English
It is the wild animal’s name or the number of its name. Here is wisdom: let the one who has perception calculate the wild animal’s number since it is a man’s number. And the number is six hundred sixty six.
Interpretation
The ‘mark of the beast’ is identified as the ‘name’ of the wild animal, ‘or the number of its name’. The number of the wild animal is ‘a man’s number’. The number is not a series of three separate sixes. In the original Greek text, it is explicitly six hundreds, and six tens, and six ones: six hundred sixty six. The author expected his contemporary readers—who were his target audience—to be able to ‘calculate’ the meaning of this numerical riddle if they were ‘perceptive’ enough.
Any interpretation of the ‘mark of the beast’ which does not account for all of these details is not valid.
Any interpretation of the ‘mark of the beast’ which was not accessible to the author’s contemporaries is not valid.
The description of the mark perfectly corresponds to a widespread ancient practice known in Hebrew as gematria and in Greek as isopsephy. In this practice, each letter of the language’s alphabet had a numerical value, such that any word, sentence, or name had a numerical value which could be calculated by adding the values of the individual letters. In one famous riddle, the Greek spelling of the name ‘Nero’ (
Greek alphabet
Α
1
Ι
10
Ρ
100
Β
2
Κ
20
Σ
200
Γ
3
Λ
30
Τ
300
Δ
4
Μ
40
Υ
400
Ε
5
Ν
50
Φ
500
Ϝ
6
Ξ
60
Χ
600
Ζ
7
Ο
70
Ψ
700
Η
8
Π
80
Ω
800
Θ
9
Ϙ
90
ϡ
900
Hebrew alphabet
1
10
100
2
20
200
3
30
300
4
40
400
5
50
6
60
7
70
8
80
9
90
The most likely candidate for the ‘man’ is Nero Caesar. The Greek spelling of his name (
Parallels
Sibylline Oracles
1.141–146 I have nine letters, I am of four syllables. Consider me. The first three have two letters each. The last has the rest, and five are consonants. The entire number is: twice eight plus three hundred, three tens, and seven. If you know who I am will not be uninitiated in my wisdom.
1.324–329 Then indeed the son of the great God will come, incarnate, likened to mortal men on earth, bearing four vowels, and the consonants in him are two. I will state explicitly the entire number for you. For eight units, and equal number of tens in addition to these, and eight hundreds will reveal the name
5.14–51 He will have his first letter of ten, so that after him will reign whoever obtained as initial the first of the alphabet. […] After a long time he will hand over sovereignty to another, who will present a first letter of three hundred and the beloved name of a river. […] Then whoever obtained an initial of three will rule. Next, a prince who will have twice ten on his first letter. […] One who has fifty as an initial will be commander, a terrible snake, breathing out grievous war, who one day will lay hands on his own family and slay them, and throw everything into confusion […] Three princes after him will perish at each others' hands. Then will come a certain great destroyer of pious men, who will show a clear initial of seven times ten. His son, with a first initial of three hundred, will get the better of him and take away his power. After him will be a commander, with an initial of four, a cursed man, but then a revered man, of the number fifty. After him one who obtained a marked initial of three hundred […] After him another will reign, a silver-headed man. He will have the name of a sea. […] After him three wil rule, but the third will come to power late in life.
8.148–150 You will fulfill thrice three hundred and forty eight years when an evil violent fate will come you fulfilling your name.
Pompeii
4839 Amerimnus has remembered Harmonia, his own mistress, wishing her well; 45 is the number of her beautiful name.
4861 I love her whose number is 545.
3 Baruch
4.3, 7 And he showed me a plain and a serpent [...] And the angel said, 'Listen, the Lord God made 360 rivers'
4.10 And the angel said, 'Rightly you ask; when God caused the flood over the earth and destroy all flesh and 409,000 giants'
4 Ezra
14.45–46 And when the forty days were ended, the Most High spoke to me, saying, ‘Make public the twenty four books that you wrote first, and let the worthy and the unworthy read them; but keep the seventy that were written last, in order to give them to the wise among your people.’
Suetonius
Nero 39.2 A new calculation: Nero killed his own mother.