Why 666 is the number of the beast

The Book of Revelation (the final book of the Bible’s New Testament) mentions 666 as the “Number of the Beast”. But what exactly is the significance of that number?

Revelation and the Beast

The Book of Revelation has been subject to interpretation all through the ages, mainly because of its many cryptic references. The author (who may or may not have been the John wrote the Gospel or the three short letters that are also part of the New Testament - indeed, almost certainly neither of them) describes a vision that is chock full of strangeness and symbolism, much of which is expressed in numerical form, with the number seven being particularly prominent.

Chapter 13 verse 18 reads (in the King James version):

“Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man, and his number is six hundred threescore and six”.

Many people have puzzled over this reference, with the general consensus being that it refers to Satan and that there is therefore something fundamentally evil about the number 666. Movies have been made in which people possessed by demons have been found with the number 666 tattooed on their heads. 666 therefore signifies the Antichrist.

So who is the Man referred to in the text?

There is a very straightforward answer to this question, which is the Emperor Nero. It is quite possible that Revelation was written not many years after Nero’s persecution of the Christians following the great fire of Rome in 64 AD. It is possible that Saints Peter and Paul were among the martyrs who died at that time.

That was clearly enough to make Nero a “beast”, and there was also confusion over his apparent death by suicide in 68AD, in that not everyone was convinced that he was actually dead. If Nero had escaped and was still alive, could he be about to return at the head of an army and wreak more chaos?

The message behind the verse in Chapter 13 is that the beast can be defeated if and when he returns, either in the form of Nero or one of his successors, all of whom were evil in the eyes of Jewish Christians.

The clue lies in the number 666. This is Nero’s number because of the coincidence of his Greek name being highly significant in terms the Hebrew system of “number letters”. In Greek, Emperor Nero is “Kaisar Neron” which in Hebrew letters (which do not include vowels) is “qsr nrwn”.

In the Hebrew system, letter q stands for 60, s is 100, r is 200, n is 50 and w is 6. The letters of “qsr nrwn” therefore add up to the number 666.

Sixes and sevens

The significance of this is that the number 7 is particularly powerful within Israelite number symbolism. Seven is the perfect number because it is addition of three – the divine number – and four – the number for the created world. All three numbers keep cropping up as being highly symbolic – three members of the Trinity and four corners of the earth, for example.

The Book of Revelation is addressed to seven churches and there are mentions of seven seals, seven trumpets, and much else besides. The Beast has seven heads because he aspires to match the perfect number, but, as the author points out, he can never do so because his number is a succession of sixes. The message of Revelation is therefore to convince people that God’s people, with the perfect number seven supporting them, will always triumph over the Roman world’s inability to get beyond six.

It may sound like playing with numbers, but to the original readers of Revelation (and many since that time) all this is highly significant.

© John Welford