Published 2026-11-01 · 4 min read
How many times is 666 mentioned in the Bible?
The number 666 appears 4 times in the King James Bible, always in words, never as digits: “six hundred threescore and six” (a threescore is sixty). Only once, in Revelation 13:18, is it the number of the beast; the other three count Solomon’s gold and the family of Adonikam.
Download the per-verse CSV to check every match yourself. The method file (JSON) lists the rule, the source hash and every result.
How we counted
Rule: whole word, any case, in the verse text of our King James Version file. A letter, digit, underscore or hyphen next to the match disqualifies it, so a form never matches inside a longer word; possessives such as “’s” stay in. An occurrence is one match; a verse counts once however many matches it holds. This is the same rule as our Bible word counter.
| Phrase | Occurrences | Verses | In the headline |
|---|---|---|---|
| six hundred threescore and six | 2 | 2 | yes |
| six hundred and threescore and six | 1 | 1 | yes |
| six hundred sixty and six | 1 | 1 | yes |
| Headline total | 4 | 4 |
Verse totals cannot be added across rows: one verse can contain more than one form.
How the KJV writes 666
The KJV never prints the digits “666” (0 matches). It writes numbers in words, and counts in scores: a score is twenty, so threescore is sixty. Six hundred + threescore + six = 666. The same number is spelled the three ways in the table above.
The search is the phrase, whole words, any case: it found “Six” capitalised once, at Revelation 13:18. The word “threescore” alone appears 93 times, in many other numbers.
All four verses
Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold,
Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and threescore and six talents of gold;
The children of Adonikam, six hundred sixty and six.
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
Only is the number of the beast. 1 Kings 10:14 and 2 Chronicles 9:13 give the weight in talents of the gold that came to Solomon in one year; Ezra 2:13 counts the returning family of Adonikam. The parallel list in Nehemiah 7:18 has “six hundred threescore and seven” (667) for the same family.
Some early manuscripts read 616 at , including Papyrus 115. The KJV, like most translations, prints 666; a few modern ones mention 616 in a footnote.
Old Testament, New Testament and each book
| Testament | Occurrences | Verses |
|---|---|---|
| Old Testament | 3 | 3 |
| New Testament | 1 | 1 |
| Book (KJV) | Occurrences | Verses |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Kings | 1 | 1 |
| 2 Chronicles | 1 | 1 |
| Ezra | 1 | 1 |
| Revelation | 1 | 1 |
First: 1 Kings 10:14. Last: Revelation 13:18. The most in one verse is 1, in 1 Kings 10:14, 2 Chronicles 9:13, Ezra 2:13, Revelation 13:18. 62 of the 66 books have no match.
Check the count yourself
Open 666-count-audit.csv in a spreadsheet: 4 rows plus a header, one for every verse containing a counted form. The headline_occurrences column sums to 4 (=SUM over it) and has 4 non-zero rows (=COUNTIF(range,">0")). The context_url column opens each verse.
Or recount from scratch. Download count-words.py and run it with Python 3:
python count-words.py --output-dir results
It uses only Python’s standard library, downloads the pinned KJV file, checks its SHA-256 (0c3b8afefa4efaa8bd72576682c8ad060e4ccb499e81943a9678de49ab9416ad) and writes every CSV and the method JSON. The KJV text was imported from aruljohn/Bible-kjv; its exact printing is unknown. Only verse text is counted: no headings, notes or Apocrypha.
To count another word with the same rule, use the Bible word counter.
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