Gematria is the ancient science of number/word analysis that claims a divine use of mathematics as communication. The basis of Gematria is the assignment of a number to each letter of the Hebrew (Old Testament) or Greek (New Testament) alphabet and analyzing/segregating the resulting words and phrases. Sound confusing? It really isn’t as you’ll soon see. The results can be quite, well, amazing. Some of you may have heard this study called Numerology or Kaballah. Numerology is most often practiced by old women with three teeth and facial hair on boardwalks. I heard that Madonna practiced Kaballah and assumed that it was just a bunch of chants she made to the goddess Thespia so that she’ll finally have a hit movie, pluck her eyebrows and lose that phony British accent. But I digress.

Now let’s follow an example from beginning to end. There are certain numbers that always seem to turn up when Jesus is referred to. When ‘Jesus’ was written in the Roman Census, it was written in Greek, the official language used by the Romans at that time. When added together, the letters used to spell the name equaled 888. The same total appears when ‘Salvation of our God’ is added. Nearly 800 years before the birth of Christ, the prophet Isaiah received a message from God that said,

“Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son;and she shall call his name Immanuel.”

When added, this totals 888.

Matthew quoted this text from the book of Isaiah (Hebrew). Surprisingly, we find the Greek equivalent has slightly different wording. Matthew’s version reads:

“Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son,and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted as,
God with us.”

When added, this totals 8880.

The angel that had appeared to Mary had told her to name her baby, ‘Jesus’; the angel that appeared to Joseph instructed him to name his baby ‘Jesus’. However, when Isaiah prophesied of the birth of a Savior, he was told that his name would be ‘wonderful’. The Gematria for these names are:

Jesus 888
Wonderful 111

The pattern continues with some of the other names by which he was called.:

Son of the Living God 111
Only Son 1110
The blood of Jesus 1110

Ones and eights appear often in the Gematria of the Bible. Jesus said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last.” He was not just talking about the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, which are Alpha (1) and Omega (800). He was also referring to the fact that he was also a beginner.

When Isaiah prophesied concerning the one who would be called Wonderful, he said,

“For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given; and he government shall be on his shoulders; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)

Instead of using the number code that assigns a value to each letter, the Equidistant Letter Sequences (ELS) Code has also been used. In this case, the number 7 was selected arbitrarily. Each seventh letter in the phrase had its Gematria value assigned. The total of these letters equaled 888.

Then Isaiah 11:1 was tried and each seventh letter was valued and as above.

“And a shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a branch will bear fruit. The spirit of the Lord will rest on him the spirit of wisdom and understanding., the spirit of counsel and of power, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah 11:1)

This total is 8880.

All of these verses predict the coming of a new beginning for mankind; a Messiah. The word ‘beginning’ in Hebrew has a number equivalent of 8. All life on Earth is made possible by light from the sun. It takes 8 minutes for light from the sun to reach the Earth. Jesus said, “I am the life”; the breath of life is oxygen, which has an atomic number of 8, and this phrase’s numeric equivalent is 888. The word ‘life’ in Greek, bears the number 808; ‘savior’ in Greek is 8. After being put to death, when grieving women went to his tomb, they found an angel there who announced to them, “He lives.” That brief angelic statement has a numeric equivalent of 888.

Look what happens when we examine the twelve tribes of Israel:

Judah 485
Reuben 630
Gad 8
Asher 309
Nepthalim 650
Simeon 1495
Levi 445
Issachar 1112
Zebulon 1360
Joseph 1518
Benjamin 868
TOTAL 8880

The city of New Jerusalem had twelve gates, the perimeter of each is valued at 888.

And the twelve disciples:

Peter 755
Andrew 361
James 1103
John 1119
Philip 980
Nathanael 150
Levi (Matthew) 445
Thomas 1050
James (son of Alphaeus) 2115
Lebbaeus (Thaddeus) 320
Simon 1573
Judas 685
TOTAL 10656
Divided by twelve = 888


Well, now I’ve got a headache. You can only do this for so long before you find a hair shirt to wear while you beat yourself with a leather strap.

I know what some of you are thinking…..if you play with them long enough, you can make numbers do anything. You’re right. My purpose in preparing this was to entertain you with something interesting (or silly depending on your outlook). But hopefully it held your interest.

One Gematria specialist has drawn connections between the Great Pyramid at Giza, Stonehenge and Gematria. Guaranteed to give you a migraine.