A Study of Revelation 20 and other Related Passages
Let us not therefore enquire into these things
John Chrysostom
Interpreters in every generation have known the meaning of the variety of Beasts, monsters, angels, signs, of the seven churches, of 666. In every generation there have been those who calculated the times and the seasons, an lo and behold! they pointed unerringly to their own time!
Walter Klaassen
Revelation 20:4 tells us that among the nations redeemed and victorious in Christ are the souls of those beheaded for their faithfulness to Christ. They refused to worship the beast and his image. Based on our interpretation of Revelation 13:1-18 we have identified Imperial Rome and the Roman-backed Jewish Temple as the beast and his image. These martyrs could have caved to great pressure and returned to the ways of circumcision and Judaism and garnered some protection (Galatians 6:12). Yet they were faithful to Christ and in Him they reign victorious for a thousand years. As it turns out, those Jews who worshiped the image and took the mark were wiped out by Rome as their harlotry failed to achieve their desired security (Revelation 17:1-18).
The faithful martyrs did not receive the mark of the beast on their foreheads or on their hands. They refused to allow their thinking and acting to be controlled by the idolatry of imperial Rome and the Temple project run by imperial sycophants. We have thus far identified the function of the mark, but what of its form? Why does it take the form of a number?
He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666.
Revelation 13:16-18
We observe that the mark of the beast stands in apposition to the name of the beast, more specifically the number of his name. John flicks the reader on the nose and says, “Pay attention. This is a riddle. You’ll need some wisdom and understanding, so do the math” (Proverbs 1:6). The mark of the beast is the name of the beast. The name of the beast is a number. The number is that which belongs to a man, and that number is six hundred sixty-six. The mark of the beast is a calculated value of six hundred sixty-six which stands in as the name of a man.
Substituting numbers for names is called “gematria.” It was very common in the time of the Apostle John. It makes a lot more sense when your alphabet serves as your abacus. Hebrew, Greek and Latin all used letters as numbers. We still use clocks and watches today with Roman numerals. I use multiple outlines every week with Roman numerals, mostly “I” and “V”. When letters served as numbers, it became common to play around with their intersection of meanings, either enriching one’s literary effort or providing interest by way of a riddle. When Matthew wrote his genealogy in Matthew 1:1-17 he did so against the backdrop of Messianic expectation concerning the Son of David and David himself (Jeremiah 30:9). Every Jew knew the numerical value of David’s name. It was fourteen. Thus Matthew structures his genealogy as three sets of fourteen generations and mentions David’s name more often than any other name in that long list. He was saying something about how Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of David. Gematria was not only restricted to high forms of literature. It was a popular form of graffiti. Graffiti in Pompeii has been found that said, “I love her whose number is 545.” The Roman historian Suetonius reported a meme circulating in Rome that observed the Latin numerical value of “Nero” and “Murdered his mother” were the same. This seemed pertinent because Nero had murdered his mother.
Given that John flicks the reader on the nose and tells us to do some riddle math to discover the name of a man, we should take up the challenge within the context of Revelation, not today’s current political chaos. We have already studied Daniel chapters 2 & 7, and Revelation 13 & 17 in identifying which Roman Emperor is given authority to wage war on the saints for forty-two months. Three horns were plucked up (assasinated) before him, to make way for him. He is the sixth emperor currently reigning during the days of John and the seventh who follows him reigns for only a short time. He is one of the horns, but a different kind, because he is the first from outside the royal lineage. All of these descriptors together describe Nero. Now we need to calculate the number of his name. How would John have spelled Nero’s name? Given that he has been writing Revelation in Greek though with a purposeful Hebraic style, it would not be surprising that he thinks of the Hebrew spelling of Nero Caesar. Further, since the land beast is the promoter of the sea beast’s name, it would make sense for the High Priest and Sanhedrin’s spelling of their true lord’s name to be used. Whose name and what spelling was in the minds of those chanting “We have no king but Caesar!”?
Rabbinical writings and the Talmud spell Nero Caesar as “n r w n k s r“.* Numerically the value of these letters are (50 + 200 + 6 + 50 + 100 + 60 + 200) = 666. Later variant Hebrew spellings of this name dropped the middle “n“, and some translations reflect this by rendering the mark of the beast as 616.** The value of 666, however has more than Nero Caesar’s name in view. Certainly he is the Sea Beast whom the Land Beast promotes. Why does the High Priest and Sanhedrin promote Roman veneration? They are consumed with their golden temple project. They viewed the gold as more sacred than the temple itself (Matthew 23:16-17). Now who else in Israel’s history built a big beautiful temple, was all about that gold, and was also as idolatrous as he was sexually immoral? Did you guess Solomon? You would be correct. In the list of things an Israelite king was not to hoard (Deuteronomy 17:14-17), gold was cited prominently. In the list of things Solomon hoarded (2 Kings 10:14-29) one commodity was valued precisely, Gold. “The weight of gold that came to Solomon yearly was six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold…” The land beast’s temple idolatry showed that the Jews of John’s day had not learned the lesson of Solomon, whose lusts for gold, women and gods led to the demise of the kingdom.
So, “here is wisdom…” do not take the path of Solomon into idolatry. That way destruction lies. It would seem like a good business decision to take the mark of the beast, seeing that sanction and slaughter comprise the alternative. Yet the saints are marked for preservation and victory while the idolatrous city is marked for destruction. This is the message of Revelation 14:1-20 which we will briefly survey next time as our last contextual reinforcement for Revelation 20:4.
*Hebrew had no vowel pointings at this time, just consonants.
**Which also, conveniently worked for some Latin translations as the Latin spelling added up to 616 as well.
