Revelation Through Old Testament Eyes

Tremper Longman III

• Publisher: Kregel Academic
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780825444739
• eBook ISBN: 9780825487668
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

The book of Revelation simply cannot be understood apart from the Old Testament

Through Old Testament Eyes is a new kind of commentary series that illuminates the Old Testament backgrounds, allusions, patterns, and references saturating the New Testament. The structure and content of the Old Testament were second nature to the New Testament authors and their audiences, but today's readers have no reference point for understanding their intricate role in the New Testament. Bible teachers, preachers, and students committed to understanding Scripture will gain insight through these rich Old Testament connections, which clarify puzzling passages and explain others in fresh ways.

The images of Revelation--like a seven-sealed scroll, four horsemen bringing destruction and death, locusts from the Abyss, and more--often seem hopelessly complex to today's readers and have led to egregious misunderstanding and misinterpretations. But as Tremper Longman demonstrates in Revelation Through Old Testament Eyes, this confusion arises from unfamiliarity with symbolism that Revelation's first readers readily comprehended. In large part, the imagery arises from first-century AD Greco-Roman culture and from the Old Testament, with its own background in ancient Near Eastern literature. Through its unmistakable Old Testament connections, Revelation exhorts readers to persevere in the present and place their hope in God for the future.

Avoiding overly technical discussions and interpretive debates to concentrate on Old Testament influences, Revelation Through Old Testament Eyes combines rigorous, focused New Testament scholarship with deep respect for the entire biblical text.

COMMENTARY

REVELATION 1

Introduction to the Book and the Seven Letters (1–3)

Superscription and Blessing (1:1–3)

1:1 The revelation from Jesus Christ. The term “revelation” translates the Greek word apokalupsis, which modern scholars have used as a genre label for books like Revelation, most notably the book of Daniel that provides an Old Testament background to many of the themes, motifs, and metaphors in Revelation, as we will note in the commentary to follow. In addition to Daniel and Revelation, some other noncanonical books (including 2 Esdras; Book of Enoch; 2 Baruch) have been identified as apocalyptic or as having apocalyptic features (Jubilees). Apocalyptic books speak about God’s judgment in the future, and ultimately the end of time, as a way of providing hope during present circumstances. The authors of these books present their visions to the faithful to comfort them during their struggles. Apocalyptic books utilize vivid figurative language in part because they are speaking about the distant future and in part to capture the readers’ attention. Many of the metaphors and similes of Revelation have a background in the Old Testament and the broader ancient Near East. The noun apokalupis is in genitive relationship with the name Jesus Christ (“the revelation of Jesus Christ”), and the NIV has rightly caught the correct sense of the genitive that it indicates this is a revelation from Jesus, not really about Jesus—though of course Jesus will play a central role in this vision of the future.

What must soon take place. As in Daniel 2:28–29: “there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the vision that passed through your mind as you were lying in bed are these: ‘As your Majesty was lying there, your mind turned to things to come, and the revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen’.” As Osborne puts it, “the prophecies of Daniel are seen throughout the book as coming to final fulfillment.”¹ In other words, what was in the distant future to Daniel now has a sense of immediacy to it.

By sending his angel to his servant John. In Old Testament prophecy, God spoke directly to the prophet who then was tasked with taking the message to the people with the purpose of eliciting repentance. In Revelation, and Daniel before it, God gave his apocalyptic seer a vision and then sent an angel to provide an interpretation (e.g., Dan 9:21–22). The purpose of the vision was to comfort the faithful.

1:3 Blessed is the one. The conferring of blessings of this sort may be found in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament (Pr 3:13; 8:34; 28:14, see also Ps 1:1) and encourages wise behavior and attitudes with the inducement of benefits. (See “Revelation Through Old Testament Eyes: Psalms” at Rev 12:5.) There are seven blessings conferred in the book of Revelation, starting with this one (see also Rev 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14). Perhaps there is significance that the blessing-sayings intensify toward the end of the book as it works through judgment toward a description of the new heavens and earth.

The words of this prophecy. In the immediately previous section we mentioned the difference between Old Testament prophetic books and apocalyptic books like Daniel and Revelation. Here “prophecy” is used in the broad sense concerning matters pertaining to the future, both near-term future as well as the more distant future.

Because the time is near. At the end of the book of Daniel, after Daniel had received four visions concerning the future, an angelic figure tells him, “Go your way, Daniel, because the words are rolled up and sealed until the time of the end” (Da 12:9). “The time” that is said to be near in this verse is clearly the “time of the end.” No longer are the words to be “rolled up and sealed” as at the time of Daniel, but now are to be read aloud and heard.

What the Structure Means: A Letter, an Apocalypse, and a Prophecy (Rev 1:1–8)

Revelation 1:4 sounds like the opening of other New Testament letters. Compare Paul’s letter to the Galatians as an example. The letter begins when Paul identifies himself as the writer of the letter (Gal 1:1) and then identifies the recipients of the letter (“to the churches in Galatia,” 1:2). Then he confers a benediction on the Galatians by saying “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (1:3). In the same way, after an opening superscription and blessing to be discussed in a moment, John identifies himself as the writer and goes on to identify the recipients of his letter (“to the seven churches in the province of Asia”). He follows this with a benediction like the one found in the letter to the Galatians, “Grace and peace to you” (Rev 1:4).

Unlike the letter to the Galatians and other letters in the New Testament, this epistolary opening does not begin the book of Revelation. Rather, the book starts with a superscription and a blessing. The superscription identifies the book as a “revelation from Jesus Christ” (1:1) and explains that God made it known to John by sending an angel to him. The Greek word here translated “revelation” is apokalupsis, and as explained in the note to 1:1 gives its name to a genre of literature called apocalyptic. Thus it’s not sufficient to call Revelation a letter like all other letters in the New Testament. The opening also signals to us that it is an apocalypse, a highly symbolic depiction of the future, most similar to the book of Daniel. Though specifically an apocalypse, the book uses what might be considered a broader term, “prophecy,” to refer to the contents of the letter (1:3). A prophecy is a vision of the future, usually a more near-term future, to speak to the issues of the prophet’s contemporary audience. For that reason, the prologue here pronounces a blessing on those who hear and “take to heart” (1:3) the message that is communicated by this book.

That said, this apocalypse/prophecy is communicated to the seven churches in a letter. So we are not surprised that Revelation ends like most other New Testament letters with another benediction. Galatians ends when Paul writes: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ will be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen” (6:18), and Revelation ends by saying: “The grace of our Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen” (22:21).

Greetings and Doxology (1:4–8)

1:4 John, To the seven churches in the province of Asia. After the prologue to the book (1:1–3) which speaks in the third person, John now begins his letter with what is a recognizable salutation to his intended readers, the seven churches in the provinces of Asia. In the Old Testament, seven is the number of completion or perfection. These seven churches may be representative of the larger number of churches in Asia. The location of these churches indicates that Asia refers to what we call Asia Minor, present-day Turkey, particularly on the western side.

From him who is, and who was, and who is to come. God exists in the present, the past, and the future. As often pointed out, the background appears to be God’s revelation of his covenantal name, Yahweh, at his meeting with Moses at the burning bush. At that time, God responds to Moses’ request for his name by saying, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you’” (Ex 3:14). John here reflects the Septuagint rendering of “I am” (ho on; I am the One who is”).² One might expect the order, past (“who was”), present (“who is”), and then “future” (“who is to come”) like at Rev 4:8), but here the emphasis might be on the present as a note of assurance to the immediate recipients of the letter. See also note at 1:8.

The seven spirits before his throne. The NIV footnote suggests that rather than seven spirits, we should think “seven spirits” is a reference to the “sevenfold Spirit,” namely the Holy Spirit in all his magnificent perfection and completion. Many commentators believe that there is a reference here to Isaiah 11:2, which lists seven attributes of the spirit of God. From this comes the suggestion of a trinitarian reference in this verse and the next.³ However, more likely is Metzger’s view that this is a reference to seven angels, who according to Tobit 12:15 are in the immediate presence of God.⁴ (See “Revelation 4 Through Old Testament Eyes: God on His Throne.”)

What the Structure Means: The Number Seven in Revelation

The number seven permeates the book of Revelation. There are seven letters to seven churches (1:4; 2–3), seven spirits before the throne (1:4), seven golden lampstands (1:12), seven stars in the glorified Christ’s right hand (1:16, 20), a scroll with seven seals (6:1–8:5), a Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes (5:6), seven angels blowing seven horns (8:2; 8:6–11:19), seven bowls filled with plague (15–16), seven thunders (10:4); a dragon with seven heads and seven crowns (12:3), a sea beast with seven heads (13:1), seven blessings (1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14), a city with seven hills (17:9), and seven kings (17:10).

This symbolic use of the number seven has an Old Testament background and signifies completion, totality, and/or perfection. The root of this Old Testament symbol is most likely found in the seven-day week of creation (Ge 1) that becomes one way Hebrews determined a particular period (that continues to today). Examples of the symbolic use of seven in the Old Testament signifying completion, totality, perfection include the seven good cows and the seven ugly cows that represent seven years of plenty and seven famine in Pharaoh’s dream (Ge 41:25–27), sprinkling the blood of a sin offering seven times on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:14, 19), and the Israelites under Joshua marching around Jericho for seven days and seven times on the seventh day (Jos 6:3–4).

The use of symbolic numbers like seven is particularly common in apocalyptic literature. Symbolic numbers should not be pressed literally in a quantitative sense. Communicating the idea of completion leaves ambiguous whether only seven churches were the intended recipient of this letter, or whether there would only be three cycles of seven discrete judgments.

1:5 From Jesus Christ. The Greek title Christ is equivalent to the Hebrew mashiah or Messiah, and points to Jesus as the fulfillment of the anticipated anointed king who came to rescue his people (2 Sa 7:16–17).

The faithful witness. As Tabb points out, Psalm 89:37 points to the moon as the “faithful witness in the sky” whose testimony is that God will assure that David’s line will endure “before me like the sun” (Ps 89:36). Tabb goes on to say that “John goes further than Psalm 89 by identifying the risen King Jesus himself as the faithful witness,”⁵ since he is also the one whose very self assures that David’s line will endure forever.

Firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. In Colossians 1:15, Paul calls Jesus “the firstborn over all creation,” an obvious allusion to Proverbs 8:22–26. But here he is called the firstborn of the dead, not because he was the first person to die but because he was the first person to die and be “born” from the dead through the resurrection (see also 1 Co 15:20; Col 1:18). While Jesus had brought Lazarus back from the dead to show his divine power over death (Jn 11:38–44), Lazarus, unlike Jesus, died again.

The reference to Jesus as “the ruler of the kings of the earth” seems to be a reference to Psalm 89:27, where the psalmist remembers the divine announcement that David would be “the most exalted of the kings of the earth” after saying that David was appointed as God’s firstborn (and thus also providing a background to the reference to firstborn in this verse). The psalm is actually a lament bemoaning the decline of the Davidic monarchy, calling on God to restore their fortunes. Of course, neither David nor any of the kings in his line who ruled from Jerusalem were ever considered the most exalted of kings except perhaps in God’s eyes. But it is Jesus, David’s greater son, who assumes that privilege due to his death and resurrection.

1:6 Has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father. At Mount Sinai, God told Moses, “although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex 19:5–6). Israel’s special status was not to sp...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Series Preface
• Introduction and Main Theme of the Book of Revelation
• Outline of Revelation
• Commentary
• Acknowledgments
• List of What the Structure Means
• List of through Old Testament Eyes
• List of Going Deeper
• Abbreviations
• Select Bibliography
• End Notes