It’s that time of year! Your newsfeed may be filled with various prophecies of what the Jewish New Year 5783 holds, but have you wondered how people are deciphering these prophetic symbols and coming up with their meanings? As with any prophetic word, it is important that we test the words against scripture and what we know of God’s nature. We unpacked all this last few years for 5781 and 5782 but here’s a refresher for this year plus our prophetic insights for Rosh Hashanah and 5783.
Before reading on, take a minute and ask God what he is saying about 5783 and 2023. Write down what you hear. Anytime we want to seek God’s perspective on an issue, upcoming event, year, season, etc. It’s good to sit and just listen first before we start looking into symbolism and other signs that may sway our perspective or confirm our personal biases.
It also may be that God has a more personal word for you this year that is just for you, your family, or your region. Last year some people were hearing they needed to stock up while others had peace to not stock up. That doesn’t mean one set of folks were right and the others wrong. While there are more corporate words that apply broadly, it is important to follow what you hear God telling you for your situation and not what he’s telling someone else for theirs.
Take time for this, the post will be here whenever you’re ready to come back
Numbers, New Years, and Prophetic Words
What is Gematria?
Most of the words being given about 5783 prophetic meaning (and any other year) rely on a form of numerology using gematria. The Hebrew language does not have separate characters for numbers, so the letters themselves have assigned numeric values. Del gets into these number values in the third book in the Healing in the Hebrew Months series, looking at how these numbers correlate to musical frequencies. Gematria itself is not inherently good or bad, it’s just a way of communicating numeric values in the Hebrew language. Numerology using gematria (or any other numerology) can be good or bad, depending on how it’s being used.
Very simple forms of numerology are common in Christianity. Three representing the trinity, seven representing God’s completion or perfection in the days of creation, and ten representing law and authority as with the Ten Commandments. Recognizing symbolism in numbers throughout scripture is a great way to go deeper in your Bible study and have a new language for Holy Spirit to communicate through.
Other forms of numerology use the gematria number value of the letters to spell out words, or use the meanings of the letters themselves to derive significance. Besides having a numeric value, each of the Hebrew letters has pictographic meaning. Aleph in its most ancient form depicts an ox’s head and represents strength, leadership, and power. Lamed depicts a shepherd’s staff and represents guidance, teaching, control, and direction.
5783 Gematria and New Year Prophecies
With 5783 the gematria can be spelled out two ways:
This method uses the gematria for 5,000, 700, 80, 3
היןפג
These letters don’t really spell anything since they have a final form Nun in the middle, and even with a space don’t form any words. Even if you changed the final form Nun to a regular Nun it doesn’t spell any words. And regular Nun has a different numeric value.
But the letters themselves also have meaning:
ה Heh – Look, reveal, breath, window, eternity
י Yod – Work, throw, hand
ן Final Nun – Fish, seed, to sprout, offspring, heir, continue
פ Pey – Blow, scatter, edge, mouth
ג Gimel – Foot, camel, pride, divine purpose, important ideas
So from those letters’ meanings you could come up with all sorts of “prophetic” meanings: looking to our hands to grow the boundaries of our purpose, revealing the work that will continue to scatter our pride. The combinations could go on and on, but what is God highlighting as you ask him about these numbers, letters, and meanings?
This method uses the gematria for 5, 7, 8, 3
הזחג
Using this method it doesn’t spell out a word, but there are still the meanings of the individual letters:
ה Heh – Look, reveal, breath, window, eternity
ז Zayin – Foot, cut, nourish, weapon, sword, completeness, perfection
ח Chet – Outside, divide, half, enclosure, fence, new beginning, new creation
ג Gimel – Foot, camel, pride, divine purpose, important ideas
From these letters you could say 5783 will be a season of revealing our swords for a new beginning of divine purpose or a breath of outside camel feet. Just because there are meanings doesn’t mean they are meaningful 😉
Another way to interpret numerology is to add the numbers until you have a single number.
5+7+8+3 = 23
2+3 = 5
So the meanings associated with the number 5 would apply to the year 5783.
You could also then take that 5 and look at it through gematria. Heh ה represents the number five and the shape of the letter is regarded as a man with arms raised, often associated with worship.
You might also consider meanings from Strong’s concordance numbers. This method isn’t based on gematria, but is another form of basic numerology similar to looking for biblical references to a number. Like looking for verses 57:83 or mentions of that specific number in scripture. Strong’s is not scripture itself, but we can still explore this resource with Holy Spirit to see if there are meanings he wants to highlight. Each Strong’s number also lists the Bible verses that contain the word.
For Strong’s number 5783 the corresponding word is “ur” and it means to expose or lay bare. It’s interesting that last year 5782, Strongs number is also “ur” but a different word meaning to rouse or awaken. Habakuk 3:9 uses the 5783 “ur” to reference a bow being unsheathed, prepared for battle. So while being exposed sounds vulnerable, there is also a strength to being laid bare.
Don’t Forget Discernment
All of these meanings and more could be taken from 5783 and their gematria. The problem is that your own biases and perspectives can shape your interpretation strongly, or your sources could be wrong. And none of those meanings are actually prophetic, unless you’re exploring all of this with Holy Spirit as your guide and leaning into whatever he wants to communicate through it.
Interpreting symbolism doesn’t make something prophetic, hearing God’s voice is what makes it prophetic. Without God’s voice you’re simply practicing divination – operating out of your own earthly wisdom. But hear me clearly. I’m not saying that it is wrong to engage gematria as a layer of language for Holy Spirit to speak to us through. Scripture is full of symbolism and examples of God using symbols to speak to his people.
With the Hebrew calendar God set in motion layers upon layers of seasonal symbols and rhythms. What is wrong, is for us to take all those symbols, rhythms, language and prophesy from them without God actually speaking through them. It’s one thing to interpret symbols about the past, to examine data and structures and understand their meaning. That is what Del has done with the gematria values and musical frequency – she is exploring data that is already there. It’s an entirely different approach to take these symbolic meanings and then try to declare what they mean about the future.
Prophetic Words for 5783
So, what can we expect in 5783? It is fine to explore gematria and symbolic meanings in regards to the coming year, but it should all start from a place of listening to what God is saying. All that data above – is he saying anything about it or is it just data? His voice is what makes something prophetic, not the use of Hebrew symbolism and complicated interpretation (that would be gnosticism not prophecy).
Now go back to what you wrote down earlier – what was God telling you about 5783? Does any of that 5783 gematria make sense with what you heard from him? He may give you confirmations through gematria or other symbols, he may not. But the goal in any prophetic word should be to connect with the heart of God, not to find layered secret meanings.
Please take time to test any word you hear. Maybe it’s a good word, it just doesn’t apply to you, maybe it’s mixed with the writer’s own perspectives, maybe part of it is good but part of it is a bit off. No matter who the word comes from – test it. Does it agree with scripture and what we know of the nature of God? Pray about it. What is Holy Spirit saying to you about it? Does it resonate with your spirit or feel off? Do others using discernment to test the word agree with it as well?
Now all that said, here are what I (Leah) have heard when I’ve gone through the exercise of listening to what God has to say about 5783. Take or leave any of it and talk to God about it yourself. I’m not declaring any “thus saith the Lords” I’m just sharing where my own process of listening has taken me.
What We’ve Heard
Leah:
As I was praying about 5783 and 2023 God highlighted this prophetic painting and word from a lady at my church:
“A very special man inherited a huge amount of land. He had a passion to raise bees, and he knew there would be an abundance of honey. The land would be rich with continual pollination. He had a vision of what that all would look like, and could see the land full of bee hives and where they all could be. But he decided for the first season he would wait to set up his vision, and rather would keep his eyes always attentive until he saw where the clusters of bees would begin to gather. Then he would attend to those bees in that area, equipping them with exactly what that particular cluster needed to flourish. He did this again and again, and the land was incredibly prosperous.” –Laura Gfelner
This prophetic painting and accompanying explanation captures well what I too am sensing for the year ahead. There’s a shift coming from expansion to depth, in personal, corporate spiritual, relational, and natural ways. Words like “recession” and “inflation” swirl in our news cycles right now, but what I’m hearing is deepening, maturing. It can feel like a recession to stop the constant expanding and building towards the next thing. Don’t let the financial issues in the news cycle dominate your views and thought life. Adjust your vision to see what God is up to – it may take a spiritual magnifying glass or even a microscope to see the work he’s doing at a core, DNA level, but what seems small is actually foundational for future exponential growth. This season is for tending to what God has already given us. “What is in your hand?” (Exodus 4:2) comes to mind but with this year’s Gimel representing the foot linking our walking with our doing. Are our hands and feet going in the same direction? This year is about walking out what is already in our hands. The shifts taking place in the next year will be cataclysmic. Little shifts, hidden maturing and deepening that leads to massive growth and abundance in the future.
One thing is for certain as we enter this new Hebrew year – the rhythms God set in place in his calendar are still in motion.
Leah Lesesne, MA
AuthorIf you’ve enjoyed this post from Leah, check out her books the Healing in the Hebrew Months: A Biblical Understanding of Each Season’s Emotional Healing and Miracles and Dedication: Christian Devotions for the Festival of Lights.