Ezra — the number of the name, the Torah page and the verse
The name Ezra in Hebrew letters is עזרא. 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.
עזרא
In short
Your name in Hebrew letters is עזרא. “Help.” The scribe and priest who restored the Torah to the center of life after the exile (Ezra). Adding up the numbers of its letters gives 278 — the same as the Torah word עבור, “crossed, i.e.”. That number points to Torah page 278 of 354 — in the portion Matot. What that portion is about: Vows and their annulment; the war with Midian; the tribes of Reuben and Gad ask for land beyond the Jordan. The verse that begins with the first letter of your name and ends with the last is Genesis 29:9. 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 עזרא gives 278.
278
The number 278 is the Torah word עבור — «crossed, i.e.» (Genesis 3:17).
The number 278, as the remainder modulo 354, points to Torah page 278 in the book of Bamidbar (Numbers). These are its opening words:
ישראל לאמר זה הדבר אשר צוה יהוה איש …
The verse this place falls on is Bamidbar (Numbers) 30:2:
וַיְדַבֵּר מֹשֶׁה אֶל־רָאשֵׁי הַמַּטּוֹת לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר זֶה הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה ה׳
And Moses spoke unto the heads of the tribes of the children of Israel, saying: This is the thing which HaShem hath commanded.
This is from the portion Matot. What it is about: Vows and their annulment; the war with Midian; the tribes of Reuben and Gad ask for land beyond the Jordan.
The same number, 278, is given by these biblical names:
עזרא · בעור · עורב · הארבע
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) — 278. A Torah word with the same number is עבור — “crossed, i.e.” (Genesis 3:17).
Reduced, each letter to one digit (mispar katan) — 17. A Torah word with the same number is טוב — “good” (Genesis 1:4).
Ordinal: alef 1, bet 2 … tav 22 (mispar siduri) — 44. A Torah word with the same number is ילד — “to bear young” (Genesis 3:16).
Cumulative: a letter plus all letters before it (mispar kidmi) — 1149.
Squares of the letter values (mispar perati) — 44950.
Building: the sum grows with each letter (mispar bone’eh) — 702. A Torah word with the same number is שבת — “intermission, i.e” (Exodus 16:23).
The word that comes out is זעגת. Atbash: letters mirrored, alef for tav, bet for shin, and the number of the resulting word — 480. A Torah word with the same number is עדות — “testimony” (Exodus 16:34).
Filling: the names of the letters are counted — alef, bet, gimel… (milui) — 818. A Torah word with the same number is תחתי — “lowermost” (Genesis 6:16).
The number 278 appears in the classical books 44 times across 6 works. The earliest mention is בעל הטורים על התורה (~1300).
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 עזרא 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 עזרא these are ע and א. The Pentateuch has 7 such verses. The first of them is Genesis 29:9:
עודנו מדבר עמם ורחל באה עם הצאן אשר לאביה כי רעה הוא
This is from the portion Vayetzei. What it is about: The dream of the ladder to heaven; Jacob with Laban: Leah and Rachel; eleven sons are born; the return.
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) — 278. A Torah word with the same number is עבור — “crossed, i.e.” (Genesis 3:17).
Reduced, each letter to one digit (mispar katan) — 17. A Torah word with the same number is טוב — “good” (Genesis 1:4).
Ordinal: alef 1, bet 2 … tav 22 (mispar siduri) — 44. A Torah word with the same number is ילד — “to bear young” (Genesis 3:16).
Cumulative: a letter plus all letters before it (mispar kidmi) — 1149.
Squares of the letter values (mispar perati) — 44950.
Building: the sum grows with each letter (mispar bone’eh) — 702. A Torah word with the same number is שבת — “intermission, i.e” (Exodus 16:23).
The word that comes out is זעגת. Atbash: letters mirrored, alef for tav, bet for shin, and the number of the resulting word — 480. A Torah word with the same number is עדות — “testimony” (Exodus 16:34).
Filling: the names of the letters are counted — alef, bet, gimel… (milui) — 818. A Torah word with the same number is תחתי — “lowermost” (Genesis 6:16).
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 278
Other names
Esther · Ethan · Eve · Evgeny · Evyatar · Ezekiel · Fernando · Francisco · Freida · Gabriel · Gabriela · Gad · 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