Charles Ellicott Commentary Revelation 13:18

"Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man: and his number is Six hundred and sixty and six." — Revelation 13:18 (ASV)

Here is wisdom . . .—Translate, Here is wisdom. This most difficult verse is introduced by this word of preface. Wisdom—indeed, the highest wisdom—is needed for those who wish to understand it. Two or three points ought to be noticed.

1. The verse surely implies that the understanding of this name and number is attainable; it warns us that wisdom and understanding are needed, but it just as certainly leads us to believe that to wisdom and understanding a solution of the problem will be granted.
2. There is a variation in the manuscripts regarding the number. Some manuscripts read six hundred and sixteen; but the probability is in favor of the reading six hundred and sixty-six. In an excursus (Excursus B), a short account of the various interpretations that have been given can be found.
3. The clause “It is the number of a man,” has been rendered “For number is of man.” The number, then, is the combination of three sixes; there is a wisdom and understanding that can grasp its import, and that import is to be guided by the principle that it is the number of a man, or that number is of man—is, that is to say, a method of computation that is used by man, and used by God in order to symbolize something made thus more intelligible to man.

Is the wisdom that is to solve this, then, the mere cleverness that can guess an acrostic or an enigma? Or is it rather that the true heavenly wisdom, which is moral rather than intellectual, is needed to unite itself with understanding to solve the problem? Surely the dignity of the Apocalypse is sacrificed when we search for its meaning like children playing with conundrums rather than like men guided by its principles.

There is a wisdom that brings its sevenfold beam of heavenly light to the children of men—a wisdom pure, peaceable, gentle, full of mercy, without partiality, without hypocrisy. When this wisdom rests on men in the fullness of its sevenfold perfection, they can read the number of the beast. They will then see that, with all its vaunted strength, it is only weak; with all its vaunted perfection, it is imperfect. They will also see that though it vaunts itself as rich, increased in goods, and needing nothing, it still lacks that “one needful thing”—faith in God, or the love by which faith works.

Without this, it will never attain even the appearance of that perfect heavenly number symbolized by seven. It may multiply itself in earthly strength—the power of worldliness into the power of worldly wisdom, and this again by the power of a hundredfold satanic subtlety—but it will still remain short of the tokens of the kingdom of God. And the number, when read, will be, however godlike it looks, only the number of a man after all.

I am disposed, therefore, to interpret this “six hundred and sixty-six” as a symbolic number. It expresses all that human wisdom and human power, when directed by an evil spirit, can possibly achieve. It also indicates a state of marvelous earthly perfection when the beast-power has reached its highest development—when culture, civilization, art, song, science, and reason have combined to produce an age so nearly resembling perfection—an age of gold, if not a golden age—that people will begin to say that faith in God is an impertinence, and the hope of a future life a libel upon the happiness of the present.

Then the world-power will have reached the zenith of its influence. Then only a wisdom descended from above will be able to detect the infinite difference between a world with faith and a world without faith, and the great gulf that the lack of a little heaven-born love can create between one age and another.

At the same time, I feel bound to present here, as well as in the Excursus, two other views. One is included because it has recently been advanced with conspicuous ability; the other because it is perhaps the most generally adopted, as it is certainly the most ancient, view. Both these interpretations are based on the theory that the letters of the name, when added together according to their numerical value, will make up six hundred and sixty-six.

The first of these interpretations finds the name in Nero Caesar. The second, and more ancient, interpretation finds it in Lateinos; this latter was mentioned by Irenaeus. It will be seen that both these solutions agree in making the number point to the great Roman Power. This power was the great embodiment of the terrible spirit of self-sufficiency, tyranny, and utter godless worldliness with which St. John was familiar.

These interpretations are exemplary, and as such are probably true in that sense. However, it seems to me that they are only types of that fuller and deeper view that regards the number as symbolic of that power—whether directed by Nero, or inspired by an Emperor, Pope, false teacher, or military tyrant—which has dazzled mankind with fictitious glory, fictitious civilization, and fictitious religion, or has deceived them by holding out the promise of splendor and happiness without the knowledge and obedience of God, without law, without faith, and therefore without true joy. (Compare Note on the “Three Frogs,”Revelation 16:13–14.)