Gematria calculator

Hebrew letter values in gematria

The 22 letters fall into three groups: units, tens and hundreds. In standard gematria the five final letters are worth the same as their regular forms; in mispar gadol they continue from 500 to 900.

The methods in the calculator

Gematria has several methods, and Jewish tradition uses more than one. The calculator works them all out at once:

• Standard (mispar hechrachi): The usual gematria: Alef to Tet are 1 to 9, Yod to Tsadi are 10 to 90, Qof to Tav are 100 to 400. Final letters equal their regular forms.
• Mispar gadol (large number): Like the standard method, but the final letters continue the count: final Kaf 500, final Mem 600, final Nun 700, final Pe 800, final Tsadi 900.
• Mispar katan (small number): Drops the zeros from each letter value: Yod is 1, Kaf 2, Qof 1 and Tav 4. Every letter is worth 1 to 9.
• Ordinal (mispar siduri): The position of the letter in the alphabet: Alef 1, Bet 2 and so on up to Tav 22. Final letters take the position of the regular letter.
• Atbash: Swaps each letter with its mirror in the reversed alphabet: Alef with Tav, Bet with Shin, Gimel with Resh, then values the new word in standard gematria.
• Albam: Splits the alphabet into two halves and swaps them: Alef with Lamed, Bet with Mem, Gimel with Nun, then values the new word in standard gematria.

Shalom, for example, is 376 in standard gematria, 936 in mispar gadol, 16 in mispar katan and 52 in ordinal value.

How to calculate gematria by hand

Go through the word letter by letter, write the value next to each letter and add them up. אהבה (ahava, love) is 1 + 5 + 2 + 5, which is 13. A few things to watch:

• Vowel points, geresh and gershayim are not counted. שָׁלוֹם and שלום have the same value.
• Full spelling adds up: שולחן is 6 more than שלחן because of the Vav.
• Spaces make no difference, so a phrase is the sum of all its words.
• The calculator ignores digits and Latin letters and tells you which characters were not counted.

Where gematria comes from

The word comes from Greek, and the use of letter values already appears in the literature of the Sages. The Mishnah, in Pirkei Avot 3:18, calls calculations and gematria "the condiments of wisdom", an addition to wisdom rather than its core. In Jeremiah 25:26 Sheshach is Babylon (בבל) in Atbash. The values the calculator produces are arithmetic only; what is drawn from them is a matter of interpretation.

Well-known words with the same value

These pairs come from the short word list in the calculator, each valued in standard gematria:

• אחד, אהבה: 13
• זהב, דוד: 14
• לב, כבוד: 32
• יין, סוד: 70
• אלהים, הטבע: 86
• מים, מלך: 90
• אור, רז: 207
• נחש, משיח: 358
• שלום, עשו: 376