Who is the angel in Revelation 22:6, 16? Both of the verses echo the opening verse of Revelation, especially 22:6. The opening verse says that Jesus send and signified by His angel to His slave John, and earlier used the verb “show.” 22:6 states that the Lord sent His angel to show His . . . . Continue Reading »
Revelation speaks several times of the “synagogue of Satan,” which is the Jewish synagogue in opposition to Jesus. Is there a corresponding synagogue of God? Austin Farrer thinks so: “heaven is the synagogue of God, where the Almighty sits at the head of the elders, and where the . . . . Continue Reading »
At the beginning of each “letter” to the seven churches, Jesus identifies Himself with a descriptive phrase that goes back to the original vision of John in 1:12-20. The churches are judged and evaluated by the ideal human, Jesus. The following lists the connections: 1. Ephesus: stars . . . . Continue Reading »
The harlot’s sins are piled up as high as heaven (Revelation 18:5), like the evils of Sodom and the sins of Israel. The specific language draws on 2 Kings 3:3, which (in the LXX) speaks of the piling-up of the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel sin and is the only text in the . . . . Continue Reading »
All the nations, the angel says, have drunk the “wine of the passion of her fornication” (Revelation 18:3). What does this mean? In Revelation, the wine that the harlot drinks is the blood of the saints. She is drunk on that wine-blood, totters, stumbles, and falls. Her passion for the . . . . Continue Reading »
Tyre is monumental in the background of Revelation 17-18, which draws extensively on Ezekiel 26-28. If the chapter describes the destruction of the harlot-city Jerusalem, why is Tyre so much a part of the texture of the prophecy? Beale notes that Isaiah 23:17 is one of the rare instances where the . . . . Continue Reading »
Beale notes the connection between Revelation 18:1, which describes the glory of the angel lighting the earth, and Ezekiel 43:2: “the earth shone with his glory.” The LXX overlap is not strong, but the two passages are clearly connected in meaning. What’s striking is the . . . . Continue Reading »
Revelation 18 falls out in a fairly neat chiasm: A. Angel descending and illuminating the earth: announcing fall, 1-3 B. A second voice: Get out because of the double retribution for her sins, vv 4-8 C. Kings lament, vv 9-10 D. Merchants lament, vv 11-17a C’. Shipmasters and sailors lament, . . . . Continue Reading »
The twenty-four uses of the verb “fall” (Greek pipto ) are distributed in an interesting way through the book of Revelation. Initially, falling is an act of worship (1:17; 4:10; 5:8, 14; 7:11). Most of this falling is done in heaven (apart from John, 1:17). Through the next several . . . . Continue Reading »
Bauckham notes that the census of the sealed in Revelation 7 hearkens back to the censuses of Israel in the Old Testament, which were typically of a military character. He concludes that the numbered and sealed are an arm, sealed like the soldiers of a Roman legion with the mark of their commander. . . . . Continue Reading »
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