The Hebrew alphabet — the aleph-bet — has 22 letters, written right to left, all of them consonants. Five of those letters take a distinct shape at the end of a word, and each letter carries a traditional numeric value used in gematria. This reference lays out all of that in one filterable table.
How it works
Each row shows the letter’s print glyph, its name, its final (sofit) form if it has one, its gematria value, and a rough transliteration. The values follow the standard mispar hechrachi system:
- Units — aleph (1) through tet (9)
- Tens — yod (10) through tsadi (90)
- Hundreds — qof (100), resh (200), shin (300), tav (400)
The five letters with final forms are kaf, mem, nun, pe, and tsadi. The final form is purely a positional spelling change; its gematria value is identical to the regular form. Click any row to copy the letter.
Example
The word שלום (shalom, “peace”) is built from shin (300), lamed (30), vav (6), and final mem (40). Because the mem comes at the end of the word it is written in its sofit form ם, and the letters’ gematria values sum to 376.
The 22 letters at a glance
The aleph-bet can be grouped by how the letters behave:
Letters with dual pronunciation (begadkephat tradition): Bet (ב/ב without dagesh = b vs. v), gimel (originally g vs. gh, now merged in Modern Hebrew), dalet (d vs. dh, merged), kaf (כ = k vs. כ without dagesh = kh), pe (פ = p vs. פ without dagesh = f), tav (originally t vs. th, merged). In Modern Israeli Hebrew only bet, kaf, and pe retain the double pronunciation distinction in everyday speech.
Letters with final forms: Kaf (כ→ך), mem (מ→ם), nun (נ→ן), pe (פ→ף), tsadi (צ→ץ). These five letters change shape only at the very end of a word. In all other positions the regular form is used.
Silent letters: Aleph (א) and ayin (ע) are technically consonants — glottal and pharyngeal stops respectively — but in Modern Hebrew both are largely silent. They still carry vowel marks and appear in spelling, and distinguishing them matters for Biblical and liturgical reading.
Look-alike pairs to watch: Dalet (ד) and resh (ר) look similar in some typefaces; the dalet has a small shoulder on the right. Bet (ב) and kaf (כ) with a dagesh look alike at small sizes; context and the dagesh dot distinguish them. He (ה) and het (ח) are sometimes confused by learners; he is open on the right while het is closed.
Notes
- Vowels are written as separate nikud marks; the 22 letters here are consonants.
- Letters with a dagesh dot can have a hard or soft sound, such as bet (b/v) and pe (p/f).
- Use the filter to jump to a letter by name, sound, or numeric value.
- For the gematria values of words, each letter’s value is simply added; the word שלום above sums to 300 + 30 + 6 + 40 = 376.