Mashiach, 'anointed', is 358 — the same as nachash, the serpent of Eden. The tradition reads the identity as the whole drama in one number: the messiah is the serpent healed, the same energy that in the garden accused and in the end redeems. The word is the ordinary title of the anointed king and priest in the Hebrew Bible, and the eschatological sense is later than most of its uses.