The Revelation of 666 from Moses and Ezra

[aux]

Where does the bible expressly prohibit counting letters, or searching into a word for numerical meaning?

Who said it expressly prohibits this?

Thankfully the bible doesn’t list every single practice of the heathen nations to avoid or the bible may never have been completed. It’s a general guide we can apply all the way up through Revelation to today. Some discernment is needed here (and everywhere, not just here).

The dark art activity of gematria indulged in today by witches, warlocks, magicians, gnostics, alchemists, satanists, masons, rosicrucians, 007 wannabes and other garden variety occultists are covered in general prohibitions and some are specifically named going back to the time of Moses and Jeremiah, so we’re thousands of years behind.

Thus says YHWH, “Do not learn the way of the nations, And do not be terrified by the signs of the heavens Although the nations are terrified by them; (Jer 10:2 NAU) (also Lev 18.1-5)

“When you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD; and because of these detestable things the LORD your God will drive them out before you.” (Deu 18.9-12 NAU)

Note that Moses did not expressly forbid the passing of other family members through the sacrificial fires, only sons and daughters. Now do you need an express prohibition for every family member to understand the spirit of the law? The general idea is to not learn theological practices of the heathens, or as John says later, mystery Babylon from whence we find gematria picked up by the Jewish rabbis there and systemized with other heathen concepts in the Qabbala picked up by masons and others in the list above.

So gematria is a heathen practice used in systems of divination and magic. John simplifies things by using an umbrella term (Mystery or Secret Babylon) to cover a system that included gematria popular in Babylon.

Using your logic: the bible doesn’t expressly prohibit using a system of biblical interpretation that says, “gematria is false, do not practice it.” Your ‘logic’ is antilogic and cancels itself out.

You know, dihydrogen monoxide has also been used by Babylonians, witches, freemasons, soldiers, and left-handed punks to harm people.  And yet, the bible does not expressly prohibit its use – why is that?   Is it possible that gematria can also be used properly?  Proverbs 25:2 (“The glory of Alha, that which hides a word.  The glory of a king, that which searches a word.”)

You’re comparing water to gematria? This isn’t clever and I don’t usually respond to troll comments but for others you might’ve succeeded in confusing: God gave water and many other things for the service of mankind, can they be abused by man? Of course. Can God use the elements to judge the world? Of course, this has happened since the fall. On the other hand God did not give us gematria, quite the contrary it is warned against, not by name but by a category or Babylonian system it belongs to.

A good or proper use of gematria is to have it as an example of what the bible warns against and can be used to help identify occultist quacks to be wary of, similar to how some like to use 666 in their name. Proverbs 25.2 doesn’t give any hint of gematria or relation to numbers, even if we assume the translation of the first dabar as “word.” Simple.

Indeed, just because a learning technique was used by Babylonians does not make it automatically bad.  The Babylonians developed lots of useful things, including mathematical astronomy in Daniel’s time.  Granted, countless people have leavened astronomy toward astrology that leads astray, but the astronomical techniques themselves are useful and can lead toward understanding the orderly creation of Alha.

Moreover, when you look at the origins of Greek and Babylonian practices, you can see major Semitic influences (such as the Greeks borrowing from the Semitic alphabet).  See e.g., Bernal, Martin. Cadmean Letters: The Transmission of the Alphabet to the Aegean and Further West before 1400 B.C. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990.

Desperate strawman. No one denied cross-cultural influences or said ‘a learning technique’ used by Babylonians = bad. We’re not talking about learning techniques on how to sow linen. We’re not even talking about foreign information or practices in the bible, we’re talking about foreign interpretation of information in the bible. That’s doubly dangerous. The context we’re talking about here is biblically-sound hermeneutics.

Whether or not the Babylonians themselves developed all the things they are credited with or if they simply inherited much of it from more ancient times is debatable. Josephus credits the Sethites with mastering astronomy and it appears from the bible Abraham and the Chaldeans inherited such knowledge perhaps from Enoch through Noah per DSS. Genesis 1.14 credits God with creating the star signs and some constellations are named in the Tanakh. Thankfully the bible contains the timeless wisdom of God for His people to have and discern what is beneficial to use and what to avoid, separating the wheat from the chaff. Satan wants everything mixed up and confused, Satan sows tares among the wheat.

There is evidence that throughout Mesopotamia, the Hebrews and others were using gematria (isopsephia) in the time of the apostles. 

Good let’s see the evidence. This should not surprise us and may be a case of the exception proving the rule if legit. What I am surprised at is the dearth of information on its use for biblical interpretation until well after biblical times and how so many people blindly swallow it as legitimate biblical hermeneutics anyways. That should give every honest person serious pause.

And if you think about it for a second, it actually makes sense, because people were already using letters daily to count numbers. For example, if you wanted to annotate the number 666 in Hebrew, you could write literally: ܬܪܣܘ or ܣܳܣܘ.  See e.g., Kiraz, New Syriac Primer (2007), p. 229.

I have thought about the relation between Hebrew letters and their numeric values, a lot, and there is nothing that necessitates gematria especially not for biblical interpretation when it’s never endorsed in any way but rather warned against. It’s like evolution, you have to imagine it’s legit because there’s no actual legit examples (hence the endless artist depictions and speculations).

When you read ܬܪܣܘ in context, you would naturally need logic to discern whether it was being used as a number or a word.  Recall the Aramaic of Rev. 13:18, “Here having discernment, and of having in him logic ܢܚܫܒܝܘܗܝ (“he will count (plural) it”) to the number(s)/computation(s) of the living being, the number(s)/computation(s) she for of a son of man six hundred and sixty and six.”

 

When you read it in context with the surrounding verses with a look at Rev 7.4-8 and various OT passages, John is actually giving giant foolproof clues about what he’s talking about when he selects the same plain language of a census not once but twice from Moses and Ezra right along side the census number of the 144,000 faithful not to mention how Ezra’s census even includes a man with 666 male descendants which had NOTHING to do with the numeric value of his name. If people don’t see how obvious this is, they simply don’t want to see it. Funny how the same denialists will then turn around to embrace something which has zero evidence of being a biblical practice and is actually warned against as part of the Babylonian mystery theology by John in the same letter. Some people just can’t let go or admit they swallowed poison and refuse to vomit it out so remain ill.

Notably, if someone in Israel at the time of the apostles was speaking verbally this number 666 to you, they would not say ܬܪܣܘ, but rather they would say ܫܬܡܐܐ ܘܫܬܝܢ ܘܫܝܬ  (“six hundred and sixty and six”).

Right but that’s not gematria nor does it necessitate gematria.

ܬܪܣܘ is a word with dual contrast meanings: “to fight/challenge/oppose them” or “to nourish/shield/protect them”
ܣܳܣܘ is also a word with dual contrast meanings: “worms” or “vaults” (as in the vaults of the heavens).

I think 666 is like that.  It is the number of a son of man. The number is not automatically bad.  Like water or oil or a word, the real question is how it is being used.  

Good thing we don’t need to make stuff up and undermine the sense since we have the scriptures to show us what John was talking about using pretty straightforward language so we don’t have to speculate or read tea leaves or check the Ouija board and the 8-ball. Maybe I shouldn’t give ideas, after all the bible doesn’t expressly tell us not to use ouija boards.

Aux, I liked what you shared about the census as an explanation for 666.  But how does a person need wisdom or logic to conduct a census?  What is the subtlety, or do you have any further insights on how wisdom & logic come into play with your biblical application to an end-of-the age census.  I do think you're on to something, especially to the extent that the 144,000 (who are marked by Alha between their eyes, for protection in Revelation 7) appear to be part of a 'census' as well.

You demonstrate again you don’t know the scriptures you wish to teach on. If you spent more time familiarizing yourself with the bible for what it says rather than looking for loopholes then you would already understand and not need to ask. The question itself illustrates the lack of wisdom in which case you should talk less and listen more. I already gave the answer to your question before you asked it in may last post citing Proverbs 8 & 9, an aid to those who search the scriptures to understand what John is revealing here, but so few listen to Wisdom.

Does not wisdom call, And understanding lift up her voice? (Pro 8.1 NAU)

The “secret” and “mystery” Babylonian occult system of wresting “secret wisdom” from numeric values and permutations thereof requiring man’s ingenuity is the exact OPPOSITE of the straightforward open spirit of Wisdom John was calling attention to:

"All the utterances of my mouth are in righteousness; There is nothing crooked or perverted in them.
"They are all straightforward to him who understands, And right to those who find knowledge. (Pro 8.8-9 NAU)

The meaning is as plain as the text but not, say, in the grubby hands of a benighted occultist Crowley-trolley.

As I said before, John was very plain and fool-proofing this “revelation” with his language and references and it has nothing, nothing to do with having a high IQ mastermind super genius deciphering mumbo jumbo, that none may boast. But if you do not humble yourself as a child and hear the word of Wisdom and receive her knowledge freely, not under cursed oaths in secret rites in dark chambers or coffins, then you will not understand and stay in darkness and blind no matter how many all-seeing eyes you surround yourself with, there is no light in you. From darkness to darkness.

So what religion are you anyways?