The Tetragrammaton's 26 is the number against which most other numbers in the tradition are measured: it is the value of the name, and echad plus ahavah (13+13) is exactly its halves. Because the name is not pronounced, its value is one of the few ways the tradition lets it be handled at all, which makes its gematria a devotional practice and not only an exegetical one. A bare '26' in a Kabbalistic text is usually the name written discreetly.