Resources / Language and number
Hebrew Gematria
Every Hebrew letter is also a number, so every word has a sum. Type or tap a word to count it four ways, see where its value comes from letter by letter, and find the classic words that share it.
Hebrew text
Standard value 376Standard value · mispar hechrechi
Standard value 376
4 letters · 1 final form
שלום
- Standard
- 376mispar hechrechi
- Large finals
- 936mispar gadol
- Ordinal
- 52mispar siduri
- Reduced
- 16mispar katan
How each method counts
- Standard:
- Aleph 1 to Tav 400; final forms at their ordinary value.
- Large finals:
- As standard, but the five final forms count 500 to 900.
- Ordinal:
- Each letter by its place, Aleph 1 to Tav 22; finals as their letter.
- Reduced:
- Each value with its zeros dropped, so Yod 1 and Qoph 1; finals as their letter.
- Letter key, Golden Dawn
- ShLVM
- Sounded
- Add vowel points for a sounded reading; unpointed Hebrew leaves its vowels to the reader.
Words long read together
Classic pairs
One and love, both thirteen.
“Wine goes in, the secret comes out” (Talmud, Eruvin 65a).
The serpent and the anointed one, both 358.
Light and mystery, both 207.
Single words
The ledger
Letter by letter
| Letter | Name | Value | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| ש | Shinkey Sh · sh, or s with the sin dot | 300 | 300 |
| ל | Lamedkey L · l | 30 | 330 |
| ו | Vavkey V · v; or o, u as a vowel letter | 6 | 336 |
| ם | Memfinalkey M · m | 40 | 376 |
The tradition
Gematria reads a word as a number. Hebrew used its letters as numerals: Aleph to Teth for the units, Yod to Tzaddi for the tens, Qoph to Tav for the first four hundreds. So every word has a sum, and words of equal sum can be read together.
The Talmud already plays on it: wine is given in seventy and secret in seventy, so when wine goes in, the secret comes out. The method became a working tool of Kabbalah and, from the Renaissance on, of the Christian and Hermetic Qabalah that inherited it.
Reading the instrument
- Type with the on-screen keyboard or paste Hebrew. Vowel points and cantillation are read as part of the text and do not change the count; anything that is not Hebrew is listed, not counted.
- The standard count gives the five final forms their ordinary value. Large finals, ordinal and reduced are three other methods known in the tradition, each with its rule printed beside its total.
- The bar under the value shows where the value comes from, each letter's share of the standard total. The ledger gives every letter with its value and the running total.
- The classic pairs load words long read together because their values match. Every value is counted here, not copied from a list.
Where it descends from
- Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 65a
- Rabbi Chiya's saying that wine and secret are each given in seventy, one of the best-known early uses of the method.
- Sepher Sephiroth
- The dictionary of Hebrew words arranged by value printed in The Equinox in 1912, the reference the Hermetic tradition used for equal-value readings.
- The Golden Dawn
- Israel Regardie's publication of the Order's papers, which teach the letters with their values to the Order's grades.
What this does not claim
The sums are exact arithmetic. That two words share a value is a fact about the numbers; what it means is a matter of reading, not proof. Methods, and the treatment of final forms, differ between traditions, so the method is always named beside its total.
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