Abraham — the number of the name, the Torah page and the verse
The name Abraham in Hebrew letters is אברהם. Below: how its number adds up, which page of the Torah it falls on and what verse stands there. Everything is computed, nothing is guessed.
אברהם
In short
Your name in Hebrew letters is אברהם. From “father” and “multitude”: “father of many nations” (Genesis 17:5). This is the name the Torah gives Abram, the first patriarch, with the promise of offspring. Adding up the numbers of its letters gives 248 — the same as the Torah word אברהם, “Abraham, the later name of Abram”. That number points to Torah page 248 of 354 — in the portion Shlach. What that portion is about: The twelve spies; forty years for forty days; challah and tzitzit. The verse that begins with the first letter of your name and ends with the last is Genesis 2:4. Each of these steps is laid out below with its sources. There are no predictions or judgments here — only the text of the Torah and arithmetic you can check.
Adding up the letters of the name אברהם gives 248.
248
The number 248 is the Torah word אברהם — «Abraham, the later name of Abram» (Genesis 17:5).
Two hundred and forty-eight positive commandments and, per the Mishnah (Ohalot 1:8), as many limbs of the body; Avraham is 248.
The number 248, as the remainder modulo 354, points to Torah page 248 in the book of Bamidbar (Numbers). These are its opening words:
אשר תרתם את הארץ ארבעים יום יום לשנה …
The verse this place falls on is Bamidbar (Numbers) 14:34:
בְּמִסְפַּר הַיָּמִים אֲשֶׁר־תַּרְתֶּם אֶת־הָאָרֶץ אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם יוֹם לַשָּׁנָה יוֹם לַשָּׁנָה תִּשְׂאוּ אֶת־עֲוֺנֹתֵיכֶם אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה וִידַעְתֶּם אֶת־תְּנוּאָתִי
After the number of the days in which ye spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know My displeasure.
This is from the portion Shlach. What it is about: The twelve spies; forty years for forty days; challah and tzitzit.
The same number, 248, is given by these biblical names:
אברהם · זכריהו · חרם · אוריאל
Nine ways of counting
The tradition counts the same name in several ways. The main one is above: each letter is its number. The other eight are old and checkable too; each gives its own number, and many of them have a Torah word with the same number.
Final letters as 500–900 (mispar gadol) — 808. A Torah word with the same number is תחת — “the bottom” (Genesis 1:7).
Reduced, each letter to one digit (mispar katan) — 14. A Torah word with the same number is יד — “a hand” (Genesis 3:22).
Ordinal: alef 1, bet 2 … tav 22 (mispar siduri) — 41. A Torah word with the same number is אם — “very widely as demonstrative, lo!” (Genesis 4:7).
Cumulative: a letter plus all letters before it (mispar kidmi) — 959.
Squares of the letter values (mispar perati) — 41630.
Building: the sum grows with each letter (mispar bone’eh) — 663.
The word that comes out is תשגצי. Atbash: letters mirrored, alef for tav, bet for shin, and the number of the resulting word — 803.
Filling: the names of the letters are counted — alef, bet, gimel… (milui) — 1119.
The number 248 appears in the classical books 72 times across 38 works. The earliest mention is ספר חסידים (~1200).
The full message
Every letter of the name explained, the words and namesakes with references, the Hebrew date, the letter and tribe of the month, the day 861 of your life, the psalm by age, the attestations from 834 works — a PDF built the moment you pay.
The name אברהם appears in the Torah as a word 116 times. The first time is Genesis 17:5. Another 35 times it stands with prefixes — “and”, “in”, “the”.
The verse of your name
There is a custom: at the end of the prayer one says a Torah verse that begins with the first letter of one's name and ends with its last. For אברהם these are א and מ. The Pentateuch has 83 such verses. The first of them is Genesis 2:4:
אלה תולדות השמים והארץ בהבראם ביום עשות ה׳ אלהים ארץ ושמים
This is from the portion Bereshit. What it is about: Creation in six days and the Sabbath; Adam and Eve in the garden; Cain and Abel; ten generations to Noah.
Nine ways of counting
The tradition counts the same name in several ways. The main one is above: each letter is its number. The other eight are old and checkable too; each gives its own number, and many of them have a Torah word with the same number.
Final letters as 500–900 (mispar gadol) — 808. A Torah word with the same number is תחת — “the bottom” (Genesis 1:7).
Reduced, each letter to one digit (mispar katan) — 14. A Torah word with the same number is יד — “a hand” (Genesis 3:22).
Ordinal: alef 1, bet 2 … tav 22 (mispar siduri) — 41. A Torah word with the same number is אם — “very widely as demonstrative, lo!” (Genesis 4:7).
Cumulative: a letter plus all letters before it (mispar kidmi) — 959.
Squares of the letter values (mispar perati) — 41630.
Building: the sum grows with each letter (mispar bone’eh) — 663.
The word that comes out is תשגצי. Atbash: letters mirrored, alef for tav, bet for shin, and the number of the resulting word — 803.
Filling: the names of the letters are counted — alef, bet, gimel… (milui) — 1119.
Add a date of birth and the verse of meeting from that week's portion is added to the reading.
Compute with a date of birth The whole Torah page 248
Other names
Aaron · Abel · Abigail · Absalom · Adam · Adi · Alejandro · Alexander · Alexandra · All names
How it is counted
Each Hebrew letter has a number; a word's number is their sum (alef 1 … tav 400). The page is the remainder modulo 354: the Torah divided into 354 pages of 861 letters, as the lunar year has 354 days. Everything can be checked by hand.
Биньямин Пичхадзе, «Хумаш 354» (חומש 354), Бней-Брак, 2002 / התשס״ג · A calculation, not a prediction.
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (WLC), CC BY 4.0