The name David in Hebrew letters is דוד. 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.
דוד
In short
Your name in Hebrew letters is דוד. From the root “beloved.” The shepherd from Bethlehem who defeated Goliath, second king of Israel and author of psalms; the Pentateuch does not yet know him — his story is in Samuel. Adding up the numbers of its letters gives 14 — the same as the Torah word יד, “hand”. That number points to Torah page 14 of 354 — in the portion Noach. What that portion is about: The flood and the ark; the rainbow as a sign of the covenant; the tower of Babel; ten generations from Noah to Abraham. The verse that begins with the first letter of your name and ends with the last is Numbers 2:18. Each of these steps is laid out below with its sources. Every figure can be checked by hand.
You wrote “David” — this exact spelling is what was calculated: דוד. A name from the Tanakh — its Tanakh spelling is used. If your name is spelled differently, correct the Hebrew spelling and the report is recomputed.
Adding up the letters of the name דוד gives 14.
14
The number 14 is the Torah word יד — «hand» (Genesis 3:22).
This number is shared with 1 other name(s) out of the 2,980 in the index.
The number 14, as the remainder modulo 354, points to Torah page 14 in the book of Bereshit (Genesis).
The verse this place falls on is Bereshit (Genesis) 9:20:
וַיָּחֶל נֹחַ אִישׁ הָאֲדָמָה וַיִּטַּע כָּרֶם
And Noah the husbandman began, and planted a vineyard.
This is from the portion Noach. What it is about: The flood and the ark; the rainbow as a sign of the covenant; the tower of Babel; ten generations from Noah to Abraham.
The same number, 14, is given by these Tanakh names:
Guy גיא
Other 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.
with finals, reduced and ordinal — 14. A Torah word with the same number is יד — “hand” (Genesis 3:22).
Cumulative: a letter plus all letters before it (mispar kidmi) — 41. A Torah word with the same number is אם — “if” (Genesis 4:7).
Squares of the letter values (mispar perati) — 68. A Torah word with the same number is חלל — “to begin” (Genesis 4:26).
Building: the sum grows with each letter (mispar bone’eh) — 28. A Torah word with the same number is כח — “strength” (Genesis 4:12).
The letters that come out are קפק — not a word that stands in the Pentateuch. Atbash: letters mirrored, alef for tav, bet for shin, and the number of the resulting word — 280. A Torah word with the same number is עיר — “city” (Genesis 4:17).
Filling: the names of the letters are counted — alef, bet, gimel… (milui) — 880. A Torah word with the same number is פתת — “to break in pieces” (Leviticus 2:6).
The number 14 appears in the classical books 31 times across 16 works. The earliest mention is פירוש קדמון על ספר חסידים (~1200).
Every letter of the name explained, the words and namesakes with references, the Hebrew date, the letter and tribe of the month, day 861 of your life (±1), the psalm by age, the attestations from the classical books — a PDF sent to your email.
The number of the day, every morning
Every date has a number too. Once a year it will match the number of your name — 14. The channel posts one number a day, one verse and the Torah page it lands on. Nothing after it, no mailing list.
Hebrew is written from right to left. דוד has 3 letters: ד Dalet, ו Vav, ד Dalet. The first letter is Dalet, the last is Dalet.
For an engraving, a sign or a tattoo, show the spelling to someone who reads Hebrew: transliterating a name is a choice, not the only option.
The name דוד does not stand as a word in the Pentateuch — as with most names, including many Tanakh names from the later books.
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 דוד these are ד and ד. The Pentateuch has exactly one such verse — Numbers 2:18:
דגל מחנה אפרים לצבאתם ימה ונשיא לבני אפרים אלישמע בן עמיהוד
This is from the portion Bamidbar. What it is about: The census in the desert: 603,550 men; the order of the camps around the Tabernacle; the Levites and their service.
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.
