Welcome

This site is about one number: seventy-two. It is a place to read, check sources and think. It does not ask you to believe anything, and it does not promise any result from reading a Name, saying a word or holding a number in mind.

What "the 72" means here

Most often, "the 72" means the Shem HaMephorash, a Hebrew phrase usually translated "the explicit Name" or "the distinguished Name." In Jewish tradition it names a set of 72 three-letter Names read out of three verses in Exodus (14:19, 20 and 21). Each of those verses has exactly 72 Hebrew letters. The medieval commentator Rashi explains the reading: the first verse forward, the middle verse backward, the last verse forward, one letter from each, seventy-two times.

This is Kabbalistic and rabbinic tradition. It belongs to that tradition, and we credit it by name: the Torah text as preserved by the Masoretes, the Mishnah, the Talmud, Rashi, and the scholars who wrote about it later, including Wilhelm Bacher in the Jewish Encyclopedia (1906).

Why the number recurs

Seventy-two also appears outside Exodus:

• The Septuagint. An ancient story says 72 elders, six from each of the twelve tribes, translated the Torah into Greek in 72 days.
• The Gospel of Luke. Jesus sends out a further group "two by two." Some manuscripts say seventy, others seventy-two.
• Confucius. Chinese tradition speaks of his 72 disciples.
• The sky. A 360-degree circle divides into 72 slices of five degrees, and the slow wobble of the Earth's axis moves the equinoxes about one degree every 72 years.

Some of these are linked by history, some by arithmetic (6 times 12, 360 divided by 5), and some by the old idea that seventy or seventy-two stands for "everyone." The pages below keep those strands apart, so you can see which is fact, which is interpretation, and which is a symbolic reading.

Pages on this site

• The 72 Names: all seventy-two, in Hebrew, with the letter names, the names later tradition gave them, and how we checked the list against the Hebrew text.
• The 72 Across Traditions: sourced examples from scripture, history and astronomy.
• Severything's 72 Laws: a contemplative set of 72 one-line principles written by the site owner. These are a personal framework, not part of any religious tradition.

How to read this site

Every page separates three kinds of statement:

• Fact (Column A): something a reader can check, with the source linked.
• Interpretation (Column B): a reading of the facts, labeled as interpretation.
• Symbolic reading (Column C): a spiritual or contemplative meaning, labeled as symbolic.

Nothing here is medical, psychological or religious advice.

Sources

• Exodus 14:19 to 21, Hebrew text, Sefaria: https://www.sefaria.org/Exodus.14.19-21
• Rashi on Sukkah 45a, Sefaria: https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Sukkah.45a
• Wilhelm Bacher, "Shem ha-Meforash", The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906): https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13542
• The Letter of Aristeas, R. H. Charles (ed.), 1913, Wesley Center Online: https://wesley.nnu.edu/sermons-essays-books/noncanonical-literature/noncanonical-literature-ot-pseudepigrapha/the-letter-of-aristeas/
• Luke 10:1, New International Version with footnote, Bible Gateway: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010%3A1&version=NIV
• Mark Csikszentmihalyi, "Confucius", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confucius/
• "Precession of the equinoxes", Encyclopaedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/science/precession-of-the-equinoxes