Revelation 13:18

13:18 This calls for wisdom: ¹  Let the one who has insight calculate the beast’s number, for it is man’s number, ²  and his number is 666. ³ 

Revelation 4:8

4:8 Each one of the four living creatures had six wings ⁴  and was full of eyes all around and inside. ⁵  They never rest day or night, saying: ⁶ 

“Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God, the All-Powerful, ⁷ 

Who was and who is, and who is still to come!”

Revelation 14:20

14:20 Then ⁸  the winepress was stomped ⁹  outside the city, and blood poured out of the winepress up to the height of horses’ bridles ¹⁰  for a distance of almost two hundred miles. ¹¹ 

[13:18]  ¹ tn Grk “Here is wisdom.”

[13:18]  ² tn Grk “it is man’s number.” ExSyn 254 states “if ἀνθρώπου is generic, then the sense is, ‘It is [the] number of humankind.’ It is significant that this construction fits Apollonius’ Canon (i.e., both the head noun and the genitive are anarthrous), suggesting that if one of these nouns is definite, then the other is, too. Grammatically, those who contend that the sense is ‘it is [the] number of a man’ have the burden of proof on them (for they treat the head noun, ἀριθμός, as definite and the genitive, ἀνθρώπου, as indefinite – the rarest of all possibilities). In light of Johannine usage, we might also add Rev 16:18, where the Seer clearly uses the anarthrous ἄνθρωπος in a generic sense, meaning ‘humankind.’ The implications of this grammatical possibility, exegetically speaking, are simply that the number ‘666’ is the number that represents humankind. Of course, an individual is in view, but his number may be the number representing all of humankind. Thus the Seer might be suggesting here that the antichrist, who is the best representative of humanity without Christ (and the best counterfeit of a perfect man that his master, that old serpent, could muster), is still less than perfection (which would have been represented by the number seven).” See G. K. Beale, Revelation, [NIGTC], 723-24, who argues for the “generic” understanding of the noun; for an indefinite translation, see the ASV and ESV which both translate the clause as “it is the number of a man.”

[13:18]  ³ tc A few mss (̹¹⁵ C, along with a few mss known to Irenaeus {and two minuscule mss, 5 and 11, no longer extant}), read 616 here, and several other witnesses have other variations. Irenaeus’ mention of mss that have 616 is balanced by his rejection of such witnesses in this case. As intriguing as the reading 616 is (since the conversion of Nero Caesar’s name in Latin by way of gematria would come out to 616), it must remain suspect because such a reading seems motivated in that it conforms more neatly to Nero’s gematria.

[4:8]  ⁴ tn Grk “six wings apiece,” but this is redundant with “each one” in English.

[4:8]  ⁵ tn Some translations render ἔσωθεν (eswqen) as “under [its] wings,” but the description could also mean “filled all around on the outside and on the inside with eyes.” Since the referent is not available to the interpreter, the exact force is difficult to determine.

[4:8]  ⁶ tn Or “They never stop saying day and night.”

[4:8]  ⁷ tn On this word BDAG 755 s.v. παντοκράτωρ states, “the Almighty, All-Powerful, Omnipotent (One) only of God…(ὁ) κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ π. …Rv 1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7; 21:22.”

[14:20]  ⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

[14:20]  ⁸ sn The winepress was stomped. See Isa 63:3, where Messiah does this alone (usually several individuals would join in the process).

[14:20]  ⁹ tn L&N 6.7 states, “In Re 14:20 the reference to a bit and bridle is merely an indication of measurement, that is to say, the height of the bit and bridle from the ground, and one may reinterpret this measurement as ‘about a meter and a half’ or ‘about five feet.’”

[14:20]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “1,600 stades.” A stade was a measure of length about 607 ft (185 m). Thus the distance here would be 184 mi or 296 km.