4s, 5s, and 7s

John hears a loud voice from heaven, described in elaborate terms (Revelation 14:2). It is like the voice of many waters, of great thunder, like the voice of harpists harping their harps. This is a wonderful little overloaded description of the sound of the singers who are singing from heaven.

The numerological pattern of verse is intricate. The word “voice” or “sound” (phone) is used four times, since the heavenly voice resounds to the four corners of heaven, to the four corners of the earth.

The phrases describing the voice are threefold (Trinitarian?), but within that threefold description are seven terms: waters, many, great, thunder, harpists, harping, harps. The fourfold voice stretches to the corners of heaven and earth, and it has a sevenfold reach.

This voice is not the voice of God, but it resembles the voice of God. It is like the voice of Jesus at the beginning of Revelation, a voice like the sound of many waters (1:15). Cherubim speak with a voice of thunder (6:1), and there are speaking thunders in chapter 10 as well. But now the voice of the company of the martyrs resembles the voice of God and of the angels. The voice of the company of the Lamb is an echo of the voice of the Lamb Himself, and the voice of the Father. 

John’s description of the 144,000 is also structured by fives and sevens. In terms of content, they are characterized by five virtues: They are chaste; they follow the Lamb; they are firstfruits; they do not lie; they are blameless. Five is often the number of military organization. That is fitting for the context, for the 144,000 constitute an army of martyrs.

Overlaying this fivefold structure is a sevenfold pattern. John’s description of the chastity of the 144,000 is double: They are not defiled with women, and they are chaste. the third description is also double: they are purchased as firstfruits. The list of virtues could thus be read as a list of even: not defiled; chaste; follow the Lamb; purchased; firstfruits; no lie; blameless.

One of the conclusions to be drawn here is that Revelation is patterned by sevens not only on the macro-scale (seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls) but at the micro-scale (numerically significant word patterns at the sentence level).