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The Book of Exodus – ‫חומש שמות‬

Appendix A: Numerical Values of the Hebrew Letters

Each letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical value.

The table at right shows each letter with its corresponding numerical value. The
numerical value of a word is determined
by adding up the values of each letter.

The order of the letters is irrelevant to
their value: the number 12 could be
written as Yod-Bet, Bet-Yod, Hei-Zayin,
Dalet-Chet or many other ways.

Ordinarily, however, numbers are written
with the fewest possible letters and with
the largest numeral first (that is, to the
right).

The number 12 would be written Yod-Bet (with the Yod on the right), the
number 14 would be Yod-Dalet, the number 36 would be Lamed-Vav, the
number *613 would be Tav-Reish-Yod-Gimel, etc.

The only significant exception to this pattern is the numbers 15 and 16, which if
rendered as 10+5 or 10+6 would be part of the name of God, so they are
normally written Tet-Vav (9+6) and Tet-Zayin (9+7).

Because of this system of assigning numerical values to letters, every word has a
numerical value. For example, the word Torah (Tav-Vav-Reish-Hei) has the
numerical value 611 (400+6+200+5).

There is an entire discipline of Jewish mysticism known as Gematria that is
devoted to finding hidden meanings in the numerical values of words. For
example, the number 18 (Yod + Chet) is very significant, because it is the

numerical value of the word Chai - ‫חי‬, meaning life. Donations to Jewish

charities are routinely made in denominations of 18 for that reason.

Some have suggested that the final forms of the letters Kaf, Mem, Nun, Pei and
Tzadi have the numerical values of 500, 600, 700, 800 and 900, providing a
numerical system that could easily render numbers up to 1000.

* The number 613 is the total number of commandments in the written book of
Torah and is represented by the letters Tav-Reish-Yod-Gimel usually
pronounced as "TARYAG"

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