Gematria Calculator

Gematria (Hebrew: גמטריה) is one of the oldest known ciphers — a method of assigning numerical values to Hebrew letters that dates back over 2,500 years. The word itself likely derives from the Greek geometria (geometry), reflecting early cross-cultural mathematical exchange between Greek and Jewish scholars in the Hellenistic period.

The earliest documented use of gematria appears in ancient Mesopotamia, where Assyrian king Sargon II (722–705 BCE) ordered the construction of a wall whose length in cubits matched the numerical value of his name. In the Jewish tradition, gematria was formalized by Talmudic-era rabbis around 200 CE and reached its peak elaboration in medieval Kabbalistic texts such as the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation) and the Zohar.

Rabbinical scholars used gematria as an exegetical tool — a way to interpret and decode hidden layers of meaning in the Torah. The underlying assumption is that if two words share the same gematria value, they are spiritually connected, mutually illuminating, or even interchangeable in certain interpretive contexts. This is not merely numerological curiosity: in traditional Jewish hermeneutics, gematria is one of 32 recognized methods of Torah interpretation (Baraita of the 32 Rules).

Over centuries the practice spread beyond Jewish communities. Greek-speaking Jews developed isopsephy — the Greek equivalent of gematria — and early Christian scholars applied similar techniques to Greek New Testament texts. In the medieval Islamic world, abjad numerals served an analogous function in Arabic. Today gematria remains actively practiced in Orthodox Jewish communities, Kabbalistic study circles, and has found new audiences in numerology and esoteric traditions worldwide.

The most famous example of gematria in everyday Jewish life: the word חי (chai, meaning "life") equals 18. This is why monetary gifts in multiples of 18 are traditional at Jewish life-cycle events — a living expression of an ancient numerical-mystical system.

Standard Hebrew gematria (called Mispar Hechrachi, "absolute value") assigns a fixed number to each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet in three tiers: units (1–9), tens (10–90), and hundreds (100–400). The five sofit (final) letter forms — ך ם ן ף ץ — carry the same values as their standard forms in this system.

To find the gematria of any Hebrew word or phrase, simply sum the values of its individual letters. Spaces between words are ignored. The resulting integer is the gematria of the entire text.

For example, שלום (Shalom, "peace"): ש = 300, ל = 30, ו = 6, מ = 40. Sum = 300 + 30 + 6 + 40 = 376.

Because the Hebrew alphabet has no separate numeral system — letters double as numerals — this mapping is inherent to the language itself, not artificially imposed. Every Hebrew speaker of antiquity would have immediately recognized these numeric equivalences, making gematria a natural outgrowth of the writing system.

Standard gematria is not the only system. Over the centuries Kabbalistic scholars developed dozens of methods, each emphasizing different numerical properties. Here are the three most widely used, illustrated with חי (Chai):

For Chai, Standard and Ordinal give the same result because Chet (8th letter) and Yod (10th letter) fall in the low range. For later letters the divergence is dramatic — Tav gives Standard = 400, Ordinal = 22, Reduced = 4. Other systems include Mispar Gadol (final forms get elevated values: ך=500, ם=600, ן=700, ף=800, ץ=900) and Mispar HaPerati (each letter is squared before summing).

This calculator uses Standard Gematria (Mispar Hechrachi), the most widely recognized and historically documented system.