Gematria

In numerology, gematria (/ɡəˈmeɪtriə/; Hebrew: גמטריא or גימטריה, gimatriyyā, plural גמטראות or גימטריות, gimatriyyot, borrowed via Aramaic from Koine Greek: γραμμάτια) is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word, or phrase by reading it as a number, or sometimes by using an alphanumeric cipher. The letters of the alphabets involved have standard numerical values, but a word can yield several values if a cipher is used.

According to Aristotle (384–322 BCE), isopsephy, based on the Greek numerals developed in the city of Miletus in Anatolia, was part of the Pythagoreanism, which originated in the 6th century BCE. The first evidence of use of Hebrew letters as numbers dates to 78 BCE; gematria is still used in Jewish culture. Similar systems have been used in other languages and cultures, derived from or inspired by either Greek isopsephy or Hebrew gematria, and include Arabic abjad numerals and English gematria.

The most common form of Hebrew gematria is used in the Talmud and Midrash as in Jerusalem Talmud, Genesis Rabba 95:3, and elaborately in Rabbinic literature. It involves reading words and sentences as numbers and assigning numerical instead of phonetic values to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. When read as numbers, they can be compared and contrasted with other words or phrases; cf. the Hebrew proverb נִכְנַס יַיִן יָצָא סוֹד (Nik̲nas yayin yāṣāʾ soḏ, lit. 'wine entered, secret went out', i.e. in vino veritas). The gematric value of יין ('wine') is 70 (י=10; י=10; ן=50) and this is also the gematric value of סוד ('secret', ס=60; ו=6; ד=4)‎, cf. Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin 38a. Gematria sums can involve single words or lengthy strings of calculations. A short example of Hebrew numerology that uses gematria is the word חי, chai, 'alive', which is composed of two letters that (using the assignments in the mispar gadol table shown below) add up to 18. This has made 18 a "lucky number" among Jews. In early Jewish sources, the term can also refer to other forms of calculation or letter manipulation, for example atbash.

Classical scholars agree that the Hebrew word gematria derives from the Greek γεωμετρία geōmetriā, "geometry", though some scholars believe it derives from γραμματεια grammateia "knowledge of writing".^{[citation needed]} It is likely that both Greek words had an influence on the formation of the Hebrew word. Some hold it to derive from the order of the Greek alphabet, gamma being the third letter of the Greek alphabet ("gamma tria").

The word has been extant in English since at least the 17th century from translations of works by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. It is largely used in Jewish texts, notably those associated with the Kabbalah. Neither the concept nor the term appears in the Hebrew Bible itself.

The first documented use of gematria is from an Assyrian inscription dating to the 8th century BCE, commissioned by Sargon II. In this inscription, Sargon II states: "the king built the wall of Khorsabad 16,283 cubits long to correspond with the numerical value of his name."

The practice of using alphabetic letters to represent numbers developed in the Greek city of Miletus, and is thus known as the Milesian system. Early examples include vase graffiti dating to the 6th century BCE. Aristotle wrote that the Pythgoraean tradition, founded in the 6th century BCE by Pythagoras of Samos, practiced isopsephy, the Greek predecessor of gematria. Pythagoras was a contemporary of the philosophers Anaximander, Anaximenes, and the historian Hecataeus, all of whom lived in Miletus, across the sea from Samos. The Milesian system was in common use by the reign of Alexander the Great (336–323 BCE) and was adopted by other cultures during the subsequent Hellenistic period. It was officially adopted in Egypt during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (284–246 BCE).

In early biblical texts, numbers were written out in full using Hebrew number words. The first evidence of the use of Hebrew letters as numerals appears during the late Hellenistic period, in 78 BCE. Scholars have identified gematria in the Hebrew Bible, the canon of which was fixed during the Hasmonean dynasty (c. 140 BCE to 37 BCE), though some scholars argue it was not fixed until the second century CE or even later. The Hasmonean king of Judea, Alexander Jannaeus (died 76 BCE) had coins inscribed in Aramaic with the Phoenician alphabet, marking the 20th and 25th years of his reign using the letters K and KE (למלכא אלכסנדרוס שנת כ and למלכא אלכסנדרוס שנת כה).