This blog is based on the Cepher Publishing Group video presentation by Dr. Stephen Pidgeon that was originally broadcast on January 1, 2017.

At a Glance

FULL EDITED TRANSCRIPT

Let’s discuss a very poignant, misinterpreted, and sometimes a reinterpreted text found in Revelation, or the book of Chazon, 13:18. We begin with the way that we have it set forth in the Cepher, starting with verse 16:

In the Cepher, we have it set out as the three Greek letters that appear in the Stephanus Textus Receptus. In fact, these three Greek letters appear in all editions of any Textus Receptus that you may find in Greek. The question that we have before us today is: Do these three letters equate to 660 and 6? And of course, the larger question, which is the subject of today's discussion, do they equate to 6-6-6?

“6-6-6” and “Six Hundred Sixty-Six” Are Not the Same Notation

Now, of course, this number is well-known in the popular culture, and people routinely run around flashing 666 with their fingers or whatever they do. And then many people, of course, take the number 666 and they appoint it to a name, and they say, "Well, you know, Ronald Wilson Reagan equals 666 [because there are 6 letters in the first, middle, and last names]." Of course, this ignores the fact that the original text said it was "six hundred threescore and six." 600 would have to be the first name, would have to have 600 letters in it to qualify, and as 666—600 in the first name, 60 in the second, and 6 in the third—so obviously that's a patent absurdity.

How English Bibles Present the Number

Yet, nonetheless, we have several editions of the Bible that are available for your reading today, and that many churches ascribe to, that in fact use the phrase "666" or they have it in a connotation "666" without delineating 660 and 6. This includes the NIV, the ESV, the Complete Jewish Bible, the New King James Version, and the Orthodox Jewish Bible, all of which use the three numbers in a row: 666.

Then you have a number that says "660 and 6," which includes the NASB, the ASV, the Comprehensive English Bible, the Amplified Bible, the Douay-Rheims, the ISV, the International Standard Version, the Wycliffe, and the Luther. And finally, you have this phrasing "six hundred threescore and six”, which is found in the original Tyndale, the 1560 Geneva, the 1599 Geneva, and the 1611 KJV.

Letters and Numeral Values

The Cepher is the only book that actually sets forth the original three Greek letters, and we do so for a reason. First of all, there is an assumption that these three Greek letters mean gematria, because they don't constitute a word per se. And gematria, of course, is the science, if you will, of applying numbers to letters. For instance, in the Greek numbering system, you would have first and second, being expressed as Alpha and Beta. So, if you're doing an Alpha test, that's your first test; if you're doing a Beta test, that's your second test. And so, you have evidence that there is some Greek gematria out there. The question is, with the Greek gematria, does it equate to the numbers that we see set forth in Chazon 13:18? Does it equate to those numbers? If you look at the modern Greek alphabet, you'll see that the sixth letter of the alphabet is Zeta, not Stigma. And so, this kind of creates a problem as to how you would get 660 and 6.

Now, remember with gematria, it does not flow as in A-B-C-D-E-F-G... as being 1 through 26; it doesn't work that way. You have the numbering system: 1-9, 10-90, 100-900, and then 1,000. Originally, the gematria which was practiced, and it still is practiced in Hebrew—you have numbers 1-10 are Aleph, Beit, Gimel, Dalet, Hey, Vav, Zayin, Chet, Tet, and Yod. That's 1-10. And then 10 through 100 is Yod, Kaf, Lamed, Mem, Nun, Samech, Ayin, Pey, Tzadik, and Kof. 200 is Resh, 300 Shin, 400 Tav, 500 Kaf Sofit, 600 Mem Sofit, 700 Nun Sofit, 800 Pey Sofit, 900 Tzadik Sofit, and of course 1,000 which is Aleph—or the eth (את), which you find on the cover of the Cepher. So that is your gematria in Hebrew.

But in Greek, you could see that we have a little bit of a problem, because the sixth number is Zeta. The number that has 60 is Omicron, and then the number that has 600 would be Omega. So, if you said 660 and 6, you would have Omega, Omicron, Zeta. But those aren't the three Greek letters we have. No, the three Greek letters we have are Chi, Xi, Stigma. There is an alphabetical formation that allowed for this numerology in the ancient world; apparently, they included this obsolete letter Stigma as number 6 in the alphabet, which then would offset and put Xi as 60, and then you would move into 600 which would then be Chi. However, there's a problem, because under that system there is no 90, and of course Stigma did not appear in that order. So, again, we have a little bit of a difficulty.

The Mark, the Name, and the Number

It says in verse 17 that "no man might buy or sell," and that's really the critical factor here: no man might buy or sell but that he had the mark, the name, or the number of the beast. There are three elements there, and you don't have to have all three; you just need one of the three: the mark, the name, or the number. The word for "number" there in Greek is this word arithmos, which doesn't mean a fixed number; it means an unknown number, kind of like an x in an algebraic equation.

Chi, Xi, Stigma - and the Visual Interpretive Question

If you look at the Chi, you'll see that it is shaped like an x, so that kind of tells you that the Chi is an indication of number. The last letter, the Greek letter Stigma, is very clear: Stigma, like a Stigmata, or if you were stigmatized. Stigma, to this day, means that you're marked, you're marked for identification. You have a Stigmata, you have a stigma, you've been stigmatized, like being branded. So, Stigma kind of means "mark," which leaves us with this idea of Xi, this middle letter, meaning "the name." It's very interesting if you look at these letters Chi and Stigma, you'll find that they are the first and last letter of the name or of the title Christos. So, you see in the Greek Iesous Christos, Christos begins with Chi, ends with Stigma, but there are letters missing, and instead it's been replaced. All these letters in the middle of Christos have been replaced with this letter that kind of wraps around like it has four loops in it, which is the Xi. And the Xi is very interesting because it appears in its artifice, if you will, as a snake. Consequently, you have a snake or a serpent in the middle of Christos. It's possible this Greek mark means Antichrist, or something in the place of Christ; the serpent in the place of Christ. It's possible that's what it means.

It's also possible (as Walid Shoebat has pointed out) that in Arabic it reads "Bismillah," or "in the name of Allah” because this center letter, Xi, appears in the Arabic and it's readable in the Arabic as Allah.

At any rate, one of the things that's a certainty in this book of Chazon and this verse 13:18 is that 666, as in the number 6 followed by the number 6 followed by the number 6, does not appear and is not accurate in any respect. The assumption that these letters are gematria, we believe, is an assumption that is not necessarily justified by the text. Yes, you have the comment that says it's the number of the beast.

Was Chazon Written with Hebrew Thought Behind It?

If you go back and you look at the Hebrew, and we do believe that Revelation was created in the Hebrew, Revelation 9:11 says: “the beast coming out of the abyss whose name was Abaddon, but in the Greek, Apollyon.” That tells you that it was written in the Hebrew, but in the Greek, for you people who don't read Hebrew, the name is Apollyon.

You have a similar issue when you look at the phrase, "And here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast.” Again, the Greek is arithmos, but in the Hebrew the word there is m’cepher, like cepher—like the book—m’cepher, which means the number or to number or to count. So, you have cepher, which in one respect means book, although remember there were no books when the word was born; essentially you had scrolls, and the scrolls were identified by their numbering. That is to say, you had a numbered writing, such as 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, etc. And cepher in its feminine form means to count or to number.

If you're reading that in the Hebrew, it could mean to count or it could mean a numbered book. "Let him who has understanding calculate the book of the beast, for it is the book of mankind." The word there would be Adam, not 'is Adam”, not "is man," but the book of mankind.

And the book is identified as Bismillah, the book is identified as the serpent, as Christ, etc. So yes, in one interpretation "number" is given. You could read m’cepher as meaning "number," in which case you could infer: "Well, this could be a number." And if it is a number, is it 660 and 6? In the modern alphabet, it wouldn't be. In the modern alphabet, your Chi would be 400, and the Omicron would be 60, but we’re not looking for Omicron, we're looking for Chi-Xi. And Xi would be 50, 450. And then Stigma, of course, doesn't appear because it's an obsolete letter, so it's not in the current Greek alphabet. So, you'd have 450 something, which is a number that's not relevant to anybody. So, you see that we have a real interesting issue with this business of Chi-Xi-Stigma, the Greek letters that are seen there.

What did John actually see?

For purposes of our discussion here, I think that John actually saw this symbol. He didn't just write it down, I think he saw it. And if he saw this symbol, now we have something that’s got a bit more grit to it because it probably does not appear in the Hebrew unless these were letters that were supposed to be some kind of Hebrew markings. And I don't know how you would get a Hebrew marking out of this? I don't know how that would possibly translate.

Maybe you could say that the Chi was an Aleph and maybe the Stigma was a Kaf?  But I can tell you that 660 and 6 does not equate at all because 600 is Mem Sofit, and there is no Hebrew word that begins with a Sofit letter; it just doesn't exist. And so, you know, maybe you read it backwards, but even in that case, it does not appear as a meaningful Hebrew word. And very few words begin with the Vav. And if it is Vav, and it means "and,” even that doesn't make sense. So, you have some very grave difficulties with that number.

Now, if it is "Samekh," well, Samekh means something else too, right? It means "veil." So, then you would say, "And it is the number of a man, and his number is veiled." It's possible; there's a lot of possibilities in this. But the point of this particular discussion is to raise awareness as to what's going on in Revelation 13:18. We're cautioned in the Book of Revelation not to change, not to substitute, not to guess, not to assume. And so, in this particular passage, we did not guess, we did not assume, we did not change, we did not substitute. We gave you the Greek mark that is likely what Yochanon—and that is to say John—saw when he was being given this Chazon, this revelation of Yahusha Ha’Mashiach.

Verification Notes

Links are provided for source transparency and to document the textual, lexical, and CPG reference material used in this article.

• Original CPG video. The source presentation is “Cepher Moments - There Ain't No 666 (6-6-6) Either.”
• The mark, the name, and the number: Part One. Published on April 15, 2015, Dr. Stephen Pidgeon presents the Stephanus Textus Receptus form and discusses chi, xi, and stigma.
• The mark, the name, and the number: Part Two. Published on April 16, 2025, this follow-up article develops the relationship among the mark, name, and number in verse 17.
• Greek χξϛ - Strong's G5516. Standard Greek reference works identify the notation as 600 + 60 + 6, i.e. six hundred sixty-six. This supports the distinction between the ancient Greek numeral notation and the modern visual shorthand 6-6-6.
• Greek arithmos - Strong's G706. Arithmos means “number.” It can be used of definite or indefinite numbers; in Revelation 13:18 it is the number the reader is told to calculate.
• Greek psephizo - Strong's G5585. The verb means to count, calculate, or reckon and is used in Revelation 13:18 for calculating the number of the beast.
• Greek charagma - Strong's G5480. Charagma is the word for the “mark” in Revelation 13:16-17. It is distinct from the numeral sign called stigma.
• Hebrew mispar - Strong's H4557. Mispar (מִסְפָּר) is the ordinary Hebrew noun for number/count and comes from the same ספר root family associated with counting and written record. The Cepher's “book/numbered writing” discussion is an interpretive wordplay on that relationship.

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