Revelation 13:18

Here is wisdom. Directing attention to the challenge which follows. Count [ψ η φ ι σ α τ ω]. See on Luke 14:28.

The number of a man. It is counted as men usually count. Compare ch. 21 17, and a man's pen, Isaiah 8:1. Some explain, a symbolical number denoting a person.

Six hundred threescore and six (c. 10 v). Each letter represents a component of the whole number : c = 600; x = 60; v = 6. In the earlier MSS : it is written in full, eJxakosioi eJxhkonta ejx. The method of reading generally adopted is that known as the Ghematria of the Rabbins, or in Greek, ijsoyhfia numerical equality, which assigns each letter of a name its usual numerical value, and gives the sum of such numbers as the equivalent of the name. Thus, in the Epistle of Barnabas, we are told that the name Ihsouv Jesus is expressed by the number 888. I = 10; h = 8; s = 200; o = 70; u = 400; s = 200. The majority of the commentators use the Greek alphabet in computation; others, however, employ the Hebrew; while a third class employ the Roman numerals.

The interpretations of this number form a jungle from which escape is apparently hopeless. Reuss says : "This famous number has been made to yield almost all the historical names of the past eighteen centuries : Titus, Vespasian, and Simon Gioras; Julian the Apostate and Genseric; Mahomet and Luther; Benedict iv and Louis xiv; Napoleon 1 and the Duke of Reichstadt; and it would not be difficult, on the same principles, to read in it one another's names." Some of the favorite names are Lateinov, Latinus, describing the common character of the rulers of the former pagan Roman Empire : Nero Caesar; Diocletian; cv the name of Christ abridged, and x the emblem of the serpent, so that the sublimated sense is the Messiah of Satan.