Interpreters Bible Exegesis on Revelation 7

 Not saying I agree with all that is presented, 

just offering up some insight from 1957.

(Any print in bold red, 

was in bold in the original hardcopy. 

Any other larger print, bold, italicized, links, etc are my additions for additional emphasis. )

Revelation 7

King James Version

7 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,

3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

4 And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.

5 Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand.

6 Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nephthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand.

7 Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand.

8 Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.

9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

10 And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.

11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,

12 Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.

13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

15 Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

G. INTERLUDE: 

SEALING OF THE MARTYRS 

(7:1-8)

7:1. 

Before the end of this age actually arrives, a great persecution will bring the number of the martyrs to the necessary total (cf. 6:11). Consequently there is a cessation of woes until those who are to become martyrs are sealed. For this reason the four angels at the four corners of the earth hold back the four winds, causing a temporary pause in the infliction of plagues on the peoples of the world.

According to a cosmology probably derived from the Babylonians, the earth was considered to be a square, with an angelic watcher of each of the four winds stationed at each corner. The idea of these four winds as destructive agents of God is found in a number of the apocalypses: e.g., in Dan. 7:2-3 the four winds of heaven broke upon the sea, causing the four fearful beasts of destruction to appear; in the Syriac Apocalypse of Peter, God warns that when he looses the four winds, brimstone will go before the sea wind, a flaming fire before the south wind, and mountains and rocks will be broken in two by the west wind (the effects of the fourth wind are not mentioned). According to the Apocalypse of Pseudo-John 15, God promises that he will permit four great winds to sweep the face of the earth from one end to the other so as to cleanse it from sin. In another source, the Questions of Bartholomew 4:31-34, four angels are set over the four winds to restrain them lest they destroy the earth. Nor should we forget that the archetypes of the four destroying horses with their riders in 6:1-8 are the four chariots of Zech. 6:1-8, which are identified with the four winds. The probable relationship of the four living creatures to the four winds should also be recalled (cf. 4:6).

2-3. 

While the winds are being restrained, another angel appears from the rising of the sun, bearing the seal of the living God. He orders the angels restraining the four winds not to permit them to do any harm until the servants, or slaves, of God have been sealed on their foreheads. This scene is similar to one in II Baruch 6:4-8:1. Four angels were about to set fire to the city of Jerusalem to keep it from falling into the idolatrous hands of the Babylonians (i.e., the Romans), when a fifth angel appeared and stayed their hands until the sacred objects of the temple were removed and safely hidden. When

this had been accomplished, he ordered them to set fire to the city. However, in Revelation though we are led to believe from the statement in vs. 3 that the angels will be permitted to release the four destroying winds when the sealing is accomplished, this is not done (but cf. 9:15). This is but one of the several loose ends which are not caught and tied up by the author.

Neither the sealing nor the seal is described, However, some assistance in understanding this scene may be obtained from similar ones in other sources: e.g., we read in Isa. 44:5 that converts to Judaists will inscribe the name of Yahweh upon their hands as a sign that they are his. We are also reminded of the blood of the Passover lamb which was sprinkled on the doorpost of the Jews so that their first born would not be killed by de destroyer (Exod. 12) A brief statement in 11 Esdras 6:5 indicates that the faithful were sealed before creation to ensure their bliss in messianic times. A closer parallel is provided by the incident in Ezek.9:1-8 Six men (angels) are prepared to destroy the inhabitants of Jerusalem for their sins, but before they begin their work of destruction, a seventh marks the foreheads of the righteous and the repentant with ink ss that they will not be slain. Similarly, in Pss. Sol. 15:8 the righteous receive a mark their foreheads to preserve them from the plagues of famine, sword, and pestilence, which God is to inflicts upon the wicked who are also marked so that they can be identified. In a Talmudic version the righteous are to be marked with ink, the wicked with blood (Shabbath 55a). Also, according to II Esdras 2:38, the predetermined number of

"confessors" had been sealed before the end. 

It is possible that John was thinking along similar lines in connection with the sealing of the prospective martyrs, indicating that these who are sealed belong to God, that they are his slaves. Consequently this sealing acts  as as a phylactery, 

or supernatural protection, against the series of plagues which are to devastate the world, in conformity with the promise is 3:10. As an additional feature, not apparent in the parallels, it may serve to guard the faithful against the demonic forces (cf. 9:4), particularly during the reign of the Antichrist which is to come.

Does it have any connection with baptism, which was also called sealing? Certain resembelences are to be seen other than the use of the same terms. Baptism not only marked the recipient as belonging to God, but it also protected him from Satan and his demons. In addition, as a sacrament is ensured immorality to the baptized, or at least it was a prerequisite to eternal life. It is quite probable that the sealing in Revelation, although it is not the same as Baptism performed this same important function. While it could not and did not keep the Christian from suffering or from a martyr's death, it would  secure a blessed immortality for these who were sealed, i.e., for the martyrs-designate.

The seal itself may have been a sacred name, like that inscribed on the white stone which was to be given to the martyrs (2:17) or like those on the pillars in the temple which symbolize the martyrs (3:12). This surmise is reinforced by one of the final scenes in which the martyrs receive the divine name on their foreheads (22:4). To be sure, John represents the sealing as occurring in the present age, and the inscribing of the divine name on their foreheads in the next; but since John frequently is indifferent to the details of chronology, it could be that the former is thought of as being, in a sense, an anticipation of the latter.

4-8.

 

The number of those sealed is given as a hundred and forty-four thousand, with twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. This is the total number of martyrs that must be completed before the prayers of those in heaven can be answered (cf. 6:11). More than likely John has used a Jewish source in which the saints are members of the Jewish nation from each of the twelve tribes. Whatever the source, he has allegorized the twelve tribes to signify the Christians, composed of every people and nation (cf vs. 9; 5:9), who are the true Israel (cf. Jas. 1:1; 1 Pet. 1:1); more specifically. they symbolize the whole company of martyrs, as in 14:1, where the identification seems certain.

The exact order of the tribes in this list is not of great significance. In the O.T. there are at least nineteen different arrangements; that in Revelation does not agree with any one of them. There may be some symbolism involved in the heading of this roll by Judah, since the Christ was from this tribe (cf. 5:5). Although in all save possibly one of the O.T. lists the tribe of Dan is included, it is omitted from this one. Irenaeus, writing near the end of the second century, observed that this omission was due to the belief that the Antichrist was to come from the tribe of Dan (Against Heresies V. 30. 2). That such a tradition was current earlier is evident from a statement in Test. Dan 5:6 that Beliar, a form of the Antichrist, will come from this tribe. Furthermore, in Jewish tradition Dan came to be associated with that greatest of sins, idolatry, which was one of the marks of the Antichrist (cf. Judg. 18:30; Genesis Rabbah 45:2; Targ. Jer. I on Exod. 17:8).

H. INTERLUDE: THE GLORIFIED MARTYRS IN HEAVEN (7:9-17)

9-12. 

The scene shifts rapidly from the sealing of the martyrs to become a proleptic tableau of the entire company of the glorified and victorious martyrs in heaven, where they await the consummation soon to occur. They are not only from the twelve tribes of Israel, which have been used allegorically, but are from all nations and tongues (cf 5:9). They are no longer under the altar, praying for vengeance, but are in the blessed presence of God who sits upon the throne and of the Lamb. They have their white robes of immortality which had been promised them (cf. 3:5); they carry palm branches, the symbol of victory and thanksgiving (cf. 1 Macc. 13:51; 11 Macc. 10:7; John 12:13, Leviticus Rabbah 30:2), and they sing a victorious song of praise. The scene is practically duplicated in II Esdras 2:42-48. Ezra is shown a multitude of confessors, who had previously been sealed in Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, before God and his Son. They were dressed in their garments of immortality, were given crowns and palms, and praised the Lord with songs. The song sung by the martyrs in Revelation is one of praise to God and the Lamb for the salvation and glorious victory which they are to enjoy soon. Whereupon the heavenly choir, consisting of the angels, the four living creatures, and the twenty-four elders, falling on their faces before the throne and worshiping God, respond with a highly liturgical sevenfold doxology beginning and ending with Amen. The power and might which God possesses are now to be openly displayed. The Lamb is not specifically included in this doxology, but this is doubtless an unintentional omission, since for John God and the Lamb are essentially one in power.

13. 

Lest the reader fail to identify this glorious multitude in heaven before the throne, John introduces a dialogue. This is characteristic of apocalypses (cf. II Esdras 2:42-48 for a very similar situation). John writes that one of the elders asked him the identity of those who were clothed in white robes. When John professed ignorance, the elder replied in what may be termed a martyrological hymn of four strophes, or stanzas, each strophe consisting of one long and two shorter lines. In the RSV vss. 15-17 are arranged in poetic form in three stanzas of this character, but vs. 14 should have been treated by the typographer in the same fashion, for it is an integral part of the whole. 

14. 

In this first stanza the elder identified this group as the persons who had come out of the great tribulation, i.e., here in an anticipatory presentation is the total group of martyrs whose predestined number is to be completed in the last and greatest persecution. John envisaged this final tribulation as occurring in the immediate future during the reign of the Antichrist

These glorified saints are the faithful who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. This statement is a reiteration of the theme that the salvation and victory of the martyrs are made possible because Christ, the first martyr, had been victorious through his death (cf. 1:5). It should also be remembered that the martyrs are saved to some degree by the shedding of their own blood-a baptism by blood, as it were.

15. 

Some of the eternal blessings which the martyrs are to enjoy are described in poetic language in the three remaining stanzas. They will be permitted to stand before the throne of God and will be a company of priests who serve him day and night in his temple, a repetition of an earlier promise in 1:6 and 5:10 that they would become priests. This is somewhat inconsistent with the later statement that there would become priest is the New Jerusalem (21:22). God in turn will shelter them with his presence; ie, his Shekinah, his divine presence, will overshadow and protect them (cf. Ezek. 37:27). This prospect reaches fulfillment in 21:3, when God makes his dwelling with men.

16-17. 

The last two stanzas are largely an obvious adaptation of a prediction made in Isa. 49:10, "They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them," with an allusion made, perhaps, to Ps. 23. In keeping, therefore, with this alluring expectation in Isaiah, the martyrs will never hunger nor thirst; they will never be stricken again by the sun, nor with blazing heat. By a curious shift in symbolism, the Lamb... will be their shepherd, leading them to springs of living water. Finally, they shall have no more sorrow, for the elder (vs. 13), echoing Isa. 25:8, assures them that God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Someday I'll post the exegesis on Rev 14, the "other" 144,000 

and we will see what it says...

well...you'll see what it says...

Ive already read it.

:-).

The sealing as it relates to a type of phylactery 

I found very interesting in this chapter.