Zachary — the number of the name, the Torah page and the verse
The name Zachary in Hebrew letters is זכריה. 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.
זכריה
In short
Your name in Hebrew letters is זכריה. “The Lord has remembered.” The prophet of the return from Babylon and the building of the Second Temple. Adding up the numbers of its letters gives 242 — the same as the Torah word אראלי, “Areli”. That number points to Torah page 242 of 354 — in the portion Behaalotcha. What that portion is about: Lighting the lampstand; the second Passover; the cloud leads the camp; quail and complaints; Miriam and tzaraat. The verse that begins with the first letter of your name and ends with the last is Exodus 30:13. 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 זכריה gives 242.
242
The number 242 is the Torah word אראלי — «Areli» (Genesis 46:16).
The number 242, as the remainder modulo 354, points to Torah page 242 in the book of Bamidbar (Numbers). These are its opening words:
ולקחת אתם אל אהל מועד והתיצבו שם עמך …
The verse this place falls on is Bamidbar (Numbers) 11:16:
וַיֹּאמֶר ה׳ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה אֶסְפָה־לִּי שִׁבְעִים אִישׁ מִזִּקְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר יָדַעְתָּ כִּי־הֵם זִקְנֵי הָעָם וְשֹׁטְרָיו וְלָקַחְתָּ אֹתָם אֶל־אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד וְהִתְיַצְּבוּ שָׁם עִמָּךְ
And HaShem said unto Moses: 'Gather unto Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with thee.
This is from the portion Behaalotcha. What it is about: Lighting the lampstand; the second Passover; the cloud leads the camp; quail and complaints; Miriam and tzaraat.
The same number, 242, is given by these biblical names:
זכריה · אריאל · מרב · אראלי
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) — 242. A Torah word with the same number is אראלי — “Areli” (Genesis 46:16).
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) — 53. A Torah word with the same number is אבן — “a stone” (Genesis 2:12).
Cumulative: a letter plus all letters before it (mispar kidmi) — 968.
Squares of the letter values (mispar perati) — 40574.
Building: the sum grows with each letter (mispar bone’eh) — 740. A Torah word with the same number is שתם — “to unveil” (Numbers 24:3).
The word that comes out is עלגמצ. Atbash: letters mirrored, alef for tav, bet for shin, and the number of the resulting word — 233. A Torah word with the same number is רגל — “a foot” (Genesis 8:9).
Filling: the names of the letters are counted — alef, bet, gimel… (milui) — 703. A Torah word with the same number is מסגרת — “something enclosing, i.e. a margin” (Exodus 25:25).
The number 242 appears in the classical books 6 times across 5 works. The earliest mention is עץ חיים (~1573).
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 זכריה 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 זכריה these are ז and ה. The Pentateuch has 8 such verses. The first of them is Exodus 30:13:
זה יתנו כל העבר על הפקדים מחצית השקל בשקל הקדש עשרים גרה השקל מחצית השקל תרומה לה׳
This is from the portion Ki Tisa. What it is about: The half-shekel for the census; the golden calf and the broken tablets; the thirteen attributes of mercy; the second tablets.
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) — 242. A Torah word with the same number is אראלי — “Areli” (Genesis 46:16).
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) — 53. A Torah word with the same number is אבן — “a stone” (Genesis 2:12).
Cumulative: a letter plus all letters before it (mispar kidmi) — 968.
Squares of the letter values (mispar perati) — 40574.
Building: the sum grows with each letter (mispar bone’eh) — 740. A Torah word with the same number is שתם — “to unveil” (Numbers 24:3).
The word that comes out is עלגמצ. Atbash: letters mirrored, alef for tav, bet for shin, and the number of the resulting word — 233. A Torah word with the same number is רגל — “a foot” (Genesis 8:9).
Filling: the names of the letters are counted — alef, bet, gimel… (milui) — 703. A Torah word with the same number is מסגרת — “something enclosing, i.e. a margin” (Exodus 25:25).
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 242
Other names
Vladimir · William · Yair · Yarden · Yulia · Yuval · Zebulun · Zeev · Zipporah · Zoe · Zohar · Zoya · 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