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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Revelation 13:18 - 13:18
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Here is wisdom
Directing attention to the challenge which follows.
Count (ψηφισάτω)
See on Luk 14:28.
The number of a man
It is counted as men usually count. Compare Rev 21:17, and a man's pen, Isa 8:1. Some explain, a symbolical number denoting a person.
Six hundred threescore and six (χ. ξ. ς')
Each letter represents a component of the whole number: χ = 600; ξ = 60; ς' = 6. In the earlier MSS: it is written in full, ἑξακόσιοι ἑξήκοντα ἐξ. The method of reading generally adopted is that known as the Ghematria of the Rabbins, or in Greek, ἰσοψηφία numerical equality, which assigns each letter of a name its usual numerical value, and gives the sum of such numbers as the equivalent of the name. Thus, in the Epistle of Barnabas, we are told that the name Ἱησοῦς Jesus is expressed by the number 888. Ι = 10; η = 8; σ = 200; ο = 70; υ = 400; σ = 200. The majority of the commentators use the Greek alphabet in computation; others, however, employ the Hebrew; while a third class employ the Roman numerals.
The interpretations of this number form a jungle from which escape is apparently hopeless. Reuss says: “This famous number has been made to yield almost all the historical names of the past eighteen centuries: Titus, Vespasian, and Simon Gioras; Julian the Apostate and Genseric; Mahomet and Luther; Benedict IX. and Louis XV.; Napoleon I. and the Duke of Reichstadt; and it would not be difficult, on the same principles, to read in it one another's names.” Some of the favorite names are Λατεῖνος, Latinus, describing the common character of the rulers of the former pagan Roman Empire: Nero Caesar; Diocletian; χς' the name of Christ abridged, and ξ the emblem of the serpent, so that the sublimated sense is the Messiah of Satan.