Gematria
What is gematria?
A real tradition, not a code
Gematria is the Jewish practice of reading Hebrew words as numbers. Every Hebrew letter is also a numeral, from alef, 1, to tav, 400, so every word has a total, and gematria links words whose totals match. The Talmud uses it to teach and to help memory: wine and secret are both 70, so “when wine enters, secrets emerge.” It is central to Kabbalah and lives on in customs like giving in multiples of 18. It is a way of reading, not a hidden code.
Pairs from the sources
Gematria, question by question
Five questions, answered with sources
- 01What number is each Hebrew letter?Alef 1 to tav 400, the five final forms, and how to write any year in letters.
- 02Why is 666 the number of the beast?Nero Caesar in Hebrew letters. Take out one letter and it becomes 616.
- 03How did the Greeks write numbers with letters?27 signs from 1 to 900. Convert any number and count any Greek word.
- 04What are abjad numerals?The Arabic letters from 1 to 1000, and why the Bismillah is 786.
- 05Is English gematria real?Real ciphers, no tradition. Watch the matches pile up as ciphers are added.
To add up any word yourself, in Hebrew, Greek, Arabic or English, use the gematria calculator.
Where it comes from
Letters that were numbers
The Greeks came first. Writing numbers with letters began in the Greek city of Miletus, with vase graffiti from the 6th century BCE. Hebrew adopted the idea later: the earliest evidence of Hebrew letters used as numerals dates from 78 BCE. Once letters were numbers, every word had a total.
The word is Greek too, though scholars disagree on which word. Most trace it to geometria, geometry; others to a Greek word for letters or scribes. In rabbinic literature it first appears as the 29th of the 32 interpretive rules attributed to Rabbi Eliezer ben Jose the Galilean, around 200 CE. The Mishnah names it too: “The calculation of the equinoxes and gematria are the desserts of wisdom,” in Pirkei Avot 3:18.
How the Talmud uses it. Sparingly, and usually to support a reading rather than prove one. Genesis says Abraham went to war with 318 men; one view in the Talmud is that this meant his servant Eliezer alone, because אליעזר adds up to 318. The balance above has that pair and the others quoted on this page.
Where it became central. Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, relies on gematria heavily. Rabbi Moshe Cordovero’s 1542 handbook Pardes Rimonim expanded the older methods, and one manuscript lists 75 different forms of gematria.
Today
Chai, 666 and 786
In Jewish life, the best known number is 18, the value of חי, chai, alive. Gifts and donations come in multiples of 18, “giving chai.” The Hebrew letter values page has the full chart.
Outside Judaism, the same idea runs through Greek and Arabic. The number of the beast in Revelation, 666, is most likely Nero’s name added up in Hebrew letters. Greek isopsephy made Ἰησοῦς 888, and in Arabic abjad the Bismillah is 786.
And the limits. An ancient critic, as reported by Proclus, already noted that mixing enough methods lets you produce “virtually any number to suit any purpose.” My Jewish Learning notes that skeptics have seen gematria “proof” used for opposite positions, and Chabad’s summary of the tradition is that a gematria must be sourced to be significant: the number alone does not create a connection. The “Bible code” claim, which uses letter skipping rather than sums, failed a statistical test in 1999 when the same method found an equally strong result in War and Peace.
Real vs legend
Gematria, sorted
| Claim | Status |
|---|---|
| Hebrew letters double as numbers, and the rabbis used word totals to teach. | Real · Talmud |
| The Mishnah names gematria. | Real · Avot 3:18 |
| The word comes from the Greek for geometry. | Partly · Greek, but which word is debated |
| Sargon II used it in the 8th century BCE. | Reported · the inscription was not checked |
| The Hebrew Bible itself uses gematria. | Unclear · the term is absent |
| Atbash is a kind of gematria. | Partly · old sources group it, but it swaps letters |
| Gematria proves the Torah hides a predictive code. | Legend · the statistics failed |
Questions
Gematria
What is gematria used for?
Mostly for reading and remembering Torah: the Talmud and Midrash use it now and then to support an interpretation, and Kabbalah uses it heavily. It also lives on in customs, such as giving gifts in multiples of 18.
What is gematria in simple terms?
Adding up letters. Each Hebrew letter is a number, alef 1, bet 2 and so on, so every word has a total, and words with the same total are read together.
What is 666 in gematria?
The value of נרון קסר, Nero Caesar in Hebrew letters: 50 + 200 + 6 + 50 + 100 + 60 + 200. That is why most scholars read the number of the beast in Revelation as Nero.
What number is Jesus in gematria?
In Greek letters, Ἰησοῦς adds up to 888. In Hebrew letters, ישוע, Yeshua, is 386. In the modern English cipher A = 1 to Z = 26, JESUS is 74.
What is the most important gematria number?
There is no official ranking. The most visible in Jewish life is 18, the value of chai, alive. 26, the value of the divine name יהוה, is also often cited.
Does the Bible mention gematria?
Not by name. The term does not appear in the Hebrew Bible. The closest New Testament verse is Revelation 13:18: “Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast.”
Sources
Where this comes from
- Gematria, history, methods, Sargon II report, critics: Wikipedia.
- Caspar Levias, “Gematria,” Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906: jewishencyclopedia.com.
- Hila Ratzabi, “What Is Gematria?”: My Jewish Learning.
- Mordechai Rubin, “What Is Gematria?”: Chabad.org.
- Pirkei Avot 3:18: Sefaria.
- Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 32a, Eliezer and 318: Sefaria.
- Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 38a, wine and secret: Sefaria.
- Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 20a, HaSatan and 364: Sefaria.
- Chai and giving in multiples of 18: Wikipedia.
- Atbash: Wikipedia.
- Brendan McKay and others, “Solving the Bible Code Puzzle,” Statistical Science 14 (1999): anu.edu.au.
- Revelation 13:18, King James Version: Project Gutenberg.
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