and we will look to them in the order of the Apocalypse, that is, in retrograde order.
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1) The number is said to be 666, the adjective alone being ex- pressed. A number expressed both by an adjective and a substantive (for instance, ten months, a hundred drachmae, a thousand soldiers), the one of which we call the reckoning number, the other the number reckoned , needs no explanation. But when a number is presented to us which requires solution, then either the substantive is expressed, as, for instance, pieces of money ; and the adjective is to be sought for and inferred, for instance, five myriads : Acts xix. 19 ; also Luke xiv. 28: or the adjective is given, as 666, and so the substantive is to be sought for which is to be joined to it ; a mode which, except in enigmas, and undoubtedly here, in a prophetical enigma, scarcely comes into use. The adjective, 666, I say, is given, and that so plainly, that it needs no further solution. It remains, that there should be traced out, and made up by calculation, not indeed another mere numeral adjective, by which no progress would be made, but a noun substantive, and that of a specific meaning, for which a general term of number is substituted. Be that of whatever kind it may, its ellipsis (the readers being now prepared by the ellipsis of the noun tongue and horsemen , in the first and second woe, to sub- mit more readily to that in the third woe, ch. ix. 11, 16, note), — the ellipsis, I say, is certainly that of a substantive : the only question is, whether the 666 are as it were points, such as are accustomed to be sought in systems of years ; or men, or times, or anything else which occurs to the mind. In the meantime there appears to be a great dif- ference between the two computations ; for in the former case the subject of inquiry is the reckoning number, which is easily to be explained by arithmetic ; but in the other, such as is the matter now under consideration, the subject of inquiry is the reckoned number, requiring a greater amount of the power of interpretation.
Wherefore 2) There occurs the mention of “the number of a man” which is undoubtedly the cause of a difference : whence it is more fully evident, that the reckoned number is that which we are commanded to search out ; for no reckoning number is found in the universe different from u that of a nftin.” 1 It is of no use to pursue this subject further.
1 Bengel is wishing to prove that the noun to be understood to the adjective 666 is years, and these common years : for it is expressly said, “ it is the number of a man.” 666 is a human number in contradistinction to the much longer prophetical year, ix. 15; not angelic-human , as the 144 measuring reeds, xxi. 17. — E.