Eamon Younis: Findings, Seals, Trumpets, And Bowls: Variations Upon The Theme Of Covenant Rupture And Restoration In The Book Of Revelation

By Gordon Campbell

[Gordon Campbell is Professor of New Testament at the Free Faculty of Reformed Theology in Aix-en-Provence.]

I. Introduction

Despite the lack of a scholarly consensus concerning the formal complexities of the Book of Revelation, many interpreters agree that in chs. 1—16 a basic structural framework is provided by a compositional sequence of four successive septets and their interlocking texts: The risen one delivers seven verdicts to churches, after which in three largely parallel series of sevenfold calamities the Lamb opens seals and seven angels blow trumpets and pour out bowls.[1]

The present article offers a literary-theological reading of Rev 1—16 that assumes the uncontroversial formal unity of the sequence (four septets) and argues for its corresponding thematic cohesiveness (variations upon one programmatic idea). By a musical analogy, I treat the inaugural septet of oracles as being both formally and thematically an overture for which the seals, trumpets, and bowls provide threefold symphonic variations. I contend that both the formal idea (four septets) and the controlling theme (covenant violation, repentance, and renewal) originate in the Old Testament, in a literary antecedent in the Pentateuch. Therefore, in pursuing an inner-textual thematic trajectory through the entire sequence, I will consider simultaneously Revelation’s sophisticated inter-textual assimilation of prior revelation.[2]

I submit that the essential formal template and basic thematic content reproduced and greatly expanded by Revelation’s four septets derive from the second part of Lev 26.[3] The chapter culminates in two passages focusing on the Lord’s covenant provision for Israel. The first (Lev 26:9–13) assumes Israel’s obedience to the terms of the covenant, for which Lev 26:1–8 details some of the benefits, but the second (Lev 26:40–45) envisages the Lord’s remembering and renewing his covenant faithfulness to a people engaged in persistent rebellious violation of covenant responsibilities. Here, a disobedient Israel’s change of heart may require successive punishments for sin (Lev 26:14–39) before a stubborn people is brought to its senses. Were repentance not forthcoming, then corrective judgment would fall—as indicated by the fourfold refrain of the Masoretic and Septuagint texts (Lev 26:18, 21, 24, 28):

ויספתי ליסרה אתכם שׁבע על־חטאתיכם (v. 18)

ויספתי עליכם מכה שׁבע כחטאתיכם (v. 21)

והכיתי אתכם גם־אני שׁבע על־חטאתיכם (v. 24)

ויסרתי אתכם אף־אני שׁבע על־חטאתיכם (v. 28)

παιδεῦσαι ὑμᾶς ἑπτάκις ἐπὶ ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν (v. 18)

προσθήσω ὑμῖν πληγὰς ἑπτὰ κατὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας ὑμῶν (v. 21)

πατάξω ὑμᾶς κἀγὼ ἑπτάκις ἀντὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ὑμῶν (v. 24)

παιδεύσω ὑμᾶς ἐγὼ ἑπτάκις κατὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας ὑμῶν (v. 28)

I will demonstrate how Revelation’s four septets reproduce the form, content, and function of the Levitical source text[4] in four sevenfold judgments characterized by increasing severity (reflecting mounting rebellion) and calculated to bring to repentance the church, drawn from Israel and the nations. Penitence, accompanied by obedient faith, is the requisite human response to divine faithfulness if the covenant is to work for its beneficiaries; accordingly, the four septets punctuate the ups and downs of the Lamb’s followers—the risen Lord’s church—as they struggle to enter into their full covenant inheritance in heaven-sent Jerusalem.

II. The First Septet of Findings for Churches: (Rev 1:1–8, 9–20;) 2:l-3:22[5]

From the start (1:1–2) Revelation carefully establishes a context of covenantal mediation. The unveiling originates in God’s desire to communicate with his servants (δούλοι) among humankind. This revelation is called ἀποκάλυψσις ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, because it is Messiah Jesus who, as being uniquely “God and with God,”[6] can mediate (ἐσήμανεν) his message via an angel and via John. The seer is himself a δούλος—of Jesus,[7] this time—and the word from God to Messiah, his revealer, is also μαρτυρία ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, heard by John personally (ὅσα εἶδεν). Messiah is above all the Faithful Witness (1:5) whose legal testimony will be decisive when the heavenly tribunal examines the earthly covenant partners.

Thus a legal framework is carefully made to structure the relationship between God and humankind, with Messiah Jesus as guarantor through his saving death and resurrection (1:5). At the end, the same framework is just as meticulously recalled, for 22:16 (where Jesus testifies in his own name) harks back in a condensed form to the dispatch of an angel sent to the churches with the solemn declaration that the book contains; then in 22:18–20 various judicial formulae, familiar from Deuteronomy (cf. Deut 4:2 and 12:32), form the document’s final clauses, declare it to be incapable of modification, and give it a stamp of authenticity (μαρτυρῶ. . .; ἐαν τις ἐπιθῇ. . ., ἐπιθήσει. . .; ἐάν τις ἀφέλῇ. . .; ἀφελεῖ. . .; λέγει ὁ μαρτυρῶν. . .). Finally, a double dire warning guards against trying to add to or subtract from its message by threatening the plagues the book describes (22:18) instead of its promised blessings (22:19)— this is an abbreviated closing reference to the sanctions that apply to the new covenant.

By giving his own life, the covenant mediator creates the conditions necessary to sinful humanity’s full reinstatement in a proper relation to a holy God. The redemption of Christians in Roman Asia is assured by Jesus, who thus establishes their status as a chosen people: Even as Israel was designated a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exod 19:6) when Yahweh was about to reveal his law for regulating their relation to him, so also the addressees of this revelation, in a renewed covenant,[8] are made a βασιλείαν, ἱερεῖς τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρὶ αὐτοῦ, 1:6 (or in the variant sung by the twenty-four elders, τῷ θεῷ ἡμῶν βασιλείαν καὶ ἱερεῖς, 5:10). The one who bestows this reign and priesthood upon them is identified as coming on clouds, as pierced, and as an object of lamentation (1:7); this recalls Dan 7:13, where the Ancient of Days makes the Son of Man his accredited representative, and Zech 12:10, whose context (12:10–13:9) includes a scenario where God’s spokesmen suffer violence in the house of their supposed covenanted friends (13:6b) prior to a prophecy of covenant renewal (13:9).

In Rev 1, the prospect of covenant relationship to God has both positive and negative overtones: Positively, the first of many bursts of praise is offered to the risen one by the faithful for the covenant blessings he bestows (l:5b–6); negatively, 1:7 carries a warning in the picture of earth’s tribes belatedly lamenting the crucified one. This is covenant choice, with faithfulness or rebellion the only options; in continuity with Israel’s story, Revelation narrates only loyalty to or rejection of God’s reign and Messiah, with no third or neutral way.[9]

The seven lampstands (1:12–13, 20) evoke the lamps and seven-branched candlestick of Tabernacle worship (Exod 25:31, 37) described for Moses in the covenant ratification narrated by Exod 24. The presentation of the risen Messiah in the inaugural vision (1:12–16), locating him amid the burning lamp-stands and characterizing him in part with fire, reaches back to the revelation of the burning bush (Exod 3:2–4:17), to the Sinai covenant before a mountain ablaze (Exod 19:18–19), and to the conviction that Yahweh is a fire (Deut 4:24; Ps 97:3; Ezek 1:4). Does John mean us to perceive this figure as the Mosaic prophet whom Israel, in terror of the fire, sought as God’s promised spokesman (Deut 18:15–18)? At any rate, declarations first by God (1:8) then by Messiah (1:17–18) underline the authority of the divine partners to the covenant—with whom should be associated the Spirit (2:7; etc.) or seven spirits (1:4; etc.)—and thereby lend authenticity to a revelation which John must write down and pass on (1:11, 19).[10] The human signatory of the renewed covenant, and intended recipient of the revelation, is clearly identified as the sevenfold church (1:11; 2:1; etc.) figured as a golden lampstand because her essential calling is encounter with God in worship (1:12, 20).

Following the setting of the scene, focused upon the mediator of the new covenant and upon the blessings he bestows, seven solemn proclamations (2:1—3:22) authorized by Messiah himself (τάδε λέγει, 2:1; etc.) are addressed to the community representative of the new covenant.[11] I shall demonstrate below how these findings take the form of indivisible mini covenant lawsuits[12] that prosecute the terms of an existing relationship to the Messiah, Jesus, who is mediator and revealer of the divine will. A detailed audit of the churches’ life reveals them to be judicially innocent or culpable. This examination is carried out by the one who, as their sovereign, is perfectly acquainted with their situation as vassals (οἶδα [(σου) (τὰ ἒργα)], 2:2; etc.),[13] loves them (1:5), and walks among their lampstands (1:13): His verdict is final.

In each case this inventory forms the basis for the future. Blessings awaiting the one who perseveres take precedence over conditional curses because the reward for faithfulness, systematically promised to the “victors” (2:7, 10–11, 17, 28; 3:3–5, 12, 21), is set within the grasp of even the worst of wrongdoers, if only they will repent. Repentance is the mechanism which insures the reciprocal obedience and faithfulness of the weaker, wayward covenant partner; repentance allows the Lord, the covenant superior, to show steadfast grace to his sinful people. Indeed, conditional repentance is the hinge upon which Revelation’s whole plot turns, for the suspense centers on whether what is promised to the seven assemblies in the inaugural septet will be granted in the closing visions,[14] allowing the covenant God to keep his promises.

The covenant has one beneficiary—the church—so a single message (albeit with seven closely paralleled component parts) shapes the opening septet. The oracle addressed to Ephesus accuses that church representatively of abandoning its first love (2:4); charging the first church, like Jerusalem of old,[15] with unfaithfulness to the covenant reminds all seven of the Old Testament image, so dear to the prophets, of a marriage between God and his people.[16 ]And more positively, when the seven-messages-in-one culminate in Laodicea’s prospect of sharing a covenant meal to which all are invited (anticipating the wedding banquet that the Lord Jesus will share with the partner who is ready to welcome him, 3:20), this assures all the churches of the faithful love with which the Bridegroom loves them (3:19).

The first septet reflects the risen Messiah’s thorough investigation of the current state of the covenant. In conclusion he presents himself to Laodicea as ὁ Αμήν, ὁ μάρτυς ὁ πιστὸς καὶ ἀληθινός, ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς κτίσεως[17] τοῦ θεοῦ (3:14), the one who may assess her fidelity and, in the case of covenant renewal, invite her to attend the new Passover shared by Messiah and people (3:20). An assessor who walks among the gilt lampstands or stars, holds them in his hand, and has the power to remove them if he so wish (1:13, 16, 20; 2:1, 5), clearly enjoys proximity to his church; this adds to the seriousness of the review he is undertaking. The reprise, oracle by oracle, of the risen Lord’s characteristics from the inaugural vision (1:12–20), highlights what is at stake—the state of each church’s relationship to her Messiah.[18]

Several elements—nearly all constant—combine to evoke the atmosphere of a covenant audit:

The promise (and for five of the assemblies, the threat[19]) which Messiah’s coming will mean for each church (2:5, 16, 25; 3:3, 11, 20; also 2:10 assumes such a coming);
The charges levelled at most churches for their failings (2:4; etc.) with the prospect of punishment (or twice, the contrasting absence of any such charge);
the constant refrain which tunes in the ear and awakens responsibility (ὁ ἔχων οὖς κτλ., 2:7, 11, 17, 28; 3:6, 13, 22);
a series of exhortations to repent (2:5, 16, 21, 22; 3:3);[20]
Messiah’s self-designation, in the central oracle, as scrutineer (2:23)—recalling the Lord’s lawsuit against Judah (Jer 17:10)—together with the stress placed upon the power, truth, and reliability of his judgments (ἡ ῥομφαία τοῦ στόματος μου, 2:16; ὁ ἀληθινός, 3:7; ὁ ἀμήν, 3:14);
actions associated with entering into a covenant, like receiving a garment (3:4, 5; 3:18; cf. 1 Sam 18:4)[21] or a new name (2:17; 3:12—cf. Abram, renamed Abraham, Gen 17:5; Isa 65:15); and lastly
first mention of a covenant register bearing its participants’ names (3:5).

Whilst the findings assure the churches that their Lord will keep his covenant promises, as in the old covenant people’s long and checkered history, covenant membership and enjoyment of its benefits are conditional upon the fulfillment of the people’s part—including repentance and a return to covenant faithfulness whenever disobedience has occurred. Indeed, the audit is rooted in salvation history in such a way as to show both continuity and discontinuity between the renewed covenant set in place by the mediator and the old economy during which it had germinated and grown.[22] The risen Lord grounds his assessment of the churches’ situation in Roman Asia in episodes, themes, and issues taken from successive stages of God’s ancient project for humanity, whose progress the Hebrew Scriptures recount, and also in the experience of those to whom he had already revealed himself and bound himself by his word.[23] What God has now done in Jesus their Messiah and in the church reconfigures the covenant and brings it to fruition,[24] so that the Christians of Roman Asia can rehearse their own story in terms of the story of God’s dealings with Israel, whose heirs the churches are taken to be.[25] Allusions to various phases of old covenant history are factored into the individual findings and their related conditional promises, as analogies linking Israel’s rocky road of sin and repentance and the addressees’ own pathway, in Messiah’s footsteps, towards heavenly Jerusalem. Other instances in the book will bring up to date an old story and form the backdrop to a prophetic tale centered around the inauguration of the new covenant.[26]

The seven solemn findings for churches are organically linked to key texts in Israel’s Scriptures whose function is to be covenant records, as convergent research undertaken from very different interpretive standpoints shows.[27] Some see the whole book (or main sections of it) as a covenant treaty[28] but, at the very least, concerns and terminology betraying the covenant lawsuit or rîb are to be found.[29] Revelation 1:1–20 constitutes the preamble introducing any document designed to regulate and, especially, renew a covenant subsequent to a breach.[30] It serves to underline the lordship of the sovereign who offers a covenant arrangement in two ways: (1) by stressing two complementary aspects of his suzerainty, his transcendence, marking off and underlining his superiority over the vassal, and his immanence, assuring the inferior covenant partner of his proximity and his protection; and (2) by recapitulating liberating actions that flow from these two qualities and prove God’s favour to his covenant people.

In conformity with this model, Revelation first identifies and characterizes the suzerain and the mediator, then highlights the redeemer’s proximity to and intimacy with the recipients (1:5–6) and develops a glorious christophany (1:14–17). The risen one’s various titles in the preamble recur as headings to the messages (the exception is 3:14), giving each oracle its own mini-preamble. As mini covenant lawsuits, the seven structurally similar oracles framed, I suggest, by an opening address and a closing call to vigilance, all reproduce in miniature a five-part covenantal scenario. The inaugural oracle to Ephesus reveals this shared structure:

Address[31] (2:1a, re-using the overall preamble’s order to write,[32] 1:11, 19)

Τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν ᾿Εφέσῳ ἐκκλησίσς γράψον·

Preamble (2:1b, underlining the suzerain’s qualities,[33] cf. 1:12, 16, 20)

[Τάδε λέγει][34] ὁ κρατῶν τοὺς ἑπτὰ ἀστέρας ἐν τῇ δεξιᾷ αὐτοῦ, ὁ περιπατῶν ἐν μέσῳ τῶν ἑπτὰ λυχνιῶν τῶν χρυσῶν·

Historical prologue[35] (2:2–4, 6, rehearsing duties which the church has successfully performed)

Οἶδα τὰ ἔργα σου[36] καὶ τὸν κόπον καὶ τὴν ὑπομονήν σου καὶ ὅτι οὐ δύνῃ βαστάσαι κακούς, καὶ ἐπείρασας τοὺς λέγοντας ἑαυτοὺς ἀποστόλους καὶ οὐκ εἰσὶν καὶ εὖρες αὐτοὺς ψευδεῖς, καὶ ὑπομονὴν ἔχεις καὶ ἐβάστασας διὰ τὸ ὄνομά μου καὶ οὐ κεκοπίακες. ἀλλὰ ἔχω κατὰ σοῦ[37] ὅτι τὴν ἀγάπην σου τὴν πρώτην ἀφῆκες. ἀλλὰ τοῦτο ἔχεις,[38] ὅτι μισεῖς τὰ ἔργα τῶν Νικολαῒτῶν ἅ κἀγὼ μισῶ.

Ethical stipulations[39] (2:5a, required action for recovering covenant faithfulness)

μνημόνευε οὖν πόθεν πέπτωκας καὶ μετανόησον καὶ τὰ πρῶτα ἔργα ποίησον·

Sanctions[40] (2:5b, specifying the punishment in the event of no repentance)

εἰ δὲ μή, ἔρχομαί σοι καὶ κινήσω τὴν λυχνίαν σον ἐκ τοῦ τόπου αὐτῆς, ἐὰν μὴ μετανοήσῃς.

Inheritance questions[41] (2:7b, insuring the covenant is perpetuated)

τῷ νικῶντι δώσω[42] αὐτῷ φαγεῖν ἐκ τοῦ ξύλου τῆς ζωῆς, ὅ ἐστιν ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ τοῦ θεοῦ.

Call to vigilance[43] (2:7a, associating the Spirit with the risen Lord)

ὁ ἔχων οὖς ἀκουσάτω τί τὸ πνευ’μα λέγει ται’” ἐκκλησίαι”.

When the features of form, content, and function are combined, the following picture emerges of a covenantal framework for the entire inaugural septet:

Every assembled church knows it is being examined by the risen Messiah just as the covenant God scrutinized Israel, because the sevenfold church corresponds to all Israel in various covenant enactments under the old economy;
The church’s status as a covenant partner explains the detailed findings concerning her faithfulness, while the resulting exhortations imply ongoing responsibilities of covenant relationship[44] similar to those demanded of Yahweh’s people;
Covenant renewal is implied by the lawsuit mechanism and terminology, for, as with every such event in Israel’s history, judicial review of the weaker partner’s fidelity to his responsibilities creates a future for the covenant relationship;
Reviving the old nuptial metaphor, finding in favour of the Bride’s innocence (or conversely, establishing her guilt) drives a complex, prophetic-apocalyptic plot which will oscillate between the church’s fulfillment of her vows and unfaithfulness to her call and election, until its final resolution in the Lamb’s marriage.

We are ready to consider how the subsequent septets continue to address the problem of covenant-breaking and of punishment where sincere repentance is not forthcoming, with a narrative that aims at provoking change by “disturbing the peace”[45] and forcing a decision.

III. The Second Septet of Seals: (Rev 4:1–5:14;) 6:1–17; (7:1–17;) 8:1

Revelation 4:1–5:14 owes an obvious debt to Ezek 1. Similarities extend to the details: The crystal sea in 4:6 recalls Ezek 1:22, but, since John is fully aware of how the writing prophets reflected upon and adapted prior revelation, the sapphire pavement of Exod 24:10 is surely also being echoed here. Other matching details uniting the Revelation and Exodus contexts via Ezekiel are the following: entry into God’s presence (ναός σκηνή, and θρόνος are frequently linked in Revelation, e.g., in 7:15, before collapsing at the end into the unique presence of God enthroned[46]); elders, representative of the people, participating in both scenes at a greater or lesser distance (cf. Exod 24:1); and mediators between God and his people—Moses, Exod 24:3–4, 8, 15–18; the Lamb—each having a covenant document (one that Moses has written and from which he reads, Exod 24:4, 7; a book that only the Lamb can open) and each effecting purification by shed blood (“covenant” blood of burnt offerings, Exod 24:5–6, 8; the Lamb’s own blood).

The access promised to a responsive church in 3:20 is immediately granted as she joins John in crossing the threshold in 4:1. This doorway to heaven pursues the thrust of the initial septet:[47] Whenever Yahweh prosecuted his covenant people Israel, heaven and earth were called as witnesses, as indicated by the prologue to the Song of Moses in Deut 32:1–3—a text whose form, content, and function fit the rîb.[48] Just as on earth (in Roman Asia) the covenant mediator had spoken solemnly, in a legal framework, to the church constituted a new covenant people by his death and resurrection, so now the heavenly court convenes in parallel fashion and lends a universal, cosmic dimension to the events of redemption.

The decor and action of this celestial scene together elaborate upon the covenantal logic governing what precedes. The following elements enhance the atmosphere of covenant ratification which characterized the oracles to the churches:

The whole plot from 4:2 to 22:1, 3 has a throne for its backdrop, bringing the reader face to face with the covenant God who has come to his Temple (cf. Isa 6:1) to preside over an investigation where seals, trumpets, and bowls will compile evidence of both repentance and recalcitrance;
A rainbow (4:3) borrowed from Ezek 1:28 goes back beyond the prophet to the sign of the Noachic covenant (Gen 9:13; see also 10:1);
Twenty-four elders (4:4), covenant guarantors,[49] could evoke the authors of the old covenant books;[50]
Four creatures acting as sentinels, uniting the two that protected the ark of the covenant (Exod 25:17–22) with the two that guarded Solomon’s sanctuary (2 Chr 3:10–13; 4:7–8), indicate that the ark essentially replicates the suzerain’s throne;
An echo of the trisagion of Isa 6:3–4, combined with a reference to God’s almightiness (4:8), reproduces what a prophet hears at his call when receiving a revelation containing judgment;
The book (5:1; cf. Ezek 2:9–3:3), which might stand for the old covenant,[51] is certainly a legal document,[52] perhaps a testament[53] (with the Lamb-Messiah as its testator), serving as a seven-sealed covenant record to which, ever since Noah, the covenant partner could refer (Gen 9:12) and which may, here, constitute a marriage contract or a preparatory bill of divorce;[54]
There is insistence upon the need to find a truly qualified mediator (5:5), fully authorized to carry out the covenant suzerain’s will;[55]
The Lamb’s patently messianic character emerges (5:5–6), underpinned by a re-reading of some key Old Testament texts (e.g., Gen 49:9–10; Isa 11:1–10);
By shedding his blood to purchase a universal people (Exod 24:4–6, 8), the Lamb fulfills the original promise of the Sinai covenant (Exod 19:3–6);
A “new” psalm of praise (5:9; cf. Ps 98) celebrates the Lamb’s inauguration of the new covenant,[56] as befits any significant redemptive act of God.

These indices legitimize the merging, in 5:13, of the honor obtained by the Lamb-Redeemer, who has given himself in sacrifice (5:9) and brought God’s reign to consummation (5:10, 13), with the glory of the eternal Creator of all things (4:11) and Instigator of the eternal covenant (4:8). At last, through Messiah’s death, God brings fallen human beings into a new relationship with himself, covering their sin and restoring their dignity to that of priest-kings (5:10). Before ever the seals are broken open, this diptych lets the reader go behind the scenes of revelation and glimpse the sovereign’s lordship which the redeemer’s triumph vindicates.

The next scene (6:1) focuses upon the curses brought on by the breaking of the seals; its logic recalls texts like the institution of the covenant ratifying the Exodus deliverance (Exod 24) or the recurrent prophetic lawsuits (like the one introduced in Ezek 2:3). Zechariah’s four horsemen ride again here, inaugurating a series of seven plagues which rehearse a pattern common to all situations of broken and restored covenants. Jesus had foreseen covenant-breaking Jerusalem’s wish that the mountains and hills fall upon her and conceal the face of God the Judge (Luke 23:28–30), so Rev 6:16 borrows the same text from Hos 10:8 (cf. vv. 1–3; Jer 4:29 has a parallel scenario of hiding from God’s wrath) scripting action that conforms to the original deliverance from the Egyptian plagues: Like the sealing of the first Passover, advance sealing for protection and belonging is here given the new covenant people (7:2–8).[57]

The completion of God’s eschatological people will not be narrated fully till the final visions of 21:1—22:5, yet here she is already complete in her Messiah: Organically linked to historical Israel, she is doubly twelve a thousand times over (7:4)[58] and, as such, is now turned towards the nations, but also innumerable like the participants in Zechariah’s last days’ pilgrimage (7:9; cf. Zech 2:10–12). This vast throng in blood-washed garments (7:14), perhaps recalling the one that greeted Jesus’ triumphal entry on the way to shedding his blood in inauguration of the new covenant, is associated with the slain Lamb and has full covenant status allowing it to stand before the throne and worship (7:15–17). Like Israel under the old covenant, this people sings its Saviour’s praises (Ps 102:18–22) and performs priestly service—the idea is introduced in 1:5–6 then developed in 5:9–10, in anticipation of heavenly Jerusalem’s ministry. This trajectory parallels Israel’s constitution as a covenant people in the Exodus story;[59] we may safely say that unceasing worship before the throne (recalled in 22:3) fulfills all that the Jewish festivals foreshadowed, especially the most important first-century pilgrim feast of them all, the annual Feast of Booths.[60]

Face-to-face worship in God’s presence recalls the restoration prophecy in Ezek 37:26–28 and looks forward to divine dwelling (21:3), abolition of the temple in the end-time city (21:22), and worship before God and the Lamb (22:3; cf. Heb 9:14; 1 Pet 2:9). As the seals are broken and the book is opened, the slain but standing Lamb effects in principle the transformation of the people’s relationship to God through eschatologically renewed worship. This means that the covenant has been renewed, for the Lamb who makes God present among humankind is the covenant personified (21:22), satisfying God by the gift of his blood (7:14) and meeting the needs of his people (7:17)[61] : No one comes to the Father other than through him (John 14:6).

At the opening of the seventh seal we glimpse trumpet-angels from the ensuing series (8:1–2). Jewish apocalyptic eschatology had a key role for the seven archangels, whose activity seems to go back to the application of judgment to Egypt in Exod 12:23 and Ps 78:47–48. However, the priestly garb of the bowl-angels (15:6) suggests another scenario where Israel toured the walls of Jericho seven times on the seventh day led by seven trumpet-blowing priests (Josh 6). In both cases, six trumpets are a prelude to decisive judgment which God carries out when the seventh is blown (cf. 11:19).[62] Trumpets warn of impending judgment and deliverance (cf. Amos 3:6), salvific events which, in this case, will mirror the saints’ prayers (Rev 8:3) and bring them justice but fail to bring the rest of humankind to repentance (9:20–21). Linked to the trumpet-blast are the thunder, lightning, and earthquake (8:5) by which God breaks the silence[63] and “speaks” in judgment (cf. Hab 2:20 and Zech 2:13)—a second reference to the scene at Sinai (Exod 19:16–19, already in 4:5 then later in 11:19 and 16:18–21) where Yahweh’s appearance as the trumpet sounds constitutes Israel as his covenant people and his gift of the law furnishes a covenant document for regulating the new partnership with his people.

The holy mountain where God descended and where Israel was born provides a major element of the developing decor, guiding interpretation of the flaming mountain dislocated when the second trumpet sounds (8:8). Is this the holy mountain that God claims as his heritage (cf. Exod 15:17) when the old irreparably ruptured Sinai covenant is replaced by another? From being a destroying mountain, Babylon was made a burnt-out and desolate mountain (Jer 51:24–26). Later action in Revelation suggests that a similar fate is here envisaged for Jerusalem, like the mountain cast into the sea in Jesus’ prediction (Matt 21:21–22). And just as in Zechariah’s vision the temple is reconstructed atop a high mountain, new Jerusalem will come down upon a mountain and replace fallen Babylon.

IV. The Third Septet of Trumpets: Rev 8:2—9:21; (10:1–11:14;) 11:15–18; (11:19–14:20)

By its position and elaborate nature, the trumpets septet forms the heart of the threefold series of developments recounting the fulfillment of the covenant. When we bear in mind that the fourfold curses of repeated covenant-breaking (in Lev 26:14–45) and the blessings of covenant fidelity (Lev 26:3–13) are preceded by a protracted focus upon the Year of Jubilee (Lev 25:8–54), which began on the Day of Atonement with the sounding of a trumpet (Lev 25:9 [2x]),[64] then not just the trumpets septet as such but also the trigger trumpet of 1:10 make sense, and the enacted judgments mesh with the accumulated seven-times-seven sabbath blessings (Lev 25:8) and with the justice which characterizes the Year of Jubilee. Otherwise, Lev 23:24 provides another possible template[65] with the inauguration of the Feast of Trumpets on the first day of the seventh month and the constant sounding of the shofar. Either way, faithful Israel’s justification as celebrated in the solemn feast, and the judgment of covenant-breakers, go hand-in-hand.[66]

The first four trumpets invite several remarks. Rivers and springs turned to gall may evoke the fate of the Nile (Exod 7:20–21), a motif already re-used by Ezek 29:3–5, but explicitly reverse the miracle at Mara en route for Sinai (Exod 15:25).[67] The parallel in Deut 29:18 shows that the image is one of covenant-breaking—any individual, clan, or tribe which turns from the Lord to idolatry is called a gall-producing root—whilst Jer 28:11, 15 has apostate priests and prophets drinking gall (cf. Lam 3:15, 19; Amos 5:7; 6:12) as, previously, the unfaithful people had done (Jer 9:13–16, 25–26). The fallen star which poisons the waters, a foil to the true morning star of Rev 22:16, suggests the Babylonian morning star fallen from heaven to earth in Isa 14:12–15.[68] John has in view a rupture of the Lord’s covenant and a punishment like that which befell Babylon and Egypt, whose plagues are further hinted at by the darkness of 8:12—another sign of the Day of the Lord (Isa 13:9–11; cf. 24:21–23) and a motif for the judgment that fell when Messiah died to inaugurate the new covenant (Mark 15:33 par.). Sun, moon, and stars illuminated creation from the start (Ps 148:3–6; Job 38:31–33) and their darkening, disrupting the cosmic order, acts as an indicator of judgment accompanying the covenant curses—as in Isa 34:4 and the many canonical or other Jewish texts where this darkness motif is found.[69]

The last three trumpets, also called “woes,” result climactically in calamities directly affecting the unrepentant and unsealed, with demonic involvement (9:4). The eagle in flight (cf. 4:7) heralding their unleashing comes from the image in Exod 19:4 (Deut 28:49; Jer 4:13; Lam 4:19—Hos 8:1 and Hab 1:8 have such warnings)[70] and conveys faithful divine protection for the people but punishment for Egypt. The Exodus factor of Pharaoh’s recalcitrance (Exod 7:13; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 12, 35) re-echoes in the hardening of the survivors of the trumpet-plagues who shun repentance or covenant commitment,[71] persisting in their idolatry (Rev 9:20–21; those of 16:9, 11 will be worse). Ever grimmer plagues upon Pharaoh had progressively convinced Israel and some Egyptians of the trustworthiness of the God who had come to save them, and a developing vision of God and the Lamb’s sovereignty has the same function here. The greater judgments signalled by the sixth trumpet probably originate on the incense-altar from which, in the plot of Revelation, the prayers of God’s people go up (6:10–11; 8:3–5; 9:13).

Two important narrative segments separating trumpets six and seven (10:1–11; 11:1–14) develop covenantal issues. 10:1–11 presents the reader with the angel of the covenant—perhaps the one present when Yahweh enters the temple (in Mal 3:1)—who shares the characteristics predicated of both God and the risen one in Revelation. Descending in a cloud like Yahweh at Sinai and in other covenant texts (Exod 19:16; 33:9; Num 11:25; 12:5), framed by the rainbow of the Noachic, eternal covenant with creation (Gen 9:16–17; cf. Rev 4:3), his face is too bright to look at (like God’s, Num 6:22–27), his voice is like Yahweh roaring from Zion (Amos 1:2), with thunders recalling the self-revelation at Sinai (cf. Ps 29), and his fiery pillar-legs evoke Sinai and the wilderness wanderings (Exod 13:21). He bears a covenant document whose bitterness when ingested might connote a charge of adultery (Num 5:12–31)[72] such as Ezekiel had to prosecute (Ezek 3). As the traditional witnesses earth, sea, and sky look on, he raises his right hand to swear an oath—as in all covenant ratifications or modifications (Gen 14:22; cf. Dan 12:7) and like Yahweh the suzerain himself (e.g., Gen 22:16; Exod 32:13; Deut 32:40–41;[73] Isa 45:43; Ezek 20:5–7; etc.). And as a prophet, John’s call enrols him de facto as a covenant prosecutor (10:8–11).

The next sequence in 11:1–14 is also replete with covenant overtones. First John must measure the temple’s holy place,[74] its altar of burnt offerings,[75] and its worshippers, but ignore the outer court given over to the nations who, in line with Jesus’ prediction in Luke 21:24, will trample the “holy city” underfoot[76] (11:1–2). Being in the holy place whose threshold could only be crossed on the Day of Atonement and standing before the altar of perpetual sacrifice means occupying the very heart of sacred space where, in Israel’s worship, sinful people and holy God could meet: More than any other location this is covenant ground (11:1).[77]

Accordingly, measuring contrasts the abandonment of the outer court (11:2), a protective action[78] preserving life (like sealing in 7:3–8) and preparing for future restoration.[79] John is again depicting a covenant moment, and Messiah Jesus’ updating of the covenant arrangement uniting God and humanity is still being presupposed. Forty-two[80] months of trampling may be coterminous with the covenant’s duration, as a sort of messianic cipher (compare the three lists of 14 generations in the genealogy in Matt 1:2–17 and the tripling of David’s number—3 x דוד [ד/4 + ו/6 + ד/4] = 42), signifying a time frame when covenant is ruptured or restored; one thinks of Israel’s years in the wilderness or of the successive encampments used (Num 33:5–49).

The sequel suggests that these details connote another covenant lawsuit. Two prophetic witnesses solemnly give legal testimony (ἡ μαρτυρία, 11:7; cf. 1:9; 6:9; 12:1, 17; 20:4), on the strength of which a penal verdict is delivered. Their sackcloth (11:3), like an Elijah (2 Kgs 1:8) or a John the Baptist (Mark 1:6), shows that they expect judgment to fall (cf. 2 Kgs 1:8) and that repentance is urgently called for (Isa 20:2). They serve for as long as the city’s profanation lasts, and their combined status as olive-tree and lampstand links them to Israel and to the holy place, allowing them to stand before the Lord of the land (Rev 11:4). Measuring or abandoning (vv. 1–2), prosecuting charges or representing the sovereign (vv. 3–4), all mean one thing: The court is again in session to deliberate concerning a covenant long flouted but now at last fulfilled forever. Confirmation for this interpretation is provided by the witnesses’ message which recalls the struggles of past mediators like Moses before Pharaoh and Elijah before Ahab and Jezebel; their speech is irresistible, for no other will can prevail (11:5, 6), and together they bear witness that in Jesus are summed up Moses and Elijah, Law and Prophets.

Elsewhere, I have outlined the witnesses’ judicial role and their two-in-one paralleling of Jesus’ career as Messiah.[81] Here, it is worth anticipating a contrasting scenario (Rev 13) where a tandem of monsters will astonish earth-dwellers with their travesty of this witness and so model an anti-covenant which is both derisory—with a sham god and idolatrous false worship—and also tragic, given the way people flock to enter this counterfeit pact. Already in 11:8 Jerusalem, holy city meant to attract the nations and offer covenant blessings, is synonymous with spiritual fornication of the worst sort;[82] she kills the last Witness sent to her, dragging nations (11:9) and covenant people (11:10[83]) into a caricature of universal covenant blessings.

If the witnesses’ fate, like Jesus’ dereliction (Matt 27:46/Mark 15:54), seems to suggest God’s betrayal of his covenant, ironically the opposite is the case; as in Ezek 37 breath comes from their provider to raise and justify the dead (11:11) and God’s Spirit neutralizes the three-and-a-half days’ exposure of the corpses (11:9), parodying the duration of their testimony (11:3).[84] Such covenant faithfulness, positive counterpart to the condemnation of God’s enemies, provokes terror in those who see it (11:11, 13). Protracted debate[85] over whether to interpret this positively or negatively misses the point, which is that the final lawsuit against Jerusalem[86] brings a time for truth to triumph over lies and fidelity over apostasy. When the witnesses die, Messiah has finished his testimony and given his life—and the city begins its fall (11:13).

A liturgy flowing from the seventh trumpet-blast (11:15–18) celebrates the covenant suzerain’s arrival; without further delay (11:16) he recompenses his faithful vassals (11:18), punishing those steeped in unrepentant sin and idolatry to the point of being “destroyers of the earth”—the term connotes Babylon’s rebellion (Jer 51:25) which the nations are to resist once the trumpet sounds (Jer 25:27). With the universe’s only sovereign arriving to consummate his reign (11:15), this allusion is spot on. In Israel, faith could flower amidst oppression while the Lord seemed to delay (Ps 9:37 LXX); now, however, there is no more waiting for the Lord is ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν, (11:17), the one who, in his Messiah, has once and for all come—another indication that we are dealing with the eternal covenant.

The seventh trumpet is prolonged by three further phases. Not surprisingly, the first (in 11:19–12:18) centers upon covenant fulfillment. Via their worship, seer and reader enter heaven and God’s temple, coming face to face, in the ultimate holy of holies, with an unprecedented sight (11:19): His ark of the covenant (cf. Exod 25:10–22 or 1 Kgs 8:1–11), mini-temple within the temple, symbolizes more than any other object the covenant of salvation and invokes the divine king’s presence among his subjects.[87] Although lost in the destruction of Jerusalem the ark was not mourned but assimilated, in prophetic hopes, to the vision of Jerusalem transformed into Yahweh’s throne (Jer 3:16–17) in the definitive new covenant.[88] The sight of the heavenly ark means a new perfected covenant unites God and humanity, as confirmed by the theophany phenomena of 11:19b and by a second, huge celestial sign made visible along with the ark and intimately bound up with it (both “were seen,” 11:19/12:1).[89]

Revelation 12 dramatizes the adventure of salvation history from Eden’s primeval antagonism to the serpent’s crushing by Eve/Zion’s messianic descendant, “brought forth” at last in death-resurrection-glorification (12:5)—this victory holds, too, for his “brothers” (fellow-descendants, 12:10–11). The woman, a complex collective metaphor[90] for a right relationship to God,[91] prepares readers for the prostitute, false Israel whose idolatry tarnishes humanity made for communion with God, and for her transformed counterpart, the Bride (new Israel/the Church) who enjoys an intimate creature-to-Creator relationship. A spectacular personification of the covenant idea, the woman’s beauty recalls the beloved of Cant 6:10. Nothing will thwart the Mediator born of her womb or subvert his work in human history (12:5–6; for Ps 2:8–9, see Rev 2:26–27): Final justification (12:11) of the new covenant partners—a favourable verdict brought by the warlike Messiah in 19:11–16—is assured by the double testimony of blood from the ultimate propitiatory sacrifice of the slain Lamb and of their own blameless life. This is the positive match to their adversary’s exclusion from the heavenly court and to the quashing of all accusations against them (12:10c). John and Paul concur: The Mediator is indeed a Paraclete with the Father (1 John 2:1) and there is no guilty verdict (Rom 8:1, 34) without an accusation (Rom 8:33). Thus the sound of the seventh trumpet is further amplified here (φωνή μεγάλη, 12:10a/φωναί μεγάλαι, 11:15a): When Messiah’s death inaugurates the new dispensation of the covenant, the satan is cast down, salvation established, and “our God’s” (the covenant Lord’s) power and reign (12:10a) are vindicated.

New covenant inauguration is the hermeneutical key for unlocking the narrative in Rev 12:13–18. The dragon fails to stop the woman from bringing forth Messiah and must change its tactics to make war on the rest of her descendants (associated with Messiah and included in his σπέρμα, 12:17). Its new target is the faithful vassals, described as τῶν πηρούντων τὰς ἐντολὰς τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἐχόντων τὴν μαρτυρίαν ᾿Ιησοῦ (12:17); here, ἐντολή and μαρτυρία are synonyms[92] for obedience to covenant stipulations, as expected of the covenant partner who is in receipt of its blessings.[93] They are attacked as witnesses emulating Messiah Jesus, the Faithful Witness (1:5; 3:14), and living proof that the covenant is well and truly renewed and fulfilled—this is confirmed by the parallel phrase in 14:12 (οἱ τηροῦντες τὰς ἐντολὰς τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τὴν πίστιν ᾿Ιησοῦ).[94] The dragon’s rage against the woman and her seed recalls Pharaoh’s pursuit of Israel—further indication that an ultimate exodus and a consummate covenant are meant—and the flood which it hopes will engulf the people born of Messiah is the exact counterpoint of the dried up waters that allowed Israel to escape him! Moreover the failure of the dragon’s stratagem proves (cf. 12:11) that sharing in the witness of the crucified and risen one means participating in his victory—a salutary reminder, before two anti-messiahs appear as veritable incarnations of the woes foreseen for earth and sea (cf. 12:12) and succeed in drawing many into a curse-ridden anti-covenant.[95]

In another development prior to the bowls septet the dragon plays two aces, the sea-monster and land-monster, only to see the Lamb reappear and trump them both (13:1–14:5). The reader must sit up and take notice, as is evident from the injunction rounding off each monster’s description (εἴ τις ἔχει οὖς ἀκουσάτω, 13:9; ὦδε ἡ σοφία ἐστίν. ὁ ἔχων νοῦν .. ., 13:18): This is a reprise of the repeated command in the oracles septet to listen up; it suggests that, for the author, the issue remains that of his addressees’ fidelity to their calling, as other reminiscences of the oracles confirm: Living as “saints” who are God’s through Messiah their Mediator entails triumphing through apparent defeat (13:7), as in the oracle to Smyrna (2:10), for it is through his death that Messiah has restored and mediated the eternal covenant (1:5–6, etc.); facing the power of the dragon and his two confederates (13:2, 7, 11, etc.) means living where satan is (as was said in four of the seven messages, 2:9, 13, 24; 3:9); persevering in faithfulness (13:10b) was a leitmotiv of the congratulations and exhortations to the churches (2:2–3, 10, 13, 19, 25; 3:2, 8, 10, 15–16) and of the promises to the “victor.”

The perceptive reader understands that if victors are vanquished here (13:7), it is because they follow the Lamb faithfully (13:8b). Defeat is only temporary since, in 14:1–5, the Lamb’s followers are beneficiaries of his resurrection and partners of God himself, in total contrast to the earth-dwellers whose blindness caused by the second monster (13:14) made them grovel after the first (13:8). The dragon craves adoration (13:4) and parodies the Lord whose worship is at the heart of the true covenant. One side-kick heaps abuse on covenant communion (13:6) in order to draw humanity into idolatry (13:7b–8a), whilst the other bewitches people with counterfeit miracles parodying those of Elijah before an Israel enchanted by Jezebel (13:13–14)—all to establish a bogus covenant via a pseudo-messiah with a healed wound whose cipher (666) stands for covenant rupture and the establishment of an anti-pact.[96]

Before the final septet opens, Rev 14:6–20 crucially recapitulates what precedes and sketches what will follow. A threefold universal proclamation offers a retort to the pretensions of the dragon and monsters and their retinue (14:6) by calling all creation once more to adore its Lord (14:7), forecasts rebellious Babylon’s fall (14:8), and heralds the tragic advent of retribution and torment (14:10) for the monster’s allies. There follows a carefully crafted series of four messages (14:7, 8, 9–11 [12], 13) where two words of judgment (the second making the first more explicit) are framed by an invitation to a relationship with God and by an antiphonal beatitude anticipating the two macarisms of the closing dialogue (22:7, 14). The whole comes as it were in an envelope franked in heaven (εἶδον. .. ἄγγελον πετόμενον ἐν μεσουρανήματι, 14:6; ἤκουσα φωνῆς ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, 14:13), bringing an eternal gospel of bliss, justification, and rest for all who receive it, but also condemnation as those who prefer idolatry to living for God’s glory must pay the price. Once more, conditional blessing for submission and curses for revolt betoken the principle of choice enshrined in covenant obligations which the septet of oracles to churches put firmly in place.

In 14:9, 11 the trappings of the anti-covenant incidents are recalled (prostration-monster-image-mark), but a balancing transitional statement in 14:12 asserts what obedient covenant living involves, picking up almost verbatim 13:10b and reinforcing its insistence upon perseverance (as in the seven oracles). This opens the way for Babylon’s repudiation as a faithless wife and for New Jerusalem’s betrothal. Revelation 14:14–20 has attracted much inconclusive exegetical controversy. Some see only judgment here,[97] others judgment mixed with salvation,[98] others still judgment transformed into universal end-time salvation.[99] However, the double logic of reward for saints and punishment for idolaters governs the passage: The covenant suzerain’s judgments upon humanity are conditional upon the honouring of the covenant (which leads to the positive assembling or “harvest” of the saved) or its rupture (reflected in the negative image of the “pressed vintage” of the condemned.[100]

V. The Fourth Septet of Bowls: Rev 15:1–16:21

The plagues introduced in 15:1 are the “last.” In accordance with all the foregoing, I read ἐσχάται in line with Lev 26 as a fourth and final series of woes, occasioned by covenant-breaking, which bring covenant wrath to a head (ἐτελέσθη ὁ θυμὸς τοῦ θεοῦ).[101] Divine anger “poured out” (ἐκχέω[102] + θυμός) is the Septuagint’s regular way of signifying God’s punishment of covenant-breakers or of his people’s enemies (cf. Ezek 14:19; Jer 10:25; Zeph 3:8; sometimes ὀργή replaces θυμός, as is the case in Ezek 21). But the actual pouring-out is prefaced by a highly significant liturgical digression where a hymn on the theme of the Lord’s universal reign is sung (15:3–4). Moses’ song (Exod 15:1ff.; cf. Deut 32) had focused upon Yahweh’s fidelity in blessing his covenant people, Israel’s unfaithfulness and idolatry in the desert, a faithful and jealous God’s judgments to coax his people back to him, and ultimate mercy for Israel with the punishment of all enemies. Now the original Song of the Sea (Exod 15:1) modulates into a hymn for the Lamb in the context of a new covenant and a deliverance greater man that of the Exodus,[103] where God’s people are drawn from the nations.

The scene in 15:5–8 is a picture of the new covenant and a digest of various scenes from the redemptive-historical past: The Tabernacle of Testimony (15:5; cf. Exod 38:21; Num 1:50, 53; 9:15; 10:11) contains the covenant document (e.g., Exod 16:34; 25:16, 21–22; 31:18; 32:15) which, ever since Rev 1:2, 9 and particularly 5:7, can be none other than the testimony of Messiah Jesus, the Lamb who emerged from the divine throne; seven angel-priests come with bowls full of divine fury (15:6–7), but since 6:16 it has become the wrath of the Lamb in whom the covenant blessings and curses are now concentrated; the νάος where this scene takes place (15:5, 8 [2x]), now situated before God and the Lamb’s throne (7:9–17), fills with the glory-cloud of covenant ceremonies like the dedication of the Tabernacle (Exod 40:34–35) or of Solomon’s Temple (1 Kgs 5:12–14) indicating imminent judgment for unfaithful Israel/Jerusalem (Isa 6; Ezek 10).

The bowls’ purpose as covenant curses could scarcely be clearer: Seven plague-bearing angels exit from the heavenly Temple/Tabernacle τοῦ μαρτυρίου (15:5–6), their punitive action authorized by documentary evidence[104] of a broken covenant.[105] Their plagues (15:1, 6, 8, recalled in 21:9) echo Lev 26:21 word for word;[106] the victors’ acquittal, giving cause for celebration (15:2–4), is balanced by a contrasting guilty verdict upon their persecutors (16:1–21), with typically covenantal logic. Thus the seven bowls form a negative counterpart to the golden bowls full of incense held by the living creatures and elders in 5:8[107] and parallel expressions—φιάλας χρυσᾶς γεμούσας (θυμιαμάτων) and ἑπτὰ φιάλας χρυσᾶς γεμούσας (τοῦ θυμοῦ)—conform the bowl judgments to the prayers of incense.

Additional anti-covenantal elements include springs and rivers turned to blood by the third bowl (16:4), whereas Messiah’s blood redeems a people for God (5:9, 10); blood drunk in mock covenant ritual by analogy with unjust bloodshed (16:6);[108] the ποτήριον which the monsters’ followers and Babylon must drink (14:10; 16:19) linked, by another irony, both to the “cup” Babylon had forced upon the nations (Jer 25:15)[109] and to the anti-banquet where the kings of the earth get drunk on saints’ blood; acclamation of the Almighty (15:3) and rhetorical questions (15:4) presupposing (cf. 14:7) universal glorification of the only holy Lord but deliberately parodied by threefold blasphemy (16:9, 11, 21) and by a refusal to repent which confirms the stubborn rebellion of 9:20–21. In all this, the obduracy of Pharaoh and his people before the Exodus provides an obvious backdrop.

The bowl woes intensify those of the trumpets—hail is gigantic (16:21) and more generally, partial effects there (8:8–9) become total here (16:3)—and such escalation fits both the model in Lev 26 and the actual experience of the Egyptian plagues. Like the fourth trumpet, the fourth bowl strikes the sun and human beings are burnt—in evident contrast to 7:16, where this is precisely what the Lamb’s covenant partners escape. This contrast underlines the difference between covenant obedience and rupture, since consumption by burning heat is a classic curse for covenant-breaking (Deut 32:34)[110] which explains why Babylon is burnt (17:16; 18:8). Darkness separating humanity from God’s light (16:10) is again the punishment for idolatry (Jer 13:10, 13) and for rejecting the light of revelation (Mic 3:5–6). The drying up of the Euphrates (16:12) allowing the eastern kings to cross is standard prophetic expectation concerning Babylon’s judgment (Isa 11:15; 44:27; Jer 50:38; 51:36): Although Herodotus and Xenophon tell how Cyrus gained access to Babylon by diverting the Euphrates’ course, for the Old Testament it is Yahweh who dries up rivers and so effects redemption and judgment by his own hand (as at the Red Sea, Exod 14:21–22; Isa 11:15; 44:27; 50:2; 51:10), or who uses human instruments like Cyrus for smiting Babylon and liberating God’s people.

The frog-demons (16:13) bewitch humanity (cf. 1 Cor 8:14) with demonic miracles (16:14).[111] Although imitated by Pharaoh’s magicians (Exod 8:7), the plague of frogs was emblematic of God’s action in Egypt (cf. Ps 77:43–45; 104:27–30). Assembly for the last battle (16:14, anticipating 19:19 and 20:8 and based on Zech 12–14) does not bring the nations expected victory over the saints but turns into the great judgment day foreseen by Joel, when Messiah will triumph (Rev 19:11–21). With attempted extermination of the saints and thwarting of God’s designs, ὁ γρηγορῶν καὶ τηρῶν τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ (16:15) captures the quintessence of covenant faithfulness; watchfulness, underlined in the oracle to Sardis (3:3), contrasts with idolatrous complacency. Shameful nudity (16:15) for which Laodicea was reproached (3:18) is prophetic talk for the exposure of idolatry (Ezek 16:36–39;[112] 23:29; Nah 3:5; Isa 20:4); accordingly, Babylon will be stripped for her misdeeds (17:16).

The final bowl (16:17ff.) amalgamates various moments of prior revelation[113] and by a marked crescendo brings to their climax the bowls and the entire series of covenant judgments: Everything is now accomplished (γέγονεν, forming an inclusio with ἐτελέσθη in 15:1) and the event’s ultimacy is highlighted by an unprecedented earthquake (16:18)[114] typical of final judgment (Hag 2:6; Zech 14:4; cf. Ezek 38:19–22) with, as its corollary, the outpoured wrath of God the Judge (16:19). As anticipated in 14:8, 10, Babylon falls and provides a vacant site for God’s city: The rest of Revelation will largely dwell on the idolatrous city’s demise and the divine city’s corresponding descent.

VI. Conclusion

The scope of this article prevents full integration, with the four septets of Rev 1–16 studied here, of the further narrative segments comprising Rev 17–22, and especially of the covenant consummation which occurs in the denouement. However, it is clear enough that these chapters offer a grand and climactic orchestration of the theme of covenant rupture, repentance, and restoration, with as its final flourish that full realization of the promises of the eternal covenant which has been at issue throughout.

In Rev 17–18 the woman-city, Babylon-the-whore, who so personifies covenant rebellion, drinks to the very last drop her anti-sacramental cup (16:19; 17:4) filled with the saints’ blood (18:24; 19:2), receives what she justly deserves and pays the death penalty for her spiritual fornication. Her demise sets all her former associates free and the peoples, throngs, nations, and language-groups she dominated (17:15), although coerced by the satan into a last battle (20:8), will resource the universal people of God (21:3) who walk in the light of the Lamb (21:24) and bring their tribute into New Jerusalem (21:26).

With the monsters and dragon neutralized (20:10), evil and chaos are no more, and final judgment in line with the covenant record may be given (20:11–15). The curse excluding Adam from eternal life (Gen 3:22, 24) is finally lifted (Rev 22:3, κατάθεμα), the tree of life feeds New Jerusalem’s inhabitants with monthly bumper harvests and healing (22:2), and redeemed humanity at last sees what not even Moses saw (Exod 33:20ff.) but David longed for (Pss 17:15; 27:4),[115] and what Jesus promised as a blessing of his reign (Matt 5:8) and Paul expected as the perfecting of present blessings (1 Cor 13:12; 2 Cor 3:18): Communing with the covenant Lord face to face (22:4), in a sanctuary-city where a temple would be superfluous (21:22), since full reconciliation had been achieved and God would dwell with humanity (21:3; cf. Matt 1:23)—all this in obvious fulfillment of the covenant dream encapsulated in Lev 26:11–12.

Now that Jerusalem-the-Bride is made ready (19:7b–8; 21:2) it is time for the long anticipated covenant meal (3:20), the Lamb’s wedding banquet (19:7a) of consummate covenant blessing (19:9). The all-embracing suzerain-mediator brings his reward (22:12–13) in accomplishment of the covenant promises made to the victors in the opening septet, as epitomized by the seventh and last beatitude (22:14). Covenant faithfulness triumphs, for through Jesus the ultimate covenant finding is that God’s people are the object of the free gift of his grace (22:17, 21).

Notes

The most nuanced division of the book into seven parts is probably that of Gregory K. Beale (The Book of Revelation [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 136) who avoids claiming sevenfold structurings where these are not explicit (as in 12:1–14:20). David E. Aune (Revelation [3 vols.; Dallas: Word, 1997–98], 1: xciv-xcv) acknowledges that the septets pose the chief interpretative problem in Revelation but sees the compositional use made of seven as a literary commonplace in the apocalyptic tradition (by analogy with 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, each consisting of seven sections). Yet what other text approaches anything like the subtlety and extent of Revelation’s use of seven? A mere apocalyptic cliché simply cannot satisfactorily explain the four septets, let alone carefully crafted phenomena such as: Seven scenes before the throne (4:1–5:14; 7:9–17; 8:1–4; 11:15–18; 14:1–5; 15:2–8; 19:1–10); seven beatitudes scattered in the text (1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14), and a corresponding sevenfold “woe” or “alas” (8:13; 9:12; 11:14; 12:2; 18:10, 16, 19); seven variations upon the fourfold expression involving nations, peoples, tribes, and tongues (5:9; 7:9; 10:11; 11:9; 13:7; 14:6; 17:15); or seven occasions where God and the Lamb are associated (5:13; 6:16; 7:10; 14:4; 21:22; 22:1; 22:3).
The complex and diverse thematic materials in Revelation need detailed study, as I urge in “How to say what: Story and Interpretation in the Book of Revelation,” IBS 23 (2001): 111-34. I show something of the interpretive gain to be had in “Pour lire l’Apocalypse de Jean: l’intérêt d’une approche thématique,” Revue Réformée 224 (2003): 43-65, by tracing one key theme: The adoration of God and the Lamb and its counterfeit.
Thus David C. Chilton, The Days of Vengeance (Fort Worth, Tex.: Dominion, 1987), 16–17, 89, followed by J. E. Leonard, Come Out of Her My People (Arlington Heights, Ill.: Laudemont Press, 1991), 51. Discussing the seals septet, Beale (Revelation, 373) asks: “Could it also be that the four judgments of Leviticus, which are each summarised figuratively as consisting of seven punishments, serve as the model for the four sets of seven judgments that so dominate the Apocalypse?” (Cf. his remarks concerning the bowls, p. 803.) For Josephine M. Ford (Revelation [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975], 282) the first of the four judgments is the seals and the fourth the destruction of the prostitute (she identifies seven collapsing entities between Rev 18:1 and 20:10, for which Lev 26:27–33 provides the template). But despite heightened wrath in Rev 17–20, all the threatened judgments have already taken place at this point and the moment has come for irrevocable covenant divorce and for a (re)marriage, and the textual data better support the view that the bowls are the last of four explicit judgments. But chs. 17–20 certainly do develop further the covenantal concerns so central to chs. 1–16—culminating in an ultimate covenant audit in 20:11–15—whilst chs. 21–22 have new covenant consummation written all over them. I examine chs. 17–22 at length in my “La parodie dans l’Apocalypse. Une investigation littéraire et théologique des thématiques contrastées qui se concentrent dans l’Apocalypse johannique” (Ph.D. diss., Queen’s University Belfast, 2002), 341–68.
Significantly, the figure in 1:10–20 speaks with a voice like that of a trumpet (1:10). In my view (see below), this trumpet sets in motion the entire series of judgments, as the risen one’s double-edged sword in 1:16 confirms. Compare R. Dean Davis (The Heavenly Court Judgment of Rev 4–5 [Lanham, Md./London: University Press of America, 1992], 221): “The messages to the seven churches are in essence the trumpet announcements/warnings of imminent judgment.” For the inter-relationship of the seals, trumpets, and bowls, see Andrew E. Steinmann, “The Tripartite Structure of the Sixth Seal, the Sixth Trumpet, and the Sixth Bowl of John’s Apocalypse (Rev 6:12–7:17; 9:13–11:14; 16:12–16),” JETS 35 (1992): 69-80, who has shown the essential parallelism of the sixth element of the seals, trumpets, and bowls, reinforcing the consensus that the seventh element in each series is parallel. D. R. Davis (“The Relationship Between the Seals, Trumpets, and Bowls in the Book of Revelation,” JETS 16 [1973]: 158-59) has argued that the three series, though sequential and successive, all lead to the same End. I agree. But it is the septet of oracles that begins the sequence, introducing a melody subject to variations and developments later on.
In this and subsequent section headings, passages without parentheses represent the narrative core of each septet. Other, interlocking passages listed in parentheses are considered to be thematically integrated with the core section(s) of the septet concerned.
André Paul, Jésus Christ, la rupture (Paris: Bayard, 2001), 259.
John occupies a mediating position; associated with the churches as one member among many, as a prophet he is an instrument of divine revelation. On this dual status, see François Bovon, “John’s Self-presentation in Revelation 1:9–10, ” CBQ 62 (2000): 699-700.
Compare Leonard (Come Out, 29): “In referring to the churches as a kingdom of priests, John is making the point that Christians have become the new covenant people through Jesus Christ” (italics mine).
So Craig R. Koester, Revelation and the End of All Things (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Zondervan, 2001), 54: “This disclosure of the presence of Christ may be reassuring or unsettling depending upon the position of the reader.”
In “The Interpretative Problem of Rev. 1:19, ” NovT 34 (1992): 385, Gregory Beale reads 1:10–11 as a solemn delegation of authority to the risen one with impeccable credentials (1:12–18), taking 1:19 to be the first of several repetitions of this mandate (others are 4:1–2; 10:1–11; 17:1–3; 21:9–10).
Similarly Kenneth A. Strand, “‘Overcomer’: A Study in the Macrodynamic of Theme Development in the Book of Revelation,” AUSS 28 (1990): 237-54, esp. 242.
Thus I cannot agree with Wiard Popkes (“Die Funktion der Send-schreiben in der Johannes-Apokalypse,” ZNW 74 [1983]: 92) that the chief characteristic of the seven pronouncements is their Analogielosigkeit. Popkes himself must later concede (p. 106) that critics tend to class them somewhere in the prophetic genre.
Leonard (Come Out, 32) puts it like this: “This is the Lord speaking to his people, the priests of his kingdom, and assessing their fidelity to the covenant into which they have entered before him” (italics mine).
For the parallels see Celia Deutsch, “Transformation of Symbols: The New Jerusalem in Rev. 21:1–22:5, ” ZNW 78 (1987): 124; see also Beale, Revelation, 134–35 and 1057–58. David L. Barr (Tales of the End: A Narrative Commentary on the Book of Revelation [Santa Rosa, Calif.: Polebridge Press, 1998], 54–55) gives correlations which show “that things are working out as expected” (53).
See Jer 2:2 (love for Jerusalem in her youth) and Hos 2:16 (that “youth” was the deliverance from Egypt and implicitly, the covenant at Sinai). Covenant breaking and a new exodus leading to covenant renewal attract the interest of the great writing prophets, especially Ezekiel: See H. R. van de Kamp, Openbaring (Kampen: Kok, 2000), 14.
Heinrich Kraft (Die Offenbarung des Johannes [Tübingen: Mohr, 1974], 57) shares this interpretation.
Creation and covenant will be explicitly linked in chs. 4–5. For Isaiah, God creating a people of his choice is “redemption” (Isa 51:9–11) whilst a new exodus is new creation (Isa 54:5) whereby God sets free and makes new.
Similarly Koester, Revelation, 56. James L. Resseguie (Revelation Unsealed: A Narrative Critical Approach to John’s Apocalypse [Leiden: Brill, 1998], 113) notes how until 22:3, Christ stands (while God sits) and so “exercises sovereign control over the church up close.”
Smyrna and Philadelphia receive no warning and no threat of judgment. Robert L. Muse (“Revelation 2–3: A Critical Analysis of Seven Prophetic Messages,” JETS 29 [1986]: 147-61) mistakenly thinks that these two oracles have a different form, whereas it is their content (i.e., the positive verdict given in each case) that varies from the other five.
As Muse notes (“Revelation 2–3”), the need for repentance is characteristic both of Deuteronomy (Deut 30:1–10), where repentance and reconciliation with Yahweh avert his anger (Deut 4:29–31) and also of the prophetic tradition (Joel 1:8–14; Zech 1:1–6; Isa 3:1–4:4; Ezek 14:6; 18:30). In both form and content, Ezek 14:3–8 closely parallels the findings for churches in Rev 2–3, not least in the central importance attached to repentance.
Compare Leonard (Come Out, 40): “The wearing of white raiment in the Revelation is a reference to that giving of the coat by God to his covenant partners.”
See throughout his commentary Eugenio Gorsini, The Apocalypse (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1983).
Comparatively few scholars who detect echoes of OT events in the oracles see a chronological salvation-history backcloth to the entire septet. Exceptions are Corsini, Apocalypse; Jean-Pierre Prévost, L’Apocalypse (Paris: Cerf, 1995); Ray R. Sutton, That You May Prosper: Dominion Through Covenant (Fort Worth, Tex.: Dominion, 1987), 257–58; and most notably Chilton, Days of Vengeance, 86–89. For Barr, too, (Tales, 44–46), “aspects of this [septet] seem to recall the experience of God’s people from the Exodus to the Exile, with the constant theme being watchfulness and perseverance in anticipation of victory.”
Wider issues in John’s use of the OT cannot be addressed here. Faced with the amalgamation of distinct OT images (lamb/lion) in 5:5–6, Steven J. Friesen (Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins [New York: Oxford University Press, 2001], 200, 206) suggestively calls John’s use of the OT a process of recombinant imaging.
Compare Gregory K. Beale, John’s Use of the Old Testament in Revelation (JSNTSup 166; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 305.
For Barr (Tales, 46) the action of the oracles septet involves just four themes—creation and struggle, kingly rule or ruin—which remain the basic themes throughout the whole book: “.. . in this way, the story of the letters is really the story of the whole work. The other stories are variations on the theme.”
In addition to the two American reconstructionist contributions already cited, of Sutton (That You May Prosper) and Chilton (Days of Vengeance), we may add the prior work of American Adventists William H. Shea, “The Covenantal Form of the Letters to the Seven Churches,” AUSS 21 (1983): 71-84; Kenneth A. Strand, “A Further Note on the Covenantal Form in the Book of Revelation,” AUSS 21 (1983): 251-64; and Davis (Heavenly Court Judgment). Earlier than all of these is the article by J. Du Preez, “Ancient Near Eastern Vassal Treaties and the Book of Revelation: Possible Links,” Religion in South Africa 2, no. 2 (1981): 33-43. In reviewing Shea’s proposal, Beale (Use of the OT, 304–5) is in essential agreement: “The recapitulation of the covenant formula is suitable because a new covenant community has now been inaugurated to be the continuation of the true people of God.” And see now Dan Lioy, The Book of Revelation in Christological Focus (New York: Peter Lang, 2003), 84–87.
The covenant lawsuit (for Strand, a covenant formulary) is a document regulating Yahweh’s covenant with Israel his vassal, in parallel to the Near-Eastern peace or suzerainty treaties studied by George Mendenhall and summarized in his article “Covenant” in IDB, 1:714–23, and by Meredith Kline, Treaty of the Great King: The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), and The Structure of Biblical Authority (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972). Suzerainty treaties are generally analyzed as having a six-part structure: preamble, historical prologue, stipulations, blessings and curses, succession questions, and archival arrangements—the last being absent from Deuteronomy, according to Kline. The standard recent study of covenant is Rolf Rendtorff’s Die Bundesformel: Eine exegetisch-theologische Untersuchung (SBS 160; Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1995).
The covenant lawsuit or rîb connotes a literary form used for prophetic indictments of covenant-breaking Israel. See, e.g., J. Harvey, “Le ‘Rîb-Pattern’, réquisitoire prophétique sur la rupture de l’alliance,” Bib 43 (1962): 172-96, or J. Limburg, “The Root Rîb and the Prophetic Lawsuit Speeches,” JBL 88 (1969): 291-304. Sutton (That You May Prosper, 205–12) regards Hosea as the best example of an old covenant prophetic rîb—Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel bring similar lawsuits—and sees Revelation as Hosea’s new covenant counterpart. Chilton and Sutton read Revelation as God and his Messiah’s final covenant lawsuit brought against Israel, the cult, and the temple through the prophet John. C. Freeman Sleeper (The Victorious Christ: A Study of the Book of Revelation [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996], 107–8) accuses Chilton of imposing the covenant lawsuit model on Revelation, but the criticism has no force since he fails to discuss Chilton’s results and shows no awareness of the independent corroborative work of Shea, Strand, or Davis.
W. Dumbrell (Covenant and Creation [Exeter: Paternoster, 1984], 116) finds Kline’s analogy between Deuteronomy and suzerainty treaties to be forced, since no treaty known to us serves to renew an existing covenant; however, he does accept the analogy formally, which is sufficient for present purposes. Precedent for covenant renewal is in any case provided by Exod 32–34, in the wake of apostasy resulting from the worship of the golden calf.
Aune (Revelation, 1:119–20) distinguishes an adscriptio (or address) and a superscriptio (or sender); in reference to the same texts Corsini (Apocalypse) combines the two.
For Beale (Use of the OT, 304) the order to write is quite natural, “since it occurs in contexts where Yahweh is addressing his covenant to Israel through his covenant messengers.”
Rhetorically speaking, this is a προοίμιον whose function, according to J. T. Kirby (“The Rhetorical Situations of Revelation 1–3, ” JNTS 34 [1988]: 201), is “to establish the ethos of the Christ of the vision [1:10–20] so that he is then able to administer praise and blame with the authority accorded to divinity.” We might add that the covenant mechanism provides the logic for such credibility and authority.
A formula from oracular prophecy in the LXX, rendering (יהוה) כה אמר in Hebrew. Aune (Revelation, 1:119–21) knows but chooses to ignore Shea’s proposal when discussing genre and shows no knowledge of Strand, Chilton, or Sutton. Aune’s solution, combining the imperial/royal edict used in the Persian empire with the prophetic paraenetic salvation-judgment oracle, makes for an unwieldy and unlikely amalgam of two unrelated generic categories. A more economical solution entails what I refer to, here, as covenant “findings”; these reflect the various Biblical adaptations of the suzerainty treaties and are alone in accounting satisfactorily for both the oracular form, the paraenetic function, and the positive/negative content of the seven-pronouncements-in-one.
Klaus Baltzer (The Covenant Formulary in Old Testament, Jewish and Early Christian Writings [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971]) prefers antecedent history. For Aune (Revelation, 1:121) this is a narratio diagnosing the church’s problem. Kirby (“Rhetorical Situations,” 200, 202) notes the oracles’ judicial character, dealing “with the evaluation of the justice of past action.” The risen Lord’s ethos, here, is his dignity as covenant mediator. Sutton (That You May Prosper, 17, etc.) is right in considering what is at stake in the assessments to be a hierarchical relationship whereby the human partner is held responsible for showing submission to God.
Or as it appears in 2:19; 3:1, 8, 15, οἶδα σου τὰ ἔργα; note the repetition of σου τὰ ἔργα in 3:2.
The two mitigated assessments pick this up, in 2:14 and 2:20.
As in 3:4, the phrase governed by ἀλλά expresses approval. Although moved from its usual place in the historical prologue, 2:6 is an element of the audit—hence my repositioning of it here.
Aune (Revelation, 1:122) designates 2:5–6 as the dispositio—surely the least convincing part of his formal analysis. The stipulations call for repentance and a return to proper behaviour, except for Smyrna and Philadelphia who receive no criticism; for them the verdict is “keep it up”—on this see Shea, “Covenantal Form.”
Shea prefers to speak of blessings, since these outnumber the curses; but since the issue is ratification of the covenant, it is better to use a designation which covers both eventualities.
Chilton’s term is succession arrangements, Sutton’s continuity.
2:7 and 2:17 (2:26; 3:12; and 3:21 have nominatives, as with those that are subjects of a verb in 2:11; 3:5). Aune calls this expression, with its variants, a promise-to-the-victor formula.
The last-but-one element in this case (as in 2:11 and 2:17), I put last to reflect messages four to seven (2.29; 3:6, 13, 22). Invariable, it recalls the repeated aphorism—or Weckformel, as M. Dibelius called it—of the parables and probably ὁ ἀκούων ἀκουέτω in Ezek 3:27. Anne-Marit Enroth (“The Hearing Formula in the Book of Revelation,” NTS 36 [1990]: 598-608) studies all seven Weckrufe (along with 13:9) and sees a paraenetic formula linked to the promises of salvation. Aune (Revelation, 1:123) opts for a proclamation formula, which for Shea (“Covenantal Form”) serves to summon witnesses (or, the Spirit as witness). The best recent discussion of these calls to vigilance is by Beale (Use of the OT, 298–317) whose conclusions we endorse: These are, in essence, parable-like prophetic words already put to new use by Jesus who called Israel, or the remnant, back to covenant faithfulness (316); on the logic of blessings and curses, “the hearing formula is an exhortation conveying both notions of salvation and judgment” (317); and in this formula there is an anticipation of the symbolic rhetoric which will characterize chs. 4–21.
In German Bundesgemeinschaft, paraphrased as Gott-Israel-Relation by M. Vogel, Das Heil des Bundes: Bundestheologie im Frühjudentum und im frühen Christentum (Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 1996), 163. In Second Temple Judaism, Vogel distinguishes priestly-cultic and Torah-centered tendencies, both of which envisaged covenant renewal.
As Koester, referring to the septet of seals, succinctly puts it (Revelation, 86).
For this point I am indebted to André Paul, Jésus Christ, 257.
See Koester, Revelation, 74: “Earlier Christ promised that the faithful would wear white robes (3:5), that they would be given crowns (2:10) and that they would have a place on Christ’s throne (3:21). [The vision is underlined] by depicting a group of elders clothed in white robes, wearing crowns and sitting on thrones.”
I am following Samuel A. Nigosian (“The Song of Moses [Dt. 32]: A Structural Analysis,” ETL 72 [1996]: 5-22) for whom this text represents a “deft and transforming variation on the Rîb pattern” (22).
Similarly Ford, Revelation, 80: “The elders represent those leaders of the people of Israel who have kept the covenant and acknowledged the theocracy of Israel.”
Rarely suggested nowadays, this interpretation has the advantage of going back to Victorinus, who says in relation to 4:10, “libri sunt prophetarum et legis referentes testimonia iudicii” (Victorinus, Sur L’Apocalypse [In Apocalypsin] [Sources chrétiennes 423; ed. and trans. M. Dulaey; Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1997], IV, 3 [p. 66]). An alternative view is espoused by Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation (2d ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), following Larry W. Hurtado, “Revelation 4–5 in the Light of Jewish Apocalyptic Analogies,” JSNT 25 (1985): 111-16. Mounce takes the elders to represent the new covenant elect and their number to refer to the orders of priests and Levites in 2 Chr 24:4–6.
Another patristic view implying that in fulfilling OT prophecies in person, Messiah reveals the book’s content.
As George B. Caird (The Revelation of St. John the Divine [New York: Harper and Row, 1966]), argues in relation to 5:1, followed by Christopher Rowland, Revelation (London: Epworth, 1993), 74.
Although Jacques Ellul energetically rejects this interpretation (L’Apocalypse: Architecture en mouvement [Paris: Desclée, 1975], 152), it is in reality as old as Victorinus (In Apocalypsin, V, 2 [p. 76]), who saw Messiah in 5:6 acting as a testator: By his death he had access to what Scripture promised, opening the seals of his testament (i.e., the OT now accomplished and fully revealed).
Ford (Revelation, 93–94) cites LXX and NT texts where βιβλίον means a bill of divorce: Deut 24:1, 3; Isa 50:1; Jer 3:8, interpreting Deut 24:1–4; and also Matt 19:7 and Mark 10:4—the latter are accompanied by ἀποστασίου and the whole phrase translates the Hebrew equivalent את־ספר כריתתיה. She somewhat hesistantly concludes: “Either the marriage contract (Heb., ketubah) or a bill of divorce. .. the bride and adultress motifs in Revelation point to such a scroll. It might easily be a bill of divorce; the Lamb divorces the unfaithful Jerusalem and marries the new Jerusalem.. .. If [so], the seals and trumpets, in contrast to the vials, reveal disciplinary punishment or warnings to give the wife time to repent” (or alternatively, we might say, to allow final repudiation to be postponed).
Likewise Charles Homer Giblin, The Book of Revelation: The Open Book of Prophecy (Collegeville, Minn.: Michael Glazier/Liturgical Press, 1991), 76.
Thus Mounce, Revelation, 135. Compare M. Hopkins, “The Historical Perspective of Apocalypse 1–11, ” CBQ 27 (1965): 44: “At the liturgical level, in chapters 4 and 5, Jn depicts the replacement of the Old Covenant by Christianity in language reminiscent of the epistle to the Hebrews” (italics mine).
Ezek 9 and 14:12–23 link such protection with the faithful remnant in Israel, whilst Pss. Sol. 15:6, 9 seems, like Rev 7, to owe something both to the Exodus and to prophetic reflection upon it. Compare Beak’s comments, Revelation, in his excursus on sealing (409–16).
For P. Hirschberg (Das eschatologische Israel: Untersuchungen zum Gottesvolkverständnis der Johannesoffenbarung [Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1999], 304), “der Seher versteht das eschatologische Gottesvolk in elementarer Kontinuität zur Geschichte Gottes mit Israel.”
Following J. Fekkes, Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions in the Book of Revelation: Visionary Antecedents and their Development (JSNT Sup 93; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 167. Beale (Revelation, 438–39) finds five elements of the Exodus story which are borrowed and expanded: the multitude coming out of tribulation (Exod 4:31); Israel’s washed garments (Exod 19:10, 14—compare the priests’ washed garments in Lev 8:30); sprinkling with blood (Exod 24:8); God’s promise to erect his tent; and the food, water, protection, and comfort provided during the journey.
The festival rehearsed Yahweh’s faithfulness in the wilderness wanderings (Lev 23:42–43) and celebrated, in a settled context, the ongoing provision of abundant harvests (Deut 16:13–15, 17). E. Reynolds (“The Feast of Tabernacles and the Book of Revelation,” AUSS 38 [2000]: 245-68) shows how Rev 7 and other texts pick up all the important components of this feast. Revelation’s structure owes much to Israel’s cultic festivals.
Nestlé-Aland lists various OT texts which Rev 7:16–17 might be said to fulfil: No more hunger, thirst, or burning heat (Isa 49:10); a davidic shepherd to care for Israel (Ezek 34:23; cf. Ps 23:2); no more empty cisterns (Jer 2:13); no more being “struck” by sun or moon (Ps 121:6); no more shame or death (Isa 25:8). And johannine texts also spring to mind: the promise of the bread of life (John 6:35) and the water which Jesus promised at the Feast of Booths itself (John 7:37–39).
Thus Beale, Revelation, 471. Josh 6 (together with Num 10) was also an important text at Qumran. Resseguie (Revelation Unsealed, 156) notes how all Revelation’s angels communicate God’s judgments to the earth.
See Beale, Revelation, 448–54, for those Jewish texts and traditions where divine silence accompanies divine judgment, notably in the defeat of Egypt and deliverance of Israel.
Margaret Barker (The Revelation of Jesus Christ [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000], 171–72) notes how 11QMelch expects a heavenly high-priest to bring the final sacrifice of reconciliation at the close of the tenth Jubilee.
Not forgetting the seven priests sounding their trumpets at Jericho (Jos 6:4). Barker (Revelation, 172–73) discusses parallel usage in the Qumran War Scroll and especially the Num 31 incident where a thousand soldiers accompany Moses in war against Midian, carrying not only trumpets of alarm (metal, חחּחּרות) but also vessels taken from the sanctuary: The latter might have inspired John’s bowls that emerge, in due course, from the Temple.
Davis (“Cultic Festivals and the Judgment Process,” in Heavenly Court Judgment) makes the attractive suggestion that Revelation’s successive judgments are combined with the autumn festivals (Trumpets, Atonement, Booths) in double metaphors. If so, this sequence also comes from Lev 23 (and Num 29).
For this interpretation see Mounce, Revelation, 181, 188.
Beale (Revelation, 479) notes the same combination of mountain/star (8:8, 10) in 1 Enoch 108:3–6.
Providing a full list Beale (Revelation, 396) comments: “We may legitimately infer that the partial or complete darkening of these three light sources elsewhere in the OT is a sign that people have violated their covenant obligations to God and are undergoing judgment” (italics mine).
Birds of prey as an image of the covenant curse recur in 19:17–18; they are found in Gen 15:9–12; Deut 28:26; Prov 30:17; Jer 7:33–34; 16:3, 4; 19:7; 34:18–20; Ezek 39:17–20.
Compare Ford, Revelation, 154.
Ford, Revelation, 164–65.
For Barker (Revelation, 187), “the Song of Moses. .. is the key to understanding this angel. .. the angel in [Rev] 10.5-7 is clearly the same figure [as in Deut 32:40–41] who lifts up his hand to heaven, swears by himself and proclaims the imminent judgment.” The covenant sword is about to strike, fulfilling the Song’s expectation.
Compare Beale, Revelation, 562: “In Rev 11:1 the focus is now on the whole covenant community forming a spiritual temple in which God’s presence dwells (so also 1 Cor 3:16, 17; 6:19; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:21–22). . .” (italics mine).
Exact identification of the altars in 6:9, 8:3–5, 9:13, 11:1, 14:18, and 16:17 is difficult; Beale (Revelation, p. 455) following R. H. Charles (The Revelation of St. John [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1920], 1:226–30) is probably right that “as in apocalyptic literature in general,. .. the heavenly altar combines aspects of both the incense altar and the altar of burnt offering in the earthly temple.” He sees the one in 11:1 as a place of sacrifice evoking “the suffering covenant community. .. the sacrificial calling, which entails suffering for the faithful witness” (563).
Luke has Jerusalem, here it is the holy city (cf. Matt 4:5); Luke has “until the time of the nations is fulfilled,” which here becomes “by the nations for forty-two months.”
Prolonged interpretative wrangling here over an earthly versus a heavenly temple misses the point. What matters is that Messiah’s work in fulfilling the covenant and bringing God himself to dwell with humankind concerns each temple; face-to-face relationship in new Jerusalem entails the abolition of them both.
For OT and other Jewish texts which feature such measuring, see Ford, Revelation, 175–77.
In Zech 2:1, 2 measuring precedes a prophecy of Jerusalem’s restoration under Yahweh’s protection and of divine vengeance afflicting oppressor-nations like Babylon; compare John W. Marshall, Parables of War Reading John’s Jewish Apocalypse (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001), 168.
The number (and its equivalents) come from Dan 7:25; 9:27; 12:7, 11–12. See, e.g., Richard J. Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), 267–73.
In the second of two successive articles on the theme of “True and False Proclamation in the Book of Revelation,” IBS 25, no. 2 (2003): 60-73 and IBS 25, no. 3 (2003): 106-20 (106–7). For consideration of how the monsters of ch. 13 attempt, retrospectively, to neutralize the testimony of the two witnesses, cf. p. 112.
Still thinking of Num 5, Ford (Revelation, 171) wonders if these are the two witnesses required by the Rabbinic tractate Sotah for hearing a husband’s solemn prohibition to a wife suspected of adultery and any subsequent charges: In Rev 11 “the adultress (Jerusalem) pays no heed to [the two witnesses] but treats them spitefully.”
Like Ford in Revelation, Chilton in Days of Vengeance, 282, reads οἱ κατοικοῦντες ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς in 11:10 in the narrow sense of inhabitants of the land of Israel. Prophets did address the unfaithful covenant people to torment it and goad it into repentance.
Resseguie (Revelation Unsealed, 47, 51–52) following C. H. Giblin (“Recapitulation and the Literary Coherence of John’s Apocalypse,” CBQ 56 [1994]: 93), sees in the ambivalence of the numbers “.. . on the one hand, preservation, protection and divine intervention, and yet, on the other,. .. persecution, defeat and ignominy. .. Forty-two is both a messianic and a demonic number.”
See Beale’s discussion (Revelation, 597–607) in debate with Bauckham (Climax, 273–83).
Barker (Revelation, 186) is eloquent in this regard: “The significance of the period three and a half or its equivalents is. .. that it is the last time and that at the end of that time, something would happen to Jerusalem.”
Victorinus (In Apocalypsin, IX, 6 [p. 98]) interpreted temple and ark as follows: “Templum Dei Filius. .. est” (by analogy with John 2:19–21) and “Area testamenti, euangelii praedicatio [est].”
For Jewish thought on an eschatological recovery of the ark, see 2 Macc 2:8 and the mystical speculations upon the Book of Numbers found in Num. Rab. 15:10.
Profound unity of composition at this point rules out any caesura between chs. 11 and 12; 11:15–19 requires just the sequel that 12:1–6 and its developments in fact offer.
For Ellul (L’Apocalypse, 85), she symbolizes a creation completely renewed, in principle, at the moment Christ effected reconciliation on the Cross.
Compare Jean-Pierre Charlier, Comprendre l’Apocalypse (2 vols.; Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1991), 1:265. For allusion to Eve in Rev 12, see C. Hauret, “Eve transfigurée: de la Gense à l’Apocalypse,” RHPR 3–4 (1979): 327-39. Barker (Revelation, 200–202) sees in Rev 12 the survival of a pre-exilic Queen of Heaven tradition, which she finds central to the Book!
As they are repeatedly in the parallelism of the great psalm in praise of the law (Ps 118 LXX).
Compare Marshall, Parables, 144–45, for whom 12:17 “implies comporting oneself according to the covenant of allegiance and practice between God and Israel to which Jesus is, for John and his community, a paradigmatic witness. .. [and standing] as witnesses in the way Jesus stood as a witness to God’s covenant with Israel: they are to keep the commandments of God, fulfill the practices enjoined, refrain from those prohibited, seek purity through means provided in the covenant” (italics mine).
Marshall again, Parables, 148: “Jesus is for John the witness (μάρτυς) of the covenant or the proof (πίστις) of the covenant, the guarantor and inaugurator of the fulfillment of God’s promises and God’s justice” (italics mine).
For a detailed study of how, by carefully worked antithetical parallelism, John has made the two monsters a split caricature of the Lamb, see my article “Un precédé de composition négligé de l’Apocalypse de Jean: repérage, caractéristiques et cas témoin d’une approche parodique,” ETR 77 (2002): 491-516.
Reading six as the covenant number twelve sundered in two, then tripled in consummate rebellion (666), is not new. What I wish to stress is how this view fits so well with the compositional logic of the whole piece (13:1–18).
See, e.g., Adela Yarbro-Collins, The Apocalypse (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1979), 102–3.
The option favoured by J.-L. d’Aragon, The Apocalypse (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968), in his discussion of this text.
A prominent American advocate of this view is Eugene Boring, Revelation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1989), 169–72; see also his closing comments, 226–31. Boring does avoid a triple exegetical trap, ruling out the options of judgment only or of a judgment/salvation mixture and stressing that the basic images, which all connote judgment, are carefully balanced by corresponding indicators of salvation. In this he is quite correct. However to my mind, his universalist interpretation of this double picture simply deconstructs the text.
We may note how Mounce (Revelation, 279) reads the vintage as judicial condemnation, pure and simple, and finds the harvest to imply a separation of wheat and weeds (Matt 13:30) or of wheat and chaff (Luke 3:17).
Similarly Davis, Heavenly Court Judgment, 224: “These covenant curses, like those of the trumpet series and prophetic messages, do not result in bringing the evil ones to God [16:9, 11, 21].” It should be noted that an exegesis based on Lev 26:28 goes right back to Victorinus, who says in relation to 15:1 “ira Dei percutit populum contumacem septem plagis, id est perfecte, ut in Leuitico dicit” (In Apocalypsin, XV [p. 112]).
Beale (Revelation, 813) dwells on the sacrificial colouring of this verb, e.g., for every shedding of sacrificial blood in the LXX translation of Leviticus.
For Beale (Revelation, 794–800), John in 15:3, 4 has kept the framework of the Song of Moses but given it content taken from witness to Yahweh’s character in various OT texts, notably the Psalms.
For this interpretation of μαρτυρίον—found only here in the whole Johannine corpus—I follow Caird (Revelation) who says in commenting on 15:5–6 that focus on the ark of the covenant as such, seen in 11:19, has shifted here to an interest in the testimony it contains.
By insisting that only God’s love and reconciliation are revealed in this temple, Ellul (L’Apocalypse, 190) gets himself into exegetical difficulties at this point.
The Palestinian Targum to Leviticus, from Qumran, repeats the expression four times. P. Prigent (L’Apocalypse de St. Jean [Geneva: Editions Labor et Fides, 2000], 354) accepts the likelihood of a background in Lev 26 (following, e.g., Kraft, Offenbarung, 201). The idea of a sevenfold punishment also finds expression in Ps 79:12, with v. 3 providing the allusion behind Rev 16:6. Beale (Revelation, 803) adds a few references in Ben Sira and other Jewish literature and also helpfully suggests (p. 807) that John may have modelled his scheme on the seven angelic beings of Ezek 9:1–10:6 who afflict only those without God’s protective seal, and in a context where the Temple is full of a theophanic glory-cloud (Ezek 10:4).
A correspondence noticed by E.-B. Allo, St. Jean, l’Apocalypse (Paris: Gabalda, 1933), 252. For Allo the bowls’ fury diametrically opposes that of the dragon in 12:12. See the cup that makes Israel drunk, placed in the hands of tormentors (Isa 51:17–23). For Ellul (L’Apocalypse, 38–39) the bowl symbolism is ambivalent: Blessing, communion, and reconciliation at the Lord’s Table, but also curse, wrath, and rejection.
Bearers of the beast’s mark reject the Lamb’s blood and their judgment is a plague of blood in retribution for the shedding of martyr-blood—on this see Robert W. Wall, Revelation (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991), 198. Prigent (l’Apocalypse, 361) rightly alludes to the prayers under the altar (in 6:10), for here in 16:7 the altar “speaks.”
Compare the cup from the divine Judge’s hand which the wicked must drink to the lees (Ps 75:8–9).
Or Exod 9:23. Beale (Revelation, 821–22) says: “The interruption of the regular patterns of the heavenly light sources predominantly symbolizes a covenantal judgment. The symbolism of cosmic alteration indicates that people are to be judged because they have altered God’s moral laws, usually through idolatry. .. part of the curses for covenantal disobedience is that people will be ‘consumed by burning heat’” (italics mine).
Philo and others regarded the plague of frogs as a sort of Egyptian plague par excellence; the point in Rev 16 is probably that the covenant Lord remains in control. Compare Beale, Revelation, 832–33.
Beale again, Revelation, 838: “Ezekiel 16 is alluded to in order to warn believers in the new covenant community not to repeat Israel’s compromising idolatrous sins.”
As is convincingly shown by Jean-Pierre Ruiz, Ezekiel in the Apocalypse: The Transformation of Prophetic Language in Revelation 16:17–19:10 (Frankfurt: Lang, 1989), 259, 262. Behind 16:7 Ruiz sees Isa 66:1a; behind 16:18–21 he detects Exod 9:18–26; 19:16–18—especially the theophany and earthquake—and the storm-theophany of Ezek 38:18–23, where Gog suffers God’s counter-attack. For Ruiz, John wants clearly to express God’s wrath.
Dan 12:1 had already described the high-point of the plague of hail from Exod 9:18, 24. For Bauckham (Climax, 228), John has amplified the import of the Exodus text by factoring in phenomena from the Sinai theophany.
Compare the article by C. L. Rogers, “The Davidic Covenant in Acts-Revelation,” BSac 151 (1994): 71-84.

Eamon Younis

Thursday 9 September 2021

Findings, Seals, Trumpets, And Bowls: Variations Upon The Theme Of Covenant Rupture And Restoration In The Book Of Revelation

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