Home · The Sevens · Witness IV
the one number we are commanded to count
“Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast:
for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”
Revelation 13:18
Every other pattern in this section is something a man went looking for. This one is different. The Holy Ghost gives a direct instruction, in the text, to count. So count it, and see whether the Book that gave the order has already obeyed it.
The whole cast
Search the Bible for six hundred and sixty six and it attaches itself to three people, and to nobody else at all.
Solomon is the wisest man who ever lived and the type of the King, and he ends his life serving other gods. Adonikam's name means the Lord is risen or, as some read the two words, lord of the rising up, and his children number 666. The beast is the antichrist himself.
Now notice something in the wording, because it matters for everything that follows. Solomon's number and the beast's number are written the same way, threescore. Adonikam's alone is written sixty. The King James Bible keeps those two words apart, and it keeps them apart in a way that looks inconsistent until you count.
Pattern one
Take the name Solomon. Take the three number words the Book uses to write six hundred and sixty six. Count all of them together.
Solomon + six hundred + threescore + six
Mentions, in the whole King James Bible
| Search | Scope | Mentions |
|---|---|---|
| Solomon | Entire Bible | 281 |
| Solomon's | Entire Bible | 25 |
| six hundred | Entire Bible | 65 |
| threescore | Entire Bible | 93 |
| six | Entire Bible | 202 |
| Total | 666 | |
Three number phrases, exactly as the King James Bible spells the number out, plus the name of the man who receives it. Every occurrence of each; nothing excluded. Because six hundred contains six, both are counted where both occur, which is how a plain phrase search behaves.
Revelation 13:18 opens with the words Here is wisdom. In the Old Testament, wisdom has a name, and it is Solomon.
The same three number words, alone
Mentions of six hundred, threescore and six across the Bible
Solomon receives his six hundred threescore and six talents of gold in one year, and a prophetic year in this Book is three hundred and sixty days. The number words themselves appear three hundred and sixty times.
Pattern two
beast + mark + sin
Mentions, in the whole King James Bible
| Search | Scope | Mentions |
|---|---|---|
| beast | Entire Bible | 180 |
| beast's | Entire Bible | 1 |
| mark | Entire Bible | 37 |
| sin | Entire Bible | 448 |
| Total | 666 | |
Singular beast only, since the plural is a different thing in Scripture and is not part of the search. Singular sin likewise. Every occurrence of each word, with no verse set aside.
The beast, the mark he causes all to receive, and the thing that made the mark possible in the first place. The number of the man, and the number of the ruin.
Pattern three
Not a word search this time. Just count verses, from Genesis 1:1, and stop at 666.
The six hundred and sixty sixth verse of the Bible carries the first appearance of the word threescore in all of Scripture. Not the first appearance of sixty: sixty has already come and gone six times before this point. The Book had every opportunity to write threescore earlier and did not, and every opportunity to write sixty here and did not.
That single word is load bearing. Threescore occurs ninety three times and sixty fifteen times, and if the two had been standardised into one another, as a modern editor would tidy them, every count on this page comes apart. The distinction that looks like inconsistent old English is the distinction the arithmetic rests on, and it begins in verse 666.
Pattern four
The 666th chapter of the Bible
Of the eleven hundred and eighty nine chapters in Scripture, the six hundred and sixty sixth is a chapter of Solomon, the one man in the Old Testament who receives the number. And of the thirty verses in it, look at the twenty seventh.
Revelation 13:18 says Here is wisdom, and tells you to count. The 666th chapter of the Bible is Solomon seeking out wisdom, and it says counting one by one, to find out the account.
And the word Behold that opens that verse is the 666th occurrence of Behold in the Bible, out of one thousand three hundred and twenty six.
Pattern five
Six hundred and sixty six verses into the New Testament, the Son of God is handed over to the men who copy and keep the Scriptures. Six hundred and sixty six verses further on, He names what those same men do to the word of God: they make it of none effect through their tradition.
Read the second of those two verses slowly, and then read the front page of any modern study Bible where a footnote tells you the earliest manuscripts do not contain the verse you are looking at. The tradition of the scribes has not changed its trade.
Pattern six
Forty days fasting, and the tempter comes. Three times He answers, and all three times He quotes from the same book: Deuteronomy. Number those verses within Deuteronomy and add them up.
The devil did not know the verse numbers. Neither did Moses. Neither did the men who divided Deuteronomy into verses fifteen hundred years after it was written. One party to that conversation knew.
Pattern seven
The 666th mention of the name Jesus
Count every occurrence of the name Jesus in the King James Bible in order, including the one place where it is buried inside another man's name. The six hundred and sixty sixth is Bar-jesus: a sorcerer, a false prophet, and the only man in Scripture who carries the Saviour's name as a counterfeit.
Paul calls him what he is in the next breath: O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness. Subtil is the word Genesis uses of the serpent.
Pattern eight
The same story told twice, once in shadow and once in fulfilment. A golden image, an order to fall down and worship, a threat of death for those who will not, and a furnace in which the Son of God is seen walking with His own.
Nebuchadnezzar's image is sixty by six. Sixty times six is three hundred and sixty, and three hundred and sixty is how many times the words that spell out the beast's number appear in the Bible. Nebuchadnezzar himself is named sixty times in Scripture: the exact height, in cubits, of the thing he built.
And now the part that costs something
Open a modern Bible at the end of Mark and you will find a line across the page. It says the earliest manuscripts do not contain Mark 16:9 to 20.
The last twelve verses of Mark
Those twelve verses are not filler. They hold the resurrection appearances, the great commission, and the only place in any gospel where the Lord Jesus Christ is said to have sat on the right hand of God. Matthew and John do not record the ascension at all. Luke records Him carried up into heaven and stops there. One verse in all four gospels seats Him on the throne, and here it is.
“So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.” Mark 16:19 · inside the brackets
A man carries a mark. So does a book. Take the ascension of the Son of God out of the gospel of Mark and what is left of Mark is 666 verses long.
The footnote never gives you certainty in exchange. It cannot tell you the verses are false, because the great mass of manuscripts contains them. It can only make you the judge, standing over the text, deciding what belongs. That is the oldest question in the world, and it is the question this whole site is named after.
Yea, hath God said?
Genesis 3:1 · the first words the serpent ever spoke
It is written
“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”
Revelation 22:18 and 19
Every figure above was counted from the standard Cambridge text before it was published here, and every search rule is printed beside its number. Repeat all of it with King James Pure Bible Search, which is free. The fuller documentation is at kjvcode.com. On the manuscripts behind the footnote in Mark, see the second front, and on the verses the modern versions remove, the Missing Sixteen.
The patterns on this page were found and documented by Brandon Peterson, whose book Sealed by the King is free to download. Used with permission. The counts here were reproduced independently before publication.
Before you go
“And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” Acts 16:31
Read the Gospel↑ ↓ to move · Enter to open · Esc to close