Gematria in the Book of Revelation

Gematria, a Jewish and Graeco-Roman art form, assigns numerical values to each letter of the alphabet and then totals the constituent letters of a given word. That sum is used to represent a person or thing. For example, Jesus’ name in Greek is composed of six letters, transliterated in English as Ihsous: i (iota), h (eta), s (sigma), o (omicron), y (upsilon), and s (sigma). According to gematria, the respective values of each letter are 10, 8, 200, 70, 400, and 200, totaling 888. In this system, the number 888 can be used to represent Jesus.

John employs this method in Revelation 13:18 to conceal the identity of the beast. The number 666 is probably best understood as the gematria-based value of the Roman emperor Nero. Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire and when the Latin spelling of Nero’s name, Neron Caesar, is transliterated into Hebrew, the gematria becomes apparent. The Hebrew transliteration—represented in English as nrwn ksr—totals 666.

The Greek term for “beast” (thērion), also equals 666 when transliterated into Hebrew. Through gematria, John identifies Nero and the beast as one in the same—suggesting the beast in Rev 13 should be identified with Nero. However, since Nero died prior to the writing of Revelation, John is likely alluding to the Nero redivivus myth.

Nero allegedly committed suicide, but the circumstances surrounding his death and burial were a closely guarded secret. This led some to conclude that he did not really die but was temporarily in hiding—perhaps with the Parthians, with whom Nero negotiated a peace treaty. The legend—held in various forms by different people groups—foretold Nero’s return with the Parthian hordes to destroy Rome, with whom he lost favor following the great fire of ad 64.

This legend gave rise to many Neronian pretenders. During the reign of Emperor Domitian in the late 80s ad, a man claiming to be Nero convinced the Parthian king Pacorus II of his identity. The results of this deception would have been disastrous for Rome, but a crisis appears to have been averted. This situation may have been fresh in John’s mind at the time of writing the book of Revelation and would certainly have been understood by his audience. If so, John stylized the beast in parallel to the Nero folklore of his day.

However, Domitian was dubbed the “second Nero” because of his intense brutality and persecution. The Roman satirist Juvenal made this connection in his work Satires. Therefore, John may not have identified the beast with Nero per se; rather, he may have identified the beast with Domitian who, at the time of John’s writing, represented evil personified in the manner of the Nero redivivus myth. This seems to fit with the description of the beast in Rev 13:1–10.

Matthew M. Whitehead