The Book of Jeremy

I knocked again and called a little louder, “Grandma?”

“Yes, dear.” The video paused, and she nimbly came to the screen door.

“Do you know any Hebrew?”

She opened the screen. “A little, why?”

“Well, I want to figure out if our president is the Antichrist. So, I figure if I use the numbers of the Hebrew letters, it could tell us.”

“That’s an interesting idea. Come on inside. Let’s see, so you want to use gematria to test his name?”

“What’s gematria?”

“That’s the name for doing what you just described, using the numerical value of Hebrew letters to help you learn more about something. Let’s go sit down.” They went to her kitchen table. “Pappa’s still at work, and I have some time before I need to start dinner.” She took his paper. “Let’s see what you have.”

They worked for a while, then Grandma said, “There are so many possible combinations, this is going to take a while.” She looked over the papers. “We’ve tried his full name, then each name individually, and there are some letters where we have a choice of which one to use.”

I rubbed my head. “This is harder than I thought. Why can’t there be just one letter in Hebrew for one letter in English?”

“That would be too easy. God only lets you in on His secrets if you are willing to work for it.”