In the End is My Beginning

In the End is My Beginning May 22, 2014

An elder tells John to stop weeping because someone worthy has been found in heaven (Revelation 5:5). The worthy one is the victorious lion who is from the tribe of Judah, the root of David.

How does “root of David” (he riza David) fit grammatically? Is it an explanation of “Judah” or a description of the Lion? The latter seems preferable. The pattern throughout Revelation 4-5 (and elsewhere in the book) is to offer triadic (not dyadic) descriptions of Jesus and the Father. Here is another one: Lion, Judahite, Root-of-David. 

The triad moves from general to specific: He is the Lion who has overcome; what’s more, the Lion who is from Judah; what’s more, the lion who is the Root of David.

Commentators note that the “root of David” imagery goes back to Isaiah 11, where a Spirit-filled servant of Yahweh springs from Jesse (v. 1) and is also the “root of Jesse” (v. 10). He is both seed and source, first and last, Alpha and Omega of the Davidic dynasty. He is father of the father of David, yet also David’s ultimate descendant. 

And the same is now being said of the Lion. He is of the tribe of Judah, and Judah Himself, the Judah who is the root from which the Davidic branch sprang. Before Judah was, the Lion might say, “I am.”

And the late appearing of the Lion doesn’t prevent Him from being first. This might be temporal play, a way of highlighting the Alpha-Omeganess of the Lion. But it might be a straightforward way of talking about time and the priority of future over past: The Lion comes at the end of the Davidic line, but the end secures and roots the beginning. There is no meaning to the Davidic dynasty at all unless it comes to this end, a Lion who can take the book and open its seals. 

There is no source unless there is also supplement and finality.


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