666

666

The number 666 is an interesting number. It would be written as chi xi sigma <numerical equivalent of Greek numbers>. In the Greek language, as in Hebrew, each letter was also used as a number. The title Christ in Greek is written xpiotos, thus beginning and ending with the letters c and s that appear in the number of the beast. However, the central part of the name of Christ is forced out, as it were, by the letter €, which is the form of the coiling serpent.

The beast, of course, is the Antichrist, the man of sin, who receives his power from the dragon...that old serpent, the Devil, and Satan (Rev 12:9, 13:4) The number 666 is also the sum of the number 1+2+3...+36, and 36 is, of course, 6 X 6. The beast is mentioned by the name exactly 36 times in the book of Revelation (actually there are two beasts-Rev. 13:11-12-corraborating as one, which perhaps correlates with the repeated appearance of 6 X 6).

The number of the name obviously refers to the numerical value of the name, either the human name or assumed official name, of the man who is to be revealed as this man of sin. The message of Rev 13:18 seems to be that one who hath wisdom will be able to identify this man before he is openly revealed by counting the number of his name. Most likely this would involve transliterating his name as pronounced in his native language, then adding the numbers corresponding to the letters of that name. Probably about one out of 10,000 names will actually have a value of 666, and one of these will ultimately turn out to be the beast. There have, of course, been many other interpretations of the meaning of 666 in Rev 13:18. All of them require excessive allegorization or symbolization. The plain literal meaning of the admonition to count the "count the number of his name" is simply to add up the numbers represented by the letters in his name.