Expositor's Bible Commentary 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)

In v.17, John indicates that the “mark” is the name of the beast or the number of his name. He now reveals the number of the beast: “His number is 666.” The list of conjectures concerning the meaning of the number is almost as long as the list of commentators on Revelation. Taking their cue from the words “let him calculate the number of the beast,” most of these interpreters have tried to play the ancient Hebrew game of gematria. Ancient languages, including Hebrew and Greek, use standard letters from their alphabets as numerical signs. For example, an alpha in Greek (an aleph in Hebrew) can represent the number one, a beta the number two, an iota and beta together, the number twelve, etc. A series of letters could form a word and at the same time indicate a number. Gematria took many forms and consisted in trying to guess the word from the number or trying to connect one word with another that had the same numerical value. Some Jews loved to find mysterious connections between words, based on the same numerical value. For example, the Hebrew word nahash (“serpent”) has the same numerical value as the Hebrew word maskiah (“Messiah”). From this it was argued that one of the names of the Messiah was “serpent” (cf. Moses’ lifting up the “serpent” in the desert; Numbers 21).

Thus it is not difficult to understand why most commentators have understood John’s words “Let him calculate the number.... His number is 666” to be an invitation to the reader to play gematria and discover the identity of the beast. Irenaeus (d.c. 202) mentions that many names of contemporary persons and entities were being offered in his day as solutions to this number mystery, though he himself cautioned against the practice and believed that the name of the Antichrist was deliberately concealed because he did not exist in John’s day. The name would be secret till the time of his future appearance in the world. He expressly refutes the attempt of many in his day to identify the name with any of the Roman emperors and warns the church against endless speculations.

Irenaeus’s fear was not misplaced, for endless speculation is just what has happened in the history of the interpretation of v.18. One of the most popular interpretations is a Hebrew rendition of “Neron Caesar,” which equals 666, thus linking this beast with the Nero redivivus legend ; more recently this understanding has been seriously challenged. All proposed solutions based on gematria seem unsatisfactory. If John was seeking to show believers how to penetrate the deception of the beast as well as to contrast the beast and his followers with the Lamb and his followers (14:1ff.), he has clearly failed—that is, if he intends for us to play the gematria game.

Several exegetical factors, however, argue strongly for another sense of John’s words. In the first place, nowhere does John use gematria as a method. Everywhere, however, he gives symbolic significance to numbers (e.g., seven churches, seals, trumpets, bowls; twenty-four elders; 144,000 sealed; 144,000 cubits for the New Jerusalem, etc.). Furthermore, in 15:2 the victors have triumphed over three enemies: the beast, his image, and the number of his name, which suggests a symbolic significance connected with idolatry and blasphemy rather than victory over a mere puzzle solution of correctly identifying someone’s name.

John seeks to give “wisdom” (GK 5053) and “insight” (GK 3808) to believers as to the true identity of their enemy. A similar use of these two words occurs in 17:9, where John calls attention to the identity of the beast ridden by the harlot. What he seems to be asking for in both cases is divine discernment, not mathematical ingenuity! Believers need to penetrate the deception of the beast. John’s reference to his number will help them to recognize his true character and identity.

The statement “it is man’s number” further identifies the kind of number the beast represents. Does John mean that the beast is a man, that he has a human name? In 21:17 John uses similar words for the angel: “by man’s measurement, which the angel was using.” The statement is difficult. How can the measure be both “man’s” and at the same time of an “angel”? John seems to be calling attention to some inner meaning in the number of the size of the height of the wall in respect to the size of the city. The meaning perhaps is a mild polemic against first-century tendencies to venerate angels unduly by stating that both human beings and angels can understand and enter the future city . In any case, the statement “it is man’s number” alerts the reader to some hidden meaning in 666. From this it may be concluded that the number of the beast is linked to humanity. Why would it be necessary for John to emphasize this relationship unless he assumed that his readers might have understood the beast to be otherworldly without any connection to humanity? Might it be, then, that the statement signifies that the satanic beast, the great enemy of the church, manifests itself in human form? Thus, as 21:17 links the angelic and the human, so here the satanic is joined with the human.

Finally, how are we to understand 666? The best way is to return to one of the most ancient interpretations, that of Irenaeus. This church father proposed (while still holding to a personal Antichrist) that the number indicates that the beast is the sum of all apostate power, a concentrate of six thousand years of unrighteousness, wickedness, deception, and false prophecy. To him, the digit six indicates the recapitulations of that prophecy that occurred at the beginning, during the intermediate periods, and which will take place at the end. The significance of the name of the beast is abundantly clear elsewhere in Revelation (12:3; 13:1–6; 14:11; 17:3ff.). Wherever there is blasphemy, there the beast’s name is found. The number 666 is the heaping up of the number 6, which indicates the apex of incompleteness and demonic parody, in contrast to the perfection that is symbolized by the number 7. This interpretation of 666 as a symbolic number referring to the unholy trinity of evil or to the human imperfect imitation of God rather than a cipher of a name has been held by a long line of conservative commentators.