strange name “Metatron” in the Talmud and find its value to be 314,^[41] then you can jump quickly to “Shaddai” as a two-letter permutation of that number’s standard form (as shown above).

4.1.7 Kabbalah vs Chazal on Gematria

Kabbalism makes much more frequent, and much more liberal,^[42] usage of gematria than Chazal,^[43] but is further removed from the formation of the Christian Bible in chronology (and, arguably, hermeneutics). The Zohar was first published in the thirteenth century, whereas the Talmud was completed by the sixth. Adherents identify the origin of their respective oral traditions much earlier, but in any case, the overlap of eras between Chazal’s dominance on Judaic interpretation with the formation of the Christian canon is much easier to establish. The Apostles were contemporaneous with the Tannaim, Paul famously (as per the book of Acts) having been a student of Gamaliel, and all of the New Testament books having been written (at least roughly, though perhaps completely) during the lifetime of Rabbi Akiva. Hence, in pursuit of how rabbinic thinking on gematria might inform our understanding of Rev 13:18, our primary interest is on Chazal’s usage, and secondarily on the Rishonim as serious students of Chazal (as also in Feder), much more than on cabbalistic gematria.

However, for the sake of contrast, one data point from the kabbalah realm, of particular interest to our topic, deserves remark. While I have not yet had the opportunity to access a copy of the original work, secondary sources^[44] indicate that Vilna Gaon’s commentary on Tikunei haZohar says that the number 666 contains hidden within it exalted and lofty messianic potential,^[45] at least in part due to the phrase “let the power of the Lord be great” (Num 14:17) having this numerical value.^[46] Hence, the name of the Mea Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem was deliberately chosen by its cabbalistically sensitive founders so as to have this same gematria. It is in this type of case that our present author shares the feelings many a man has toward exposure to (certain) gematria because, as expressed by the Ramban, “Such calculations will seem to him to be vanity and emptiness since a person can derive bad and strange ideas from many verses using this method.”^[47]

A suitably balanced view recognizes that Chazal did use gematria but not copiously. This balance harmonizes well with Rev 13:18 in which John seems to expect (both Jew and Gentile) receivers to – on the one hand – be able to “calculate the number” of a name without further instruction or explanation regarding that process or its significance, and yet – on the other hand – he counts it appropriate to explicitly prod them toward gematria here because it wouldn’t be their default mode of operation to turn over every word and phrase in sacred writings looking for numerical connections.

4.1.8 Summary of Properties of Popular Rabbinic Jewish Gematria

All of the example gematria lessons explored in Feder, indexed in the list below by their respective position in the twelve chapters of that book, can be classified as having one or more of the desirable qualities for detection and presentation noted earlier:

• Discovery of a word, if needed, is text-constrained: 1, 7, 11 (all of which words, in fact, occur in Genesis).

• At least one word in question is an anagram of the standard form of a number: 1, 10a, 12.

• Forward gematria maps a word of interest to a relationship with an already recognized Biblically or rabbinically significant number (no reverse gematria needed): 2a, 2b, 3, 4, 5, 10a, 10b, 11 and also (not noted in Feder) Rabbi Munk’s 30 10 * קוה קו ≈ π .

• Forward gematria maps a word to a number which is thereby given halachic/midrashic significance (no reverse gematria needed): 6, 8, 9a, 9b.

Lacking any of these pleasing properties that make gematria endeavors reasonably tractable, the popular Christian approach to 666 as a checksum for an extra-biblical name looks non-standard at best through a Judaic lens. Will that approach fair any better from an ancient Hellenistic viewpoint?

4.2.1 Serious, Literary, and Professional vs Recreational, Informal, and Boorish Isopsephy

In modern English, various forms of wordplay are generally reserved for light-hearted settings, whereas Biblical scholarship realizes that such paronomasia “is found in ancient, and especially Oriental, works in the most serious passages.”^[48] The examples of gematria we’ve looked at so far have been actively taught and promoted by scholarly sources. That doesn’t validate conclusions drawn from those sources, it is just one distinction worth making which may help to get our bearings on the nature of the material we are dealing with.

At the other end of the spectrum are the oft-cited graffiti preserved under the 79 CE volcanic ash of Pompeii including one which reads, “φιλῶ ἧς ἀριθμὸς φμε,” that is, “I love her whose number is 545.”^[49] Although (to my knowledge) the lover has not charged us to try to identify his beloved, the task of doing so would be the closest approximation we have seen yet to the popular interpretation of Rev 13:18 as a reverse gematria challenge with checksum value, as evidenced by the number of commentators who cite this wall-scribbling as motivation for discussing that take on the passage (whether the commentator himself favors the checksum approach or not).

Given the variety of gematria that we have seen and will yet explore, the only question I would pose here, stated with all frankness, is whether finding its closest affinity in a “bathroom stall” style teaser should be taken as a favorable indicator of the validity of an interpretation of the beast’s number.^[50] Casual gematria games do indeed have historical precedent, but is that really a genre which John’s apocalyptic vision wishes to invoke?

4.2.2 The Spectrum of Quantitative Clue Strength Provided for Reverse Isopsephy

If approached – as it usually is – as a puzzle about an unnamed young lady, the above graffito exemplifies a case of minimal clues from which to work. We know the checksum value, and it seems to be a Greek female name we are after, but even at that, it would be aggravatingly uncertain whether he simply calculated her personal name or included a patronymic and/or toponymic identifier, whether she had a common or unique name, etc. Unconstrained reverse gematria with few clues is the worst possible gematria situation to be in, both because of the difficulty of searching the inverse image space^[51] and because even candidates that match the checksum aren’t confirmed to be the correct choice. The difficulty, in this case, would likely be intentional: the semi-bashful author wants an outlet for his affections without exposing the specifics of his heart to possible rejection.

On the other hand, this terse Pompeii scribbling might actually contain a greater textual clue to its intended solution, one which we have not seen noted in the literature. Changing just the final letter in “I love,” as written in the graffito, from omega to epsilon gives the vocative noun “Friend!” (as found, e.g., in Lk 11:5) which totals 545. This transformation between the word and its value even shows respect for standard form digit ordering since “φίλε” = 500 + (10 + 30) + 5 = φ + μ + ε:

so he would have had good reason to believe that (at least some) people could “get it” without having to strain their minds through difficult, minimally constrained, reverse gematria contortions. “That [fem.] which has number 545” might just be the word ^[52] “Friend!” It is entirely possible that, rather than witnessing a budding romance, we as the unanticipated global audience have been played this whole time by a witty wordsmith who was sneakily hinting at the phrase “philo phile” (“φιλῶ φίλε”) as a riff off of a common cultural trope,^[53] never knowing that his or her their misunderstood joke would go viral among Scripture commentators millennia later. Nevertheless, the concerns we raised earlier would still stand against using this case to too strongly influence the intended interpretation of Rev 13:18. Inspired scripture most certainly does employ wordplay, but not flippantly. Given a text soberly addressing issues of eternal consequence (Rev 14:9–10) and prefaced with, “Here is wisdom…,” we rightfully expect to get something more out of it than a chuckle or knee slap.

We move now to an example which is unequivocally at the higher end of the clue strength spectrum. Sibylline Oracles 1:324–331 has,

Then indeed the son of the great God will come, incarnate, likened to mortal men on earth, bearing four vowels, and the consonants in him are two. I will state explicitly the entire number for you. For eight units, and equal number of tens in addition to these, and eight hundreds will reveal the name to men who are sated with faithlessness. But you, consider in your heart Christ, the son of the most high, immortal God.^[54]

Though awkwardly presenting itself as ancient prophecy (1:1–4), the text goes out of its way to make sure its prospective proselytes in the Christian era will not miss the spoon-fed opportunity to evaluate the name of Jesus (“Ἰησοῦς”) and arrive at the beautifully symmetric value of 888.

So we see that clue strength is tuned to suit authorial intent. Does a writer desperately want to make sure everyone gets it, that almost no one gets it, or somewhere in between? The preamble to Rev 13:18’s riddle indicates that on the one hand, it is intended to be understood but, as elsewhere in the book but likely intensified in this verse, there is an anticipation that those blessed with “ears to hear” will be a limited number (cmp. 14:1).

4.2.3 The Selective Orientation of Clue Strength Provided for Reverse Isopsephy

Clues to numeric puzzles can vary not only in terms of generic strength but can also be specifically targeted to provide more or less clarity to certain audiences. For this point, our best illustrations come from various 666 theories themselves.

In the futurist interpretation of this passage, which is both very ancient (e.g., Irenaeus) and very modern, the clue is tuned to be helpful precisely to those who will actually need it: when the Antichrist appears we will be able to calculate the number of his name as 666 and confirm his identity. The name remains unpredictable to earlier generations because they have no practical need to know it. One issue here is that, “Let the one with understanding calculate,” sounds like an exhortation that is both proactive and broadly applicable to Revelation’s listeners. If attempting to calculate the number is a wild goose chase until a particularly named Antichrist arrives on the scene then it seems a qualifier, such as “In the fullness of the times let the one with understanding calculate…,” would have been nice. In that case, we all could have gone ahead and tested contemporary candidate names but if none fit, and if no clear Antichrist was yet active in the world, we wouldn’t have to feel like we failed to accomplish what the Bible exhorted of us. And we wouldn’t be tempted to cling to tenuous theories in order to artificially feel that we had accomplished what the Bible exhorted of us.

As the text stands, “Here is wisdom; let the one with understanding,” does indeed sound like the clue provision will prove to be insightful to only a selective audience, but not one determined by the linguistic or chronological setting of the participants. According to Proverbs 1:1–6 and 2 Chronicles 9:1–3 and their surrounding context, “wisdom” and “understanding” are called for to answer “riddles,” the Hebrew (“khidah”) for which refers to “a difficult sentence, an enigma.”^[55] When Rev 13:18’s “wisdom” (“σοφος”) and “understanding” (“νους”) root words are paired together in the Septuagint, it is generally in the context of Spirit-enabled gifts for constructing the house of God (Ex 28:3, 35:25–26,35, 36:1, 2 Chron 2:13) or in the context of a God-fearing life aligned with the Proverbs (ten instances). All told, the type of wisdom called for here is the very same wisdom which God originally gave in rich supply to Solomon for the purposes of governing His people justly and for building His temple, which provided the perfect opportunity to bless the nations of the world with experiential knowledge of the God of Israel, but from which Solomon turned away^[56] by lusting after the riches of worldliness.

5.1.1 “666” as Intertextual Link to Identify the Man

Let us then employ Irenaeus’ own technique, but more broadly for more complete coverage of the Biblical data. If 666 is meant to be an allusion back to a number (or numbers) found in the earlier Scriptures, then the following suggestions, conveniently summarized in M.G. Michael’s article on 666 in the Old Testament, are most common:

1. Solomon’s “666” talents of gold revenue in 1 Kings 10:14 and 2 Chronicles 9:13.

2. “666” sons of Adonikam making aliyah back to Israel after exile in Ezra 2:13.

3. Goliath was “six” cubits of height and his spearhead weighed “six hundred” shekels of iron, with six pieces of armor listed in 1 Samuel 17:4–7 (and see also 2 Sam 21:20).^[60] See Pink for more on Goliath as Antichrist.

4. King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, whose height was “sixty” cubits and its breadth “six” cubits in Daniel 3:1 (not to mention the fact that he was essentially turned into a literal beast (Dan 4)!).

   1. As seen above, Irenaeus combines the “sixty” by “six” dimensions of Nebuchadnezzar’s idol with Noah’s “six hundred” years of age when God flooded the wicked world in Genesis 7:6 to arrive at a six hundred sixty six combination.

Of these, the first two^[61] provide the most clear and direct references to our number. However, even the full list is refreshingly short compared to the seemingly limitless hypotheses which can be generated by (esp. unconstrained) reverse gematria.

Our reading of Revelation 13:17–18 led to the conjecture that it may be directing us to perform forward gematria on one of these names derived from “666” via intertextuality. Thus, we consider the corresponding values of these names according to how they are written in the Hebrew/LXX Bible, respectively:^[62] Solomon = 375/1,921, Adonikam = 765/926, Goliath = 443/123, Nebuchadnezzar = 422^[63]/1,757, Noah = 58/855, and hence (out of respectful consideration for Irenaeus) Nebuchadnezzar + Noah = 480/2,612. Solomon and Noah are the only two who appear in the New Testament, giving rise to isopsephy values of 1,260 and 855,^[64] respectively. If John expected his understanding reader to be able to find significance in a forward-gematria number derived from a 666-linked name, then of the above candidates 1,260 is undoubtedly the most striking (to an attentive member of the audience of Revelation 11–13, where “1,260” explicitly appears twice).^[65] Under this approach, Solomon therefore seems a triply confirmed clear winner with the most number of direct Scriptural parallels to “666,” (arguably) the most meaningful direct Scriptural parallel to “666” (compared to Adonikam), and the most Biblically/contextually noteworthy numeric name value of 1,260.^[66]

8.1.1 A Midrashic Defense of “Nero Caesar”

The Western style of scholarship, e.g., in which we try to support a defectively spelled gematria solution by appealing to Papyri discoveries inaccessible to the common man, is dissonant with the ways of the sages of the Hebrew Scripture. If Chazal had a wordplay, chiasm, or gematria that (superficially) didn’t quite work out, they would rather look to draw a lesson from the discrepancy rather than just argue it away. In this way, something that at first appeared to be a logical weakness in a rhetorical device is instead turned into a pedagogical strength. The “error” actually provides an additional piece of insight which you wouldn’t have had if the scheme had worked out exactly.

For a gematria example, “Torah” adds up to 611 but rabbinic tradition says the Torah itself contains 613 commandments. So close to a beautiful alignment! Makkot 24a:1 (in the Talmud) and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:2:2 (Midrash) both explain that the children of Israel heard the first two commandments directly from the mouth of the Almighty and then God revealed privately to Moses the remaining Torah of 611. Feder^[119] argues that there is more going on here than sleight of hand to get around the numbers not matching up. The first commandment (as per Jewish reckoning), “I am the Lord your God…,” forms the foundational paradigm for all the positive commandments while the second, “You shall have no other gods before Me,” forms the foundational paradigm for all the negative commandments. God gave the essential schematic to Israel as a whole and then took Moses aside to fill in the remaining 611 nitty gritty details, as it were. Regardless of whether that is how it literally, or historically, happened, the sages are nevertheless teaching a valuable and memorable lesson regarding the structure of the commandments.

For a spelling example, look to the Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 2:6:8 (cf. Bereshit Rabbah 47:1), and the case of the missing yodh! This example arises in the context of an imaginative discussion regarding Solomon wanting to distort the restrictions on a king in Deut 17 by removing a yodh (2:6:7)! As a typical talmudic tangent/supporting point, the halacha notes that the change of names from “Sarai and Abram” to “Sarah and Abraham” preserves gematria (value 753) because both names gain a heh (value 5) while Sarai loses a yodh (value 10). Nevertheless, the yodh itself was disappointed to be uprooted from the name of so righteous a matriarch. The Holy One assured the yodh that it was being transferred to the name of a righteous man knowing that later we would have, “Moses changed the name of Hosea son of Nun to Joshua” (Num 13:16) by simply prefixing the former name with a yodh. Everything gets accounted for.

Let’s try that approach here. For convenience for this exercise, let’s use the “נרון קיסר” spelling of “Nero Caesar” which a number of commentators claim as best (and which appears in the fifteenth-century Magen Avot 4:10:1, 4:14:1). The gematria value is 676. That is alluringly close to the number we want. The error term of ten corresponds to a yodh, and the spelling under examination conveniently contains a yodh. So now we just need to explain how/why this letter “snuck in there” to distort the 666 value we expected. In the following paragraph, we speak from the position of a midrashic teacher seeking to explain what is happening here.

Nero is definitely not a righteous man, so the yodh that floated from Sarai to Joshua definitely cannot pass to him, at least not deservedly. We do, though, have in Scripture an important case of a stolen “ten” in the loss of the ten northern tribes. Arguably the “seven heads” of Revelation’s beast consist of the four beastly kingdoms of Dan 7:3–7 (commonly taken as Babylon, Media/Persia, Greece, and Rome) who denied Israel autonomy over her promised land, plus the two analogous instances which came before that (Egypt and Assyria),^[120] plus one kingdom which was still yet to come in John’s day. When the Assyrian manifestation of the beast exiled the Northern Kingdom, it acquired an extra ten (tribes, “permanently” lost to history) which did not belong to it. The yodh being a special treasure of the righteous (as per the Talmud reference above), Israel lost their ten due to unrighteousness and the beast took possession of it. Hence (as per our ongoing midrash under construction) we have to calculate the name of the beast in Hebrew because only that language encodes what the beast did to the Hebrew nation. The Caesars, especially Nero, as a later “head” manifesting the very same beast, inherited this extra ten just as the temple treasures which Babylon’s king stole passed down to Mede and Persian “heads” after him (Ezra 5:14). But the beast is a rod in God’s hand to discipline His children (Isa 10:5–19), and when God’s own purposes are complete He will destroy the rod and deliver His ten tribes from the hands of the Roman beast, just as He caused Cyrus to return the gold and silver utensils for His house (Ezra 6:1–5). By saying that the actual value of “Nero Caesar” is 666, rather than the 676 robe he masquerades in, Revelation 13:18 unmasks the Caesars as an extension of the Assyrian beast still in unrighteous possession of the stolen ten!

Ah, now there’s a decent derash on the Cesarean yodh! Especially to a more Eastern mind, such a tale need not be literally true, or even realistic, in order to provide colorful and memorable illumination to the Biblical interpretation. I still don’t think this is the (primary) meaning God intended by Rev 13:18’s riddle, but for a student of ancient Judaic literature, it might be more satisfying than a Greek-minded apologia for an unexpected Hebrew spelling.

8.2.1 Intentional versus Unintentional Source Variant

If 616 was a copyist error, merely by accidentally writing an iota rather than xi as the middle digit of the numeral form,^[124] then speculations about proposed “meanings” of the variant may be at least partially misguided and moot. The number need not have any inherent meaning or significance to the passage if that number was never meant (neither by human nor divine agents) to be there in the first place.

On the other hand, the fact that 616 arose so early on, and was popular enough to warrant Irenaeus’ concern about its spread, and was preserved in one of the four great uncials (Ephraemi), etc., seems to indicate that something about it had appeal and gave it staying power. Did its appeal stem from the fact that it could direct readers to identify the same man (Nero) as the original 666 could, but in a manner that would make it easier for at least some (e.g., Latin speaking) people? That is, is 616 effectively a “dynamic translation” of 666 into Latin (still requiring transliteration of Nero’s name into Hebrew script, but now with a checksum value derived from a Latin-based starting point)? If so, then in some sense both variants would provide a legitimate clue to our modern, global information age, such that the variant manuscript history has effectively left us with a second data point to work with: “calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his numbers are 666 and 616.”

Unfortunately, the two legitimate clues view introduces its own set of difficulties which, to me, aren’t worth the price.

8.2.2 A Theory on Exegesis of the Text or a Theory on Historic Transmission of the Text?

Throughout most of this article, we’ve been talking about hypotheses for explaining the meaning of 666 as the Bible intends it to be understood, but when you add in a manuscript variant and attempt to talk about “explaining” the two different values 666 and 616, that adds a whole new layer of ambiguity. Are we “explaining” what the Spirit of God meant by the two numbers, or what men thought they meant, or some combination thereof? Indeed, when commentators say the Nero hypothesis “accounts for” both numbers, I’m often genuinely unclear regarding what form of accounting they intend. Such a claim can have wildly different implications depending on how it is taken.

One convenient way to classify the different possibilities is to pin down whom we are presuming to be the two parties who originally had in mind “Nero Caesar” for the numbers 666 and 616. Do these two numbers, respectively, originate from:

1. Man and man: One man (John) supplies the original number and another man (a scribe) writes the variant. A more theologically liberal-leaning scholar who views Rev 13:18 as ultimately the product of John’s own human, albeit pious, mind could conceive that John desired the answer to be “Nero Caesar” and, finding that the Hebrew came to 686, realized he could get to a more much nicer, super-symmetric answer of 666 by just trimming off a couple non-essential letters. As a man-made riddle anyway, someone who understood the intent (perhaps through a chain of explicit teaching on it) later came along and offered a variant more conducive to Latin-speaking Gentiles who might only learn enough Hebrew to transliterate the letters directly. Through that lens, I can see how the symmetry of explanations would be highly desirable: the original and the variant both reflect the best efforts of men to formulate a decent riddle suitable to their respective recipient audience, and both men followed the same methodology. That is a legitimate double voucher. Moreover, we can explain the historical loss of the interpretation to the fact that John’s well-intended riddle was never as catchy as he hoped, and so people who were naively presuming this was a message from God began their futile search for something more glorious. Assuming a framework of the Bible as a mere human work, this explanation sounds plausible to me; I just don’t accept those initial presuppositions.

2. Man and himself: A copyist receiving the text interprets 666 according to the Nero theory and thence transcribes it into 616 as a help to his Latin readership. In other words, the copyist is effectively authoring a dynamic paraphrase according to his own understanding (be it right or wrong) of the verse. The Nero hypothesis’ symmetry of explanations for the two number is here again admirable because the scribe doesn’t think he is tampering with the word of God, he is just authoring a dynamic paraphrase that uses the same methodological approach to the riddle. In this case, we have a reasonable theory for how the variant arose which I admit is a possibility, but this is not an exegesis of divine intent for the original text unless we extend further into the next case.

3. God and man: God supplied the first number (say 666) intending “Nero Caesar” as the answer, and a scribe who correctly understood God’s riddle made a “translation” using the other number (616) to help his readership see it. Problems with this case include: (a) God’s riddle is linguistically fragile, and (b) you have an early understanding of the divine riddle followed by the complete absence of the correct interpretation from historical records. We’ll discuss these more below.

4. God and Himself: I’m not aware of anyone explicitly claiming that God inspired both numbers, although De Young comes close with, “[I]f you ask me, ”Which one is right, 666 or 616?” my answer’s going to be, “¿Por qué no los dos? Why not both?” Because there’s a way of calculating this where it refers to the same person.”^[125] Perhaps he means that we don’t know which is original, but that it doesn’t matter since God’s sovereignty over the situation allowed both to come into use because both worked. In other words, 616 may not be original but it effectively has heaven’s endorsement as an acceptable substitute. Although I haven’t heard it explicitly stated as such, this case may be attractive to the subconscious thinking of more conservative scholars because it simultaneously provides an apologetic for significant manuscript variation of a word (even if just one iota digit) in a place where the change could be substantial and extremely consequential (as per Irenaeus again). This case is basically just an intensified version of #3, so our treatment will lump the two together.

The goal of the present study is to exegete the intended divine meaning of Rev 13:18, so we will focus on interacting with case #3.

8.2.3 Linguistic Fragility of the Riddle

The Nero hypothesis’ dual understanding of the riddle is ultra-sensitive to variation in the dialect of the target audience. Consider what happens if we extrapolate on the approach taken by the scribe who offered a dynamic paraphrase to allow 616 to work for Latin speakers as 666 did for Aramaic speakers. To construct a modern Russian dynamic paraphrase Bible, we would need to take “Neron Tsezar” (“Hepoн Цeзapь”), transliterate that into Hebrew script as, say, “נרון צזר,” and set the corresponding number of the beast to its gematria value of 603. The Chinese name of the beast “Ní lù kǎisǎ” (“尼禄凯撒”) might come out as something like “נלו כיסא” with the beastly number here being 177. With enough dynamic paraphrase editions churned out from our Nero Idiomatic Translation movement, future generations could discover a “hundred-fold voucher” confirmation of the methodological approach we were using, but their interpretation of our products would represent just that – what we were thinking regarding how the riddle works. Also, the great variability in how things get transliterated leaves behind a big mess of alternate numbers of the beast in every single language it gets paraphrased into.

Contrast this with the translatability (and hence stability) of the 666 → Solomon intertextual connection. As long as a Bible translation has the same number in 1 Kings 10:14, 2 Chr 9:13, and Rev 13:18,^[126] solvers are good to go. This translatability of the first stage and primary content of the riddle is extremely beneficial to a book which exalts in impacting every tongue, tribe, and nation (Rev 5:9, 7:9).

8.2.4 Early Understanding of the Answer Accompanied by Complete Radio Silence?

Positing an early scribe who understood the correct Nero Caesar interpretation not only fails to explain but indeed exacerbates one irksome issue: the problem of no such solution from the historical records. If 666 and 616 form a “double voucher” for “Nero Caesar,” then it was doubly avouched for early on but just as quickly doubly lost. Irenaeus seems unaware of it unless he is mistakenly rejecting/ignoring the correct interpretation. Now, you not only have the loss of one known, correct solution, but you have the loss of two distinct, but dynamically equivalent, strands of the correct methodology in the respective linguistic communities and the loss of their harmonization. In other words, both the 666 people and the 616 people lost the originally understood meaning, and accepting the loss of a double voucher introduces double trouble. As Godet puts it, “The subsidiary proof which has been drawn from the other reading, 616, turns, when examined more closely, into an insurmountable objection.”

8.2.5 Sometimes Two Theories are Better than One

The principle of Occam is called a “razor” because it “refers to the ‘shaving away’ of unnecessary assumptions when distinguishing between two theories.”^[127] A good theory accounts for all of the data, so it is not only unnecessary but in fact undesirable to shave away the distinction between a clue which is of divine origination and one which is not. The lineage of these two numbers arising in different ways from different sources is itself part of the data a good theory needs to explain, not to shave away. By treating 666 and 616 in a symmetric fashion as equal paths to a solution, Benary’s version of the Nero hypothesis fails to sufficiently account for the asymmetry of their respective heritage. Therefore, I say that an ideal (composite) theory for the two forms of Rev 13:18 should be comprised of two distinct, even contrasting, parts: what did God have in mind with the original form, and what attracted some men to the erroneous variant?

Moreover, the standards for analyzing the two components are very different. An interpretation of the answer to the original riddle is explaining what God intended it to mean. Such an explanation should befit the glorious qualities of divine inspiration. It should not be contrived. Apparent flaws need to be logically accounted for.

Interpretations regarding the “meaning” of the variant explain what people who caused or supported the variant were thinking about it. Such explanations are welcome to be contrived, contain fallacies, and bear other marks of human weakness. An explanation of what flawed people in a flawed scenario may have been thinking will contain descriptions of their flawed thinking; that does not indicate a flaw in the explanation of the scenario itself! It is also perfectly fine to have a variegated ecosystem of partial explanations for the “meaning” of the variant which would have provided it with a complex plausibility structure among the diverse opinions of a community owning that variant.

616 is not an intertextual link to Solomon nor, to our knowledge, does it have direct verbal coherence with anything in Scripture. So our 666 theory, and the broader methodology it employs, completely fails to provide exegesis for the 616 variant. And that is a good thing. In this particular type of manuscript situation, we want an asymmetry between explanations of the true and false variants, respectively. On this point, I concur with Irenaeus who had no interest in seeking a solution that harmonized both variants:

I do not know how it is that some have erred following the ordinary mode of speech, and have vitiated the middle number in the name, deducting the amount of fifty from it, so that instead of six decades they will have it that there is but one … These men, therefore, ought to learn [what really is the state of the case], and go back to the true number of the name, that they be not reckoned among false prophets.

To put it bluntly, one of the numbers is just plain wrong and hence is not a faithful guide for interpreting the verse.

8.2.6 The Greek Standard Form of 616

The standard form of 616 in Greek is “χιϛ.” We don’t need to resort to speculation regarding how that numeral could have been viewed in interpretive history. By conflating^[128] the digamma (numeral 6, but not used in Koine as a letter) with a (sometimes indistinguishable) terminal sigma,^[129] or with a stigma, this has been seen as an abbreviated form of “Christ” (“Xριστός”) or a merging of abbreviations for “Christ” and “Jesus.”^[130] Hence, Caesarius of Arles, actively working from a text containing 616 in the sixth century, preached a homily^[131] that the “man” referred to in Rev 13:18 is Jesus Christ, his name and identity being abused and counterfeited by unbelievers in their deceptive claims of affiliation with him. He says 616 = χιστ’^[132] “is understood to be a sign of Christ and shows a likeness of him that the church in reality holds in reverence. In their opposition, the heretics make something similar to this sign for themselves. When they persecute Christ spiritually, they nonetheless seem to be glorified by the sign of the cross of Christ. For this reason, therefore, [because it is a counterfeit of ‘Christ’] it is said that the number of the beast is the number of a man.” Although Caesarius took an analogical approach to Revelation (as directly relevant to the entire church age), you could reformulate his idea in the language of a futuristic paradigm by saying that “the Antichrist will be a Pseudochrist,” not so much overtly attacking the church from without as deceiving it from within.

8.2.7 The Hebrew Standard Form of 616

Of the four Scripturally related numbers he attempts, Oberweis most effectively wields his semantic interpretation of Hebrew numerals tool on 616. On this point, we concur with him regarding an “amazingly simple” explanation for this number’s appeal. The sound of the Greek word “theriou” meaning “[of the] beast,” in the exact declension it is written in this verse, matches a phonetic pronunciation of the (standard form) Hebrew numeric representation of 616. Although pronouncing digits as if they formed a word may not be the most normal way to vocally express a Hebrew numeral, there certainly is precedent for doing that very thing. A contemporarily recognizable example is the holiday Lag BaOmer (“33rd [day] in the Omer”) which pronounces the digits lamed-gimel as “lag.” As an important traditional example, which happens to be only one letter/digit different from 616, “[Taryag = 613] is a number which is used by Chazal like a word.”^[133]

The role of standard form here is not essential to the theriou hypothesis itself, but is crucial to the strength of it.^[134] A number of commentators, even among its favorable advocates, state the case to the effect that if you put a transliteration of Rev 13:18’s form of the word for “beast” into Hebrew letters and “and add up the numerical value of the letters, the total is 616.”^[135] That way of putting it is true, but drastically under-represents the situation. Stated succinctly: “theriou” doesn’t merely “add up to” 616, rather “theriou” is 616 and 616 is “theriou.” A bilingual Jew pondering Rev 13:18 along either of at least^[136] two different paths could very understandably think that the “number of theriou” (Gr. beast), taken literally, should be “theriou” (Heb. 616) rather than “thersou” (Heb. 666) because, phonetically speaking,^[137] it should!

8.2.8 The Combined Influence of the Hebrew and Greek Standard Forms

Figure 2 presents key forces at work (in original and anglicized versions) in a bilingual meditation on the number of the beast. The horizontal arrows represent interchangeable ideas, while the vertical arrows point in the direction of the most favorable acceptability.

Figure 2

Trans-linguo-numeric considerations regarding 616 and 666.

“Six hundred sixty six” has the appeal of triplicate “6-6-6” symmetry, e.g., as for Irenaeus, over “6-1-6.” On the other hand, 616’s Greek numeric representation has a meaningful appeal that is easily seen, e.g., as for Caesarius,^[138] in contrast to the appearance of 666 which requires far more tenuous contortions to see any significance. Of the two interpretations stemming from the vocalization of the Hebrew standard form offered by Oberweis, we consider the appeal of 616 sounding like the very form of “beast” which appears right in Rev 13:18 to be the strongest attraction. Regardless of which direction anyone personally feels the gravitational force to be most dominant, there nevertheless remains at least a significant pull in the downward direction. We probably cannot know how 616 got its initial foothold, since Irenaeus in the late second century doesn’t know despite being clearly concerned about its propagation. However, once it begins to gain traction, especially if the 666 side hasn’t come up with a robust believable explanation, it seems clear that the 616 side could easily flourish in popularity as the alternative which seems a “more logical” wordplay on its initial, simplistic face value.

By focusing on the standard numeric forms, this chart represents data which is relatively “cleanly” accessible from the common knowledge pool of anyone with knowledge of the fundamentals of the two (primary) Scriptural languages. Hence while more complex and creative speculations surrounding 616 could also have come and gone, at least these foundational ideas would have always been within reach to one educated in the languages. That alone seems to be more than enough fuel to keep the erroneous variant going. In textual criticism categories, 616 seems to have no difficulty erroneously attaining the preference of some scribes, and maintaining acceptability in some communities, regardless of whether a Latinisation of the Hebrew for “Nero Caesar” to solve a Greek puzzle had a role to play in their thinking or not.

8.2.9 Summarizing our Position on 616

1. A composite, asymmetric description is to be preferred to explain the inherent asymmetry between a God-given riddle and a man-made variant.

2. A scribally provided clue only points us toward an interpretation of the intent of his own dynamic paraphrase.

3. Modern speculations regarding the antiquity of (scribal adherence to) “Nero Caesar” theories are welcome at the table, but they are non-essential for explaining the variant because the existence of “616” is easily explained via more fundamental linguistic and graphic considerations.

4. Tightly coupling an explanation of the variant with a proposed exegesis of the actual intent of the God-given original raises more and bigger problems than it answers.

5. Unfortunately, as our thesis views it, Irenaeus’ warning was quite right that clues from 616 could never lead to the right answer, that key not fitting the lock Divine Wisdom placed on Rev 13:18’s chest of insight.

Here we leave 616 to rest. Meanwhile, the admitted appeal of trying to tie Nero to 666 brings us to the next and final major objection to our own theory which we wish to address.

8.3.1 Solomon as Chief Representative of Beast of the Earth Territory

Although we speak of “the” beast (as does Revelation itself), there is some ambiguity here because Rev 13 actually speaks of two beasts or, arguably, two forms or manifestations of the beast. There is the beast rising out of the sea (vs 1ff) and the beast rising out of the earth (vs 11ff). Many authors interpret the beast of the earth as essentially just some form of assistant to the beast of the sea (see vs 12), but I would suggest there are sharp qualitative distinctions, even contrasts, between the two.

It is extremely easy to see how the first beast represents governing powers which exert open hostility against God’s people, especially since the animal components of this beast clearly echo the beasts (also coming out of the sea) in Dan 7:3–7, and because the Rev 13:7 text explicitly says that this beast is “allowed to make war on the saints.” Nothing could be clearer than that!

The second beast is different, again for more reasons than we can treat here so we’ll just pick a few that we can name off quickly. This beast has two horns “like a lamb.” In twenty-eight out of twenty-nine occurrences in Revelation, that word for “lamb” refers to Jesus Christ as the Lamb (thusly capitalized, e.g., in ESV) of God. Rev 13:11 is the singular exception wherein the beast has features “like a lamb.” Next, making fire come down from heaven to earth (vs 13) counterfeits the presence of God (cf. Ex 19:18, 2 Chron 7:1) as manifested in several instances among the prophets of Israel, most notably Elijah’s ministry (1 Kings 18:38).^[140] Next, worshiping an image of a beast alludes to the incident of the golden calf and likely also alludes to those Jews who – unlike the three faithful youths – capitulated to Nebuchadnezzar’s demands in Dan 3. Next, though less familiar to a Protestant audience, the embargo against buying and selling (13:17) probably intimates a reference to Jonathan Apphus’ siege of the Akra in 1 Maccabees 12:35–36. Finally, the (explicitly stated) number of the beast carries a secondary reference to Sethur (whose name is an anagram of 666, as earlier), one of the ten spies in Numbers who gave a bad report regarding the land. The interested reader can work through the citations in Beale’s commentary to pick up more connections. All told, the repeated pattern is that – while the beast of the sea makes war on God’s people from the outside – the beast of the earth is an insider threat who corrupts and/or misleads the covenant community from within.

Though I don’t agree on all points, and despite his use of a 616 manuscript providing him a different clue in verse 18, church father Caesarius of Arles reached a similar conclusion regarding the clear shift which occurs midway through chapter 13:

His image is an imitation, that is, it is among those people who confess the catholic faith but live the life of infidelity. For they feign to be what they are not, and they are called Christians, not by way of the true Image but by way of a false image.

Structurally then, there is a strong argument that Rev 13 expresses a merism:^[141] it uses two polar extremes to represent a full range. In the context of the Hebrew Bible that Rev 13 heavily alludes to, the beast from the sea includes the forces of Egypt, Babylon, Rome, etc., viciously attacking the kingdom of Israel. Meanwhile, the beast from the earth parallels forces spurring temptation within the kingdom of Israel itself to voluntarily choose to lust and follow after the gods of the Egyptians, Moabites, Greeks, etc. On the one side are kings such as Nebuchadnezzar, Pharaoh, and Nero who subjugate God’s people by coercion; meanwhile on the other side are Israel’s own officers who lead the people astray by their teachings and the example of their lives.

Rulers, commanders, shepherds, and such leaders hold power in the corporate life of a people which can be leveraged for good or evil, intentionally or unintentionally. Biblical history supplies abundant material for a narration wishing to highlight the spectacular failures of even the most respectable among men. Aaron constructed the golden calf. Jonathan Apphus made alliances with the (then) Roman Republic, gushed over it with brotherly affection that didn’t age well (1 Maccabees 12:1–23), and tried to fight God’s battles without God’s presence. Sethur should have been another Joshua leading his people into their promised inheritance, but instead, God closed him off (another play on his name, Bamidbar Rabbah 16:10) from the world. And of course, there is the paradoxical Solomon who built both the House of God and high places for Chemosh, who ruled over an era of peace but brought about lasting division of his father’s united kingdom. The point of the merism is that all earthly kingdoms fail, from the most wretched and terrifying to the most promising; hence, we await the consummation of Messiah’s kingdom in which He makes all things new.

While the beast of the sea acts to destroy and overtake God’s people by force and siege from the outside inward, the beast of the earth’s m.o. is temptation and deception which corrupts them from the inside outward. As a king of Israel, son of David, author of Scripture, and builder of the Temple, and yet as one who turned his heart from God to idols, lived in defiance of Torah, and multiplied his indulgences in worldly lusts, Solomon is a poster boy for everything the beast of the earth^[142] seeks to accomplish. The contextual description of the beast of the earth is riddled with allusions to Jewish leaders of admirable reputation (cmp. Rev 3:1) doing spiritually harmful things both to their own detriment and that of the nation. It is hard to think of a more epitomizing embodiment of that paradigm than King Solomon.

8.3.2 A Nuanced and Multifarious Beast

While showing that Solomon is relevant to the context, we have seen more generally that the descriptions of the two beasts in Rev 13 are built from entire casts of human characters. Even if someone does not subscribe to the proposition of a variegated beast spectrum that we have touched on here, the beast of the sea at the very least has the spiritual DNA of Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus Epiphanes, and some subset of Caesars coursing through its veins. The book of Revelation^[143] is like a fine wine full of subtleties, and the English language provides suitable metaphors for its appreciation. “Notes” of Moses and Elijah flavor chapter 11; many a lay reader has missed those connections and still benefited from the overall message, but the appreciation of the full-bodied storyline is much greater when they are detected. There are certainly “hints” of Nero in Chapter 13 and elsewhere in Revelation, but that doesn’t necessitate that his name must solve the riddle. His aroma shades the overall taste without eclipsing other ingredients.

Hence “Solomon” as the (primary) name intended by the riddle need not exclude Nero and Rome from the picture. As initial evidence of the complex intermingling of beastly categories, Solomon is, after all, known for making disturbing political and marital alliances with the Pharaoh of Egypt (1 Kings 3:1, 9:16), Egypt arguably being the first head of the beast of the sea as the first to enslave the tribes of Israel and hold them in exile. A closer look at the Scriptural language begins to uncover even more troublesome data. Rabbi Fohrman’s entire “Beginning of the End” video series is relevant here, but the following is just one concise snippet:

In that one single verse back in Exodus [1:11] – the verse that describes Pharaoh’s imposition of slavery upon Israel – we’ve got echo after echo in the Book of Kings, all describing Solomon’s rule.

How difficult to face! But the allusions in these verses [I Kings 9:17–19, 23] create a picture that’s hard to deny. The burdens and forced labor that Solomon places on his people came close to being crushing; they came uncomfortably close to making Solomon a latter-day Pharaoh figure.

Professor Hays independently detects similar issues:

Thus the opening paragraphs regarding the construction of the glorious temple contain negative undercurrents. Underscoring this is the reference in 6.1 to the exodus from Egypt. The proximity of forced building labor to the mention of the exodus is suggestive and highly ironic. Indeed, throughout these chapters there is the interesting interchange of references to Pharaoh, the exodus from Egypt, Solomon’s large state building program, forced labor and chariot horses from Egypt.

Hays goes on to close his study by answering his own titular question in this way: “The subtle narrator of 1–2 Kings has not come to praise Solomon but to bury him.”

Commentaries take different views regarding which beast “the beast” of Rev 13:18 is. Our own position is that there are strong arguments for both sides of the debate because the narratives were formulated to build in this intentional ambiguity. By Rev 17:11, the text finally comes out and serves us these blurred categories on a platter which won’t allow us to ignore the ambiguities that have been swirling: “As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven.”

8.3.3 Nero Revives in Surprising Form

With that background in place, our present goal – in defense of the 666/Solomon/1,260 hypothesis – is to substantiate our suggestion that you can take the data which interpreters have gathered in support of connections between Revelation’s beast and Nero, and you can harmonize that data with a Solomonic colored beast as well. In other words, much of the existing exegetical work tying the beast to Nero does not go to waste under our hypothesis, you just have to expand your categories to see how the two can overlap, how a Solomon can be a type of Nero.

How easily Christians recognize that Nero certainly was quite a beast, but are opponents of Christianity the only type of oppressive rulers in this world? How about Emperor Theodosius’ Edict of Thessalonica, threatening “the retribution of Our own initiative” against any citizens of Constantinople who were so “demented and insane” as to fail to ascribe to Trinitarian Christianity? How about Pope Urban II’s speech at the Council of Clermont instigating the First Crusade against Arabs and Turks,^[144] even while Jesus’ commission to proclaim His good news to all nations had sunk into centuries of oblivion? How about Luther’s shameful and dangerous advice to German rulers that in order to deal with the “obnoxious Jews” they should “set fire to their synagogues,”^[145] etc., etc.? And let’s be clear: in contrast to the Reformers’ obsession with pinning “Babylon” squarely on Roman Catholicism, beastliness is not a sectarian issue within Christendom; the same temptations and tendencies to be corrupted by power affect us all.^[146] When Protestantism got its day in the sun, the Anglican British Empire and America – the latter as an interdenominational yet distinctively “Christian nation” – came upon the New World in roughly the same ravenous and rapine manner as did the Catholic Spanish and Portuguese Empires. Whenever Christendom takes power, regardless of particular creed and polity, it faces all the same pull towards beastly behavior that any other authorities face.

Consider, “In Jewish tradition, Esau = Edom = Rome = Christianity.”^[147] The reasons the Rabbis have made these identifications are many and storied but the main thing to note is, of course, that during the fourth century, Christianity did inarguably inherit the reins of the very same Roman Empire which had formerly persecuted it. Its leaders became Christians, and the once-minority faith moved into the position of official imperial religion. From a popular Jewish perspective, quite understandably, Christendom^[148] is old Rome under new management.

If someone is concerned that this Jewish perspective may be too clouded by its own biases, we turn to the testimony of (arguably) the founder of Roman Christendom^[149] himself. Hardly a commentary will fail to note, regarding Rev 17:9, that Rome was well known as a city on seven hills. What we don’t so often hear, however, is that Constantine designed his eponymous capital^[150] as a “city on seven hills” with the explicit intent that Rome was the prototype for this “New Rome” (“Nova Roma”), aka “Eastern Rome” (“ἑῴα Ῥώμη”).

Nor did this designation remain purely a secular matter. The third canon of the second ecumenical council reads, “The Bishop of Constantinople, however, shall have the prerogative of honour after the Bishop of Rome; because Constantinople is New Rome” (emphasis added). So it is not only Jews who associate Christendom with Rome, it is also an officially promulgated ecclesiastical standard from one of the earliest synods universally recognized by all major branches of the church that the founding capital of Christendom is, in modern vernacular, Rome 2.0.^[151] By politico-religious Christendom’s own testimony that it is a rebirth of the Roman empire, intentionally founded as a new city on seven new hills, we have met the enemy, and he is us.

We have only dipped our toes in the story of historic Christendom’s repeated resuscitation of Nero in Solomon’s garb. Nevertheless, for the sake of the present study, we have said enough to stake a claim that 666 can very well point to Solomon without losing the complementary contours by which the Nero allusions further flesh out the picture.

8.3.4 Flexibility of Nero/Solomon Integration

The purpose of this subsection has not been to fully explain nor defend our own interpretation of how the allusions to Rome and Nero harmonize with Solomon = 1,260. In the context of this study, the goal has simply been to begin to demonstrate the Nero data need not imply that “Nero Caesar” itself answers verse 18’s riddle. Indeed, Nero is only one of several characters behind the scenes who shapes the language of Rev 13, all of whom influence the final picture. Hence one final word of defense for our thesis to those yet unconvinced: if Solomon, his 666 talents of gold, and his 1,260 name value do not tell the full story of the “man” and his “number(s)” that the riddle of Revelation 13:17–18 is looking for, he most certainly figures into at least part of the tapestry.