Revelation of John 13:18

wisdom--the armory against the second beast, as patience and faith against the first. Spiritual wisdom is needed to solve the mystery of iniquity, so as not to be beguiled by it. count . . . for--The "for" implies the possibility of our calculating or counting the beast's number. the number of a man--that is, counted as men generally count. So the phrase is used in Rev 21:17. The number is the number of a man, not of God; he shall extol himself above the power of the Godhead, as the MAN of sin [AQUINAS]. Though it is an imitation of the divine name, it is only human. six hundred threescore and six--A and Vulgate write the numbers in full in the Greek. But B writes merely the three Greek letters standing for numbers, Ch, X, St. "C reads" 616, but IRENÆUS, 328, opposes this and maintains "666." IRENÆUS, in the second century, disciple of POLYCARP, John's disciple, explained this number as contained in the Greek letters of Lateinos (L being thirty; A, one; T, three hundred; E, five; I, ten; N, fifty; O, seventy; S, two hundred). The Latin is peculiarly the language of the Church of Rome in all her official acts; the forced unity of language in ritual being the counterfeit of the true unity; the premature and spurious anticipation of the real unity, only to be realized at Christ's coming, when all the earth shall speak "one language" (Zep 3:9). The last Antichrist may have a close connection with Rome, and so the name Lateinos (666) may apply to him. The Hebrew letters of Balaam amount to 666 [BUNSEN]; a type of the false prophet, whose characteristic, like Balaam's, will be high spiritual knowledge perverted to Satanic ends. The number six is the world number; in 666 it occurs in units, tens, and hundreds. It is next neighbor to the sacred seven, but is severed from it b…

We have, in this chapter, a further discovery and description of the church's enemies: not other enemies than are mentioned before, but described after another manner, that the methods of their enmity may more fully appear. They are represented as two beasts; the first you have an account of (Rev 13:1-10) the second (Rev 13:11, etc.). By the first some understand Rome pagan, and by the second Rome papal; but others understand Rome papal to be represented by both these beasts, by the first in its secular power, by the second in its ecclesiastical.

13:18 Wisdom is needed: John is giving a clue to help his readers solve the meaning of the beast’s number. • of a man: John hides the man’s identity, perhaps because revealing the name would place him and his readers in danger (cp. use of Babylon as a symbol for Rome, 17:9). • The number 666 represents supernatural evil (see “Symbolic Numbers” Theme Note). John might have used the transliteration Caesar Neron (a Hebrew spelling of the name) to arrive at the number 666. Later scribes, who spoke Greek but not Hebrew, corrected the number to 616 in some manuscripts, probably to match the name’s numerical value in Greek.