Revelation (Notes on Chapters 5-10)

Chapter 5: The Lamb and the Scroll

Vs. 1-7

Allusion to Ezekiel 2:9-10 “on both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and woe.”

The scroll is unbreakable without the right authority. The scroll can only be opened following death, the death of the lamb.

John’s weeping is because “no-one is able to unlock the secrets of God’s plan and intention for the world, so that humanity remains in ignorance…Here before him, it seems, is the mysterious will of God for his creation, and yet it remains a mystery—firmly and decisively sealed, so that no-one is able to read it and make sense of it.” (Ian Paul, pg. 131 and 133 on Kindle) The inability of anyone to open the scroll is a real crisis. Consider the many different interpretations of God’s plan for the world in early Judaism. Who really knows?

It is the lion of the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:9-12) who takes the scroll.  But look twice, because this lion is a lamb, a slain lamb, with seven eyes and horns. “the powerful figure of a lion is in stark contrast to the vulnerability of the lamb.” (Ian Paul, pg. 132) Ther lamb bears the marks of having been slaughtered (see Isaiah 53:7, Exodus 12:6). The message is one of strength in weakness. Horns are a symbol of strength and honor, associated with the Davidic king (1 Sam. 2:10), salvation (Luke 1:69). “The lamb thus has power to save, but has done this through the weakness of self-sacrifice.” (pg. 133)

Seven Eyes (see Zechariah 3:9)

The identity of the Son with the Father:

John 15:26 -The Spirit is sent by Jesus from the Father; is both the “Spirit of God” and the “Spirit of Jesus” (Acts 16:7; Phil. 1:19), “and is now the presence of God and Jesus at work in the world.” The lamb and the one on the throne are distinct, yet indistinguishable.

Vs. 8-14

Harps and bowls of incense is allusion to Levites in 1 Chronicles 24-25

Prayers as incense alludes to Psalm 141

“Jesus, the lamb, has made the people to be a kingdom of priests, but adds the future promise that they will reign on the earth. This fulfills the creation intention that humanity should exercise dominion over the earth (Gen. 1:26) and points to the final victory at the End.

“Myriads and myriads and thousands of thousands”—Too many to count

“in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea”—three realms of created order

Chapter 6: The Opening of the Seven Seals

The four horsemen are often identified with global destruction and chaos, but are they depicting an end-time future event? “There is a tradition of reading which sees John’s vision as describing some future time of judgment and destruction, but that is only due to a failure to appreciate the biblical language John is using and a lack of awareness of the context within which he is writing. In seeking to understand this text, we need to look, not for things to which the images refer, as if this were a coded version of future history, but for the things which (as metaphors) the images evoke, both from the canon of Scripture and the context of John’s world.” (pg. 147, Ian Paul, Kindle)

For one, the seven seals correlates with the seven bowls and trumpets in various ways. Each include elements of the plagues of Egypt (Exodus 7-11), each has an interlude between the sixth and seventh in each series, and each “finishes with a clear proclamation of the End—silence in the seals sequence, the kingdom of this world becoming the kingdom of God in the trumpets sequence, and the triumphal cry ‘It is done!’ in the bowls sequence.” (pg. 142, Ian Paul, Kindle)

God’s Sovereignty in Revelation

God’s sovereignty is depicted in these series as all-encompassing. However, the “creatures (rather than God) give the command to ‘Come!’ to each of the four horsemen, and John uses the ‘divine passive’ (‘they were given’) to describe their powers. This is very far from a depiction of God vengefully inflicting punishment on the world in a deliberate and vindictive way. In order to see God’s direct action and voice, we have to wait until Revelation 21; his word then is ‘I am making everything new!’, and his action is to wipe away tears (21:4-5).”

6:1-8

“in the Spirit”—“The spatial contrast between ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ is not so much about different locations as about different aspects of reality.”

See Zechariah 1:8-11 and 6:1-7 for allusions to four horsemen. In the passage they “go throughout the earth” (Zechariah 1:10). They draw war chariots and are described as the four spirits of heaven (6:5)

The White Horse:-Calls to mind the white garments of the saints and elders (3:4; 4:4), Jesus’ hair white as wool (1:14).

-Reappears (possibly?) in Revelation 19?

-The language of conquering is not foreign to the lamb, but the conquering this white horse does seems different than the lamb.

-The bow could connect this figure to the pagan god Apollo, who will appear in Revelation 12. The first horse, thus, may symbolize warfare.

-He “was given a crown”. To me, this sounds like this first white horse is only allowed power just like the other creatures, is a pale imitation of Christ, and is not to be associated with Jesus.

The Red Horse:

-Suggests bloodshed

-The means by which the conquest occurs: warfare. War between nations, civil war; “more Jews were killed by other Jews than by Rome in the revolt of AD 66-70.” (pg. 145, Ian Paul, Kindle)

Great sword allusion (Isa. 27:1; Jer. 25:38): Devastation of warfare as God’s judgment on nations and Israel.

The Black Horse:

-The scales that the rider carries are balance scales. “A denarius was the typical wages for a manual worker for one day, and would normally buy about sixteen quarts of wheat, rather than the one quart here. This would be enough for only one individual, leaving no provision for his family. Barley was usually about half the price of wheat, and, being less nutritious, was the choice of the poor (see John 6:9).” (pg. 145)

- Do not harm the oil and the wine: “It was an accepted practice for invading armies, even if they devastated annual crops such as wheat and barley, to leave vines and olive trees unharmed, since they take much longer to regrow and their destruction would devalue the land that had been captured. But the protection of vines and olive trees allowed those who owned them to continue to make a profit, and the reduced capacity then to grow wheat led to frequent shortages of bread in cities, and was the main reason behind Domitian’s edict in AD 92 to destroy half the vines across the empire…So the command ‘not to harm’ allows the economic imbalance that exists to have its full effect in creating uncertainty about food supply and a greater vulnerability to the effects of was and conflict.” (pg. 146)

The Green Horse

-A pale and sickly green color, this horse has the color of someone sick, dying or terrified. It is personified Death followed by personified Hades “the abode of the dead in the Greco-Roman world, and an equivalent to Sheol in Old Testament texts.”

-“Hades was depicted in mythology with a gaping mouth who consumed the dying, or as the god of the underworld…”

We will see at the end of Revelation death and Hades thrown into the lake of fire (20:13): “The ultimate powers of destruction are themselves destroyed.”

6:9-17 The Martyrs and the Wrath of the Lamb

-“The presence of the martyrs under the altar suggests that their death is seen as an acceptable sacrifice to God…Like the lamb, they too have been slain…the means of victory also follows that pattern of the lamb, remaining faithful even to the point of death (12:11).” (pg. 149)

-Why do the martyrs cry for vengeance? Doesn’t this not fit with Jesus’ call to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44) For one, “the call for justice stands in a long tradition in the Old Testament” and this expectation continues in the New Testament (see 2 Thess. 1:6-10)

-“The fulfillment of others who will also suffer martyrdom is here a reference not to a predetermined number…but to the completion of the task of witnessing to the world” (pg. 150)

-Sun black like hairy sackcloth: “perhaps hints at the call to repentance, since this is traditionally what people wore as a sign of turning from sin…” (pg. 151)

-Black sun, blood moon, and falling stars: “The combination of the darkening of the sun, the moon turn[ing] blood red and the stars falling from the sky was seen as a portent of divine judgment in the Greco-Roman world, but in the Old Testament they together signal the coming of God in judgment on the Day of the Lord and the end of this age (Isa. 13:10; 50:3; Ezel. 32:7-8; Joel 2:31).”

-The fig tree: “associated with eschatological hope of peace and prosperity (Mic. 4:4; John 1:50), but also the judgment on those who fail to show signs of repentance and faith in God; the unfruitful tree was a symbol of the Jerusalem temple which failed to welcome Jesus as God’s anointed one (Mark 11:20).”

-The sky disappeared and rolled up: could mean “split apart”, “but the metaphor of a scroll being rolled up does not appear to relate to this at all. The sense is rather that when a scroll has been rolled up for a long time, it needs to be weighted down to stay open, and if released, it suddenly rolls up again and the writing disappears from view…This sudden and dramatic disappearance is another expression of the end of the age in the prophetic tradition (Isa. 34:4) and occurs once again at the end of Revelation (20:11).” (pg. 152)

-The moving of mountains: “demonstrates the power and the presence of God, and islands symbolize distant lands at the ends of the earth.”

-There are seven types of people mentioned to show that every type of person will undergo judgment.

-Appeal to the mountains and rocks: allusion to Hosea 10:8.

-The wrath of the lamb: this is a poignant scripture for if we are tempted to separate a wrathful God from Jesus. They are one and the same God, and the lamb also has wrath and executes judgment on wickedness. The passage does not have God the father as the one with wrath, but we can see that the lamb is just like the father in their indignation towards wickedness.

Connections Between Revelation 6 and Matthew 24

Ian Paul points out some connections with Jesus’ apocalyptic speech in Matthew 24:4-35. Though there doesn’t seem to be a literary dependence as far as we know, there are significant parallels.

-We have false religion in Matthew 24:5 and the white horse. If there is literary dependence to Matthew 24, this would suppose more-so that the white horse is but an imitation of Christ.

-War in Matthew 24:6 and the red horse.

-Famine in Matthew 24:7 and the black horse

-Earthquakes in Matthew 24:7 and the sixth seal (Rev. 6:12)

-Believers put to death in Matthew 24:9 and the fifth seal: saints under the altar (Rev. 6:9)

-We have fleeing to the mountains in Matthew 24:16 and the same in the sixth seal (Rev. 6:15)

-The sun and moon darkened, stars falling in Matthew 24:29, and the sixth seal (Rev. 6:12-13)

“But Jesus makes it clear that these are the things the disciples should expect to see within their lifetimes: ‘Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened’ (Matthew 24:34…)” (pg. 147) Likewise in Revelation 1:3 we read that the time is near. The message of Revelation is that the things which are happening are because God allows them, not because the emperor is in control. The emperor does not bring peace; on the contrary, the “pax romana” is a myth because Babylon (Rome) is centered around death and destruction. It is God, rather who can bring a new heavens and new earth, who can bring peace.

Chapter 7: The Vision of the 144,000 and the Final Seal

Four corners of the earth: Most in the first-century actually believed the earth was circular, and some even believed it was spherical. This is metaphorical language.

The Four Winds: connected to four horses in Zechariah 6, also called “winds.” In Zechariah, it is the winds of heaven, but here it is the of the earth. The author seems to want to distance God from “the agents of harm.” (pg. 157, Ian Paul, Kindle)

Sealing God’s people to protect them from judgment alludes to Ezekiel 9:3-6. The marks on the doors of Passover are a less direct allusion (Exod. 12:12-13)

The 144,000: Seven represents the totality of all Christian groups, just as John only references seven churches when there were in fact more churches. 144 elsewhere is used to reference the New Jerusalem which is “a cube, 12,000 stadia in each direction with its walls of 144 cubits…The number must refer to the whole of the people of God, and not a remnant or elite within them, since they are referred to as ‘the servants of…God’…and constitute the total number who are protected from coming judgment.” (pg. 158) The 144,000 represents God’s people as the temple of God and the body of Christ in the world. “The enumeration…depicts God’s people as a spiritual army, disciplined and ready to engage in spiritual warfare.

Next we have the uncountable multitude. We might suppose that this number is different than the 144,000, but it’s probably more reasonable to suppose it is the same crowd transformed. For instance, earlier in chapter 5 we see the elders saying that the lion of the tribe of Judah is able to open the seals, and when John looks it is a lamb! Perhaps something similar is going on in chapter 7, where the 144,000 (a symbolic number) of one nation (Israel) all of a sudden transforms into a multitude from every nation.

Q: Do the multitudes “earn” their salvation by their martyrdom?

A: No, rather the passage points to the paradox of someone being washed in what would cause stain, just as in Jesus’ death what was meant to bring shame and uncleanness brought “honour and purity.” (pg. 163)

Chapter 8-9:21: The Seven Trumpets

Silence: Allusions to Zech. 2:13, 4 Ezra 7:30

Half an hour: “splitting a period of time indicates a transition, a sudden change of direction or rescue in the middle.” (Ian Paul, Revelation, pg. 165 Kindle) Allusions: Exod. 12:9 means literally “half night”.

The seven trumpets have heavy allusion to the ten plagues of Egypt. The theme of repentance is prevalent, and God’s people are protected from the judgments.

The seven angels: likely the seven archangels of Jewish tradition (Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Sariel, Gabriel, and Remiel). It was common to mention these angels in Jewish apocalyptic texts like 1 Enoch. Daniel may be the first Jewish text where angels have names. For instance, Gabriel is the interpreter of Daniel’s visions. Gabriel appears also in Luke 1:19 and 26. Michael is mentioned in Jude, and is the only angel named explicitly in Revelation.

8:6-13

Hail and lightning: allusion to the tenth plague against Egypt. “Destruction now comes on the earth and trees; what was being held back in 7:3 is now being unleashed.” (pg. 171) Destruction, unlike in Egypt, is not total, affecting a third. It is a warning to repent.

The mountain, all ablaze: something like so not the thing itself; heavenly stars sometimes are referenced as burning mountains (1 Enoch 18:13; 21:3). But could be referencing Mount Vesuvius, which is likely if John’s audience was in the 80s or 90s AD.

Falling star: Would be understood as a meteor, and the fall of heavenly powers.

Wormwood: a bitter substance thought to be poisonous.

The darkness: again is partial, a call to repent.

Eagle: metaphor for God’s rescue and provision

“Woe!”: The cry of the prophets

9:1-12

This star “had fallen” past tense: This angelic being is given a key to open the abyss. But who is this angel? Someone sent by God? Or an evil being expelled from heaven?

The allusion here is to Isaiah 14:12-17, “originally referring to Cyrus of Persia” (pg. 175). Also, Luke 10:18 has “Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” Later, in Revelation 12:9, Satan is “cast out of heaven and hurled to the earth, along with his angels, after his defeat by Michael and his angels.”

To Ian Paul, the star of 9:1-2 is a neutral character and is not to be identified with the angel of the abyss in 9:11.  Part of his argument for this is that the two earlier stars that fall (6:13 and 8:10) do not fall as judgment on the star but for the purposes of judgment on the earth. Rather, the angel of the bottomless pit comes from the inside.

The Abyss: not the same as the domain “under the earth” (5:3, 13); not the same as “Hades”; not the same as the “lake of fire”; not the same as the “abyss” of the Old Testament referring to “the chaotic primeval waters from which God formed the seas (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 77:16). At least in Revelation, the Abyss is something different and is a unique source of evil.

The Locusts: Here, the plague of Egypt is reversed; the locusts harm the people but not the grass of the land. OT Allusion: Joel 2 referring to an invading army, where it says “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.” In Joel, the locusts are referenced as humans, but John is doing the opposite: referencing the humans as locusts. The locusts can’t kill, but only inflict pain. Five months “corresponds to the typical time period of a locust swarm… Scorpion stings were not usually thought to be fatal (which they usually are not) but intensely painful…” Some scholars think the locusts are referencing the northern tribes, which were a threat to Rome: “blond hair, virtually unknown in the Mediterranean world and Near East, was much more common among the tribes to the north of the Roman Empire and could have looked crown-like when tied with a headband. They are human-looking, and, in contrast to the short hair worn by most Roman men and soldiers, their hair is long like women’s hair.” (pg. 178) The teeth like a lion is referencing Joel 1:6 and the sound of the chariots references Joel 2:5. This imagery of a creature with a human head, the body and teeth of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion was also commonly understood as a mythical creature called a manticore.

The angel of the abyss: The king of this horde was also released when the angel set him loose. “In the Dead Sea Scrolls, Belial (another name for Satan) is described as the ‘angel of the pit and the spirit of destruction’…” However, for various reasons Ian Paul does not identify Satan with this angel, even if they are closely related. In the Old Testament, Abaddon is the Hebrew word for destruction and “designates a place rather than a person…though it is also personified along with death (Job 28:22). Apollyon is the Greek term for ‘destroyer’ and is closely related to apolleia, the Greek translation of the Hebrew abaddon, but it is also connected with the God Apollo, who was famed for his destructive power and was a favourite identification of several Roman emperors including Domitian.” (pg. 179)

9:13-21

The four angels bound at the great river Euphrates: “At first, it looks as though the angels themselves are agents of evil since they are to kill a third of the population—but John immediately switches his focus to the mounted troops who are the real agents, suggesting that the angels are symbolic of what is unleashed. If we are correct in seeing connections between the locust army of the fifth seal and popular fears of invasion by barbarians from the north, then there is little doubt of the connection between this army and fears of a Parthian invasion from the east. The Euphrates was established as the border between the empire and the Parthians by Pompey in the first century BC, and that was still the case in John’s day. Parthian kings were famous for their ferocity…” (pg. 180)

The horses with heads of lions and tails like snakes: the mythical creature chimaera, “which breathed fire, had a lion’s head, and whose tail ended with a snake’s head. It also alludes to Parthian mounted archers, who had perfected the art of firing their arrows backwards, and had defeated Roman legions by retreating uphill and firing backwards at the advancing Roman soldiers who followed in pursuit.” (pg. 181-182)

Important Points:

-What happens here is not directed by God, but permitted by him. John tries to make this clear.

-The judgments are meant to lead people to repentance.

-“Evil is real, but it is neither autonomous nor unbounded.” (pg. 176) Part of the message of Revelation is that God is still in control even as evil has been allowed to occur. God sometimes lets evil reach its heights so that his judgment is justified.

Chapter 10: The Little Scroll

In this break from the vision narrative, John himself becomes a central figure in his visions.

10:1-7 The great angel and the seven thunders

This great angel comes “with authority and closely associated with both the son of man figure and the one seated on the throne.” (Ian Paul, Revelation, pg. 187 Kindle) He holds a little scroll, that unlike the earlier scroll is already open. The point is that the scroll will be sealed up, whereas the earlier scroll would be opened by the lamb. Since this scroll is sealed up, it’s contents are a mystery, saved for a future time. We know this because the reference to scrolls being “sealed up” comes from Daniel and means that the mystery will be revealed in the future (see Daniel 8:26 and 12:9). So here we have one example of where Revelation is clearly talking about a far future time, yet the contents of this scroll and the seven thunders are totally a mystery: “the primary rhetorical effect of this instruction is to focus our attention on what John has written which has not been sealed up.” (pg. 189)

Angel’s right foot on land and foot on the sea: Means he is connected to all three domains (heaven, earth, and sea) and has authority in each

Angel’s shout like the roar of a lion: Allusion to Lion of Judah, “but a stronger echo of God coming in both rescue and judgment for his people (Hos. 11:10; Amos 3:8).” (pg. 188)

The seven thunders: completes “the series of sevens in a systematic way, since by including the thunders we have four series of sevens (making twenty-eight in all)…”

Take and eat the scroll: allusion to Ezekiel 2:9-3:3