What is gematria, should Christians use gematria, and what is the meaning of 666?
Whether you’re studying the modern Aramaic Hebrew script or the ancient pictographic Hebrew script, you may have come across a few well-meaning Hebrew teachers who say there are numbers associated with the letters.
However, unbeknownst to many, gematria numbers were never part of the original Hebrew alphabet.
How Numbers Became Associated with the Hebrew Alphabet
In Israel’s first few hundred years in the Land after the Exodus, the nations around them lost their ability to write as a result of what historians call the Late Bronze Age Collapse (c. 1200BC) and the Greek Dark Ages (c. 1180BC-800BC).
In those days, Israel’s neighbors were merchants who ended up adopting and spreading the Hebrew alphabet as they sailed around the world for trade.
History gave the merchant-neighbors of Israel the name “Phoenicians” and that’s why it’s sometimes (mistakenly) taught that the Phoenicians invented the alphabet.
It was from the Phoenicians that Greeks learned the letters, and since Greece had lost the ability to write their own script as a result of the collapse, they adopted the Hebrew letters as their own. They changed the Hebrew alef to alpha and beyt to beta, and it’s from alpha and beta that we get the word alphabet.
The Greeks eventually assigned numbers to each of the letters and used the number-letter system for things like coded messages, poetry, and magic.
Many hundreds of years later, when the Jewish remnant of Israel found themselves under Greek rule, Jewish mystics adopted the same practice and called it gematria after the Greek word geometry.
How Gematria is Used Today
Today, gematria is used by Jewish mystics called Kabbalists as one of their rules of Biblical interpretation. They use the Greek-influenced number system to determine values for words and phrases in the Bible and assume that words and phrases with the same values have hidden connections. Even some Christians use it as a form of Biblical interpretation, but the practice has no Biblical basis – it’s numerology. Because of this, when we study Hebrew, we avoid the teaching of gematria. We also avoid other forms of numerology and any type of mysticism.
Here are a few famous examples of gematria and how it is used:
- In Genesis 14:14, it’s written “When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.” Those who study gematria teach that since the name Eliezer adds up to a numerical value of 318, what Genesis is really saying is that Abraham took Eliezer with him, not 318 men.
- Rabbis teach that the gematria value for the word sin is the same as the numerical value for the word nut and that to stay away from sin on Rosh Hashanah, one must avoid nuts.
I could give more examples here, but it’s easy to see how with this system, you can make the Bible say anything.
It’s interesting to note that over the centuries scribes added numerous letters to the Hebrew Bible for vowel sounds. For example, the letter vav has been inserted in many places for the “oo” sound, and the letter yod for the “ee” sound. King David’s name is a good example of this – it appears in the Bible as both דוד and דויד.
Here’s what this amounts to: men modified the words of GOD, then they use those modified words as the basis for calculations which they say… come from GOD. For us, this is just another reason to avoid the practice.
Numbers in the Bible
The Biblical concept of numbers is that numbers have names, not associated letters.
The number one for example is the word echad, not the letter alef. Two is the word shenayim, not the letter beyt.
As mentioned earlier, the Phoenicians learned the alphabet from the Hebrews and, notably, there was no gematria attached to it. The Phoenicians used something similar to the Roman decimal system for counting and evidence exists that ancient Hebrews did the same.
In a recent short video we posted on Youtube on the subject of gematria, a few commenters mistook our disinterest in gematria for a resistance to math and numbers in the Bible.
To be clear, we love math and there are plenty of numbers in the Bible that we love studying. HE gives us numbers as part of His prophetic timelines, such as Daniel’s 70 weeks, 1290 days, 1335 day, and more. And there are many numerical concepts in the Bible such as the number 40 appearing in various passages (40 days and nights of rain, 40 years in the wilderness, YASHUA fasting for 40 days, et al.). All of these numbers which appear plainly in the Bible are certainly worthy of everyone’s consideration and study.
Gematria however has nothing to do with GOD’s use of numbers in the Bible. Gematria is the practice of man assigning numbers to the Hebrew alphabet, adding them up, and then using the resulting values to find hidden meanings and connections in the Scriptures. This is a practice developed by men, not GOD. The only Biblical evidence of its use is that it will one day be used by the False Prophet.
666 and Gematria as a Tool of the Antichrist
Some people point to Revelation’s 666 as a basis for the use of gematria. However, let’s take a look at that number in context.
The infamous 666 is discussed as part of a passage about what Antichrist’s False Prophet will do at the end of days. Revelation 13:16-18 & 14:9 tell us the False Prophet will cause people who worship the satanic image of the beast to receive a mark, and that mark will either be the name of the beast or the number of his name.
With this as the context, John wrote:
“Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is 666.”
Some teach this verse is an instruction for those with righteous understanding, but that’s not what John is saying. The Greek word he uses for understanding is νοῦς (Strong’s #G3563) which just means mind. And we learn from the Scriptures that you can have the mind of CHRIST or a corrupt mind.
“Since they did not see fit to acknowledge GOD, GOD gave them up to a debased mind.” Romans 1:28
“We have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2:16
Here is the wisdom of what John wrote, which GOD our Father wants us to know:
Immediately after saying the False Prophet will cause people to receive a mark of the number of the beast’s name, John wrote let him who has a mind count the number. And he who has a mind to count the number at the end of days is none other than the false prophet himself!
The False Prophet is the one who needs to make the calculation since he wants it for the mark. GOD is telling us here that the False Prophet will use gematria.
So, as we stated at the end of that somewhat controversial video:
If gematria isn’t original to the Hebrew language, and it doesn’t come from GOD, and it’s destined to be a tool of the antichrist, why would we study it?
Here at fathersalphabet.com and on our Original Hebrew YouTube channel, we don’t.
In case you’re interested, here’s the video (approx 2 min):
