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| Jeremiah Mourning Over the Destruction of Jerusalem by Rembrandt van Rijn |
John addressed the need for God to rescue his people from the Roman leaders and their provincial governors in trumpets 1-4 and from the Roman army in trumpet 5. He included the Persian army and their disdain for anyone not Persian in the 6th trumpet. John referred to the plagues used against Pharaoh to remind Christians that the Romans had the same arrogance and would face the same end since the same God was going to deliver them. He used analogies of Roman and Parthian armies to locusts and scorpions to show how powerful, and yet how limited these two forces were in the face of God's power and control. But there was one more group of people that the Christians suffered at the hands of.
John turned his attention to the Jews. A little historical information helps one to see that the Jews had been at work actively distinguishing themselves from Christians since Jesus had ascended to God's realm. Although Jesus was a Jew, the Jews would not accept that he was God's son. So, Jews distanced themselves. Especially after the 50s ACE, after Paul's considerable work in taking the gospel to the non-Jewish groups of the Roman Empire, the Jews felt that they should make themselves distinct in the Roman leadership's eyes.
Seutonius' Lives of the Twelve Caesars, written in 119 ACE, bears out this determination on the part of the Jews. Rome was a bustling city in the year 50 ACE. Claudius was emperor of this huge and very powerful empire with legions and legions of military force at his disposal. He could have easily quelled the unrest. But, instead, Claudius decided to expel the Jews, or at least a portion of the Jews, because of the disturbances they were causing over "Chrestus," thought to have been the Latin name for Christ. Acts 18.1-18 also refers to the expulsion. Some think that Claudius didn't distinguish between Christians and Jews, since Christ was a Jew, and expelled "Jews" (both orthodox and Christian) that were causing the disturbance.
Seutonius also mentions that Jews in Tiberius' time, 19 ACE, were punished, some expelled, because of a scandal concerning converting an important woman in Rome, then taking funds allocated to her for a Roman building to send to the Jerusalem temple. This incident was well before Jesus, but Jews had certainly built a reputation for being a devious and rebellious group in the empire.
The Jews' actions in the provinces of Rome were not any different than what Seutonius recorded about Jews in Rome. Acts 18.1-18 also records the uprising in the Grecian province, in Corinth. It, too, was about Christ, and Gallio, the proconsul, dealt with it in keeping with Roman tradition, that is by not showing concern about provincial religions unless they threatened the security of Roman peace. Acts also includes uprisings in other cities in the provinces, such as the one in Ephesus in Asia Minor and Thessalonica in Macedonia.
It is no wonder, then that by the time Revelation was written, probably in the last year of Domitian's reign in 96 ACE, that the Jews were still at it. They had continued to actively persecute Christians. In Revelation 2.8-11and 3.7-13, in the letters to the churches of Asia Minor, John mentions the Jews in a very derogatory manner, calling them the "synagogue of Satan," and contrasting the Christians to them. John commends the Christians at Sardis for standing up under the slander of the Jews and the Christians from Philadelphia for holding on against Jewish ostracism.
It was important to John to reassure Christians that not only was God hearing their cries of suffering at the hands of the Romans mainly, but that he also heard their cries of the things they had suffered at the hands of the Jews. John created an interlude in the presentation of the seven trumpets to show Christians that God had seen the works of the Jews and wanted to reinforce the idea that Christians were God's designated people. In the seals, John had created a similar interlude in Chapter 7 between the first 6 seals and the 7th seal to show that God was acknowledging them specially, by sealing them. He created an interlude in Chapters 10 and two-thirds of Chapter 11 between the first 6 trumpets and the 7th trumpet for the same reason - to reassure them that they were God's people, distinct from the Jews. And what better way to indicate this than to use a couple of Old Testament, twin sister passages to his own apocalypse - apocalyptic sections from Ezekiel and Daniel.
Daniel 12.7-13 depicted two angels, both standing with feet planted on opposite sides of a river, one a little further downstream than the other. One angel asked the other how long it would be until the things that Daniel was asked to seal in a book would take place. The other angel took an oath in God's name, exclaimed that God's people would be persecuted for 3 1/2 years, then told Daniel to keep secret the words of how the end will happen.
A very similar scene happens in Revelation 10.
Verse 5
Καὶ ὁ ἄγγελος, ὃν εἶδον ἑστῶτα ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, ἦρεν τὴν χεῖρα αὐτοῦ τὴν δεξιὰν εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν
(And the angel I had seen standing on the land and sea raised his right hand to the sky,)
Verse 6
καὶ ὤμοσεν ἐν τῷ ζῶντι εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων, ὃς ἔκτισεν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ καὶ τὴν γῆν καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ καὶ τὴν θάλασσαν καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ, ὅτι χρόνος οὐκέτι ἔσται
(and swore by the one living forever, who created everything in the sky, land, and sea, that time was up.)
Verse 7
ἀλλ’ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις τῆς φωνῆς τοῦ ἑβδόμου ἀγγέλου, ὅταν μέλλῃ σαλπίζειν, καὶ ἐτελέσθη τὸ μυστήριον τοῦ θεοῦ, ὡς εὐηγγέλισεν τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ δούλους τοὺς προφήτας
(But that, in the days when the seventh angel would intentionally play his trumpet loudly, God's mystery would be competed, just like he announced to his servants, the prophets. )
The second half of Revelation 10 uses Ezekiel 2.8-10 and 3.1-15 to portray a message. Perhaps John was building on the previous idea from Daniel, so he was explaining that the following action from Ezekiel contained the mystery of God. Or, perhaps Ezekiel was just an additional voice in reminding his audience that God needed to explain a mystery that he had created many years ago. God's oracle to Ezekiel was to speak specifically to his people the Jews and tell them how defiant God considered them to be. God strengthened Ezekiel against the Jews' very chilly reception by giving him a scroll to eat containing the griefs of the people. Ezekiel did, and it tasted sweet in his mouth and filled his stomach. It made him stubborn and tough, like the Jews were, and gave him the strength to stand up to them even though they never listened to him.
The comparison to Ezekiel's experience is unmistakable in Revelation 10.
Verse 8
Καὶ ἡ φωνὴ ἣν ἤκουσα ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ πάλιν λαλοῦσαν μετ’ ἐμοῦ καὶ λέγουσαν· ὕπαγε λάβε τὸ βιβλίον τὸ ἠνεῳγμένον ἐν τῇ χειρὶ τοῦ ἀγγέλου τοῦ ἑστῶτος ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς
(And I heard the voice from Heaven again, telling me to take the opened scroll from the hand of the angel standing on the land and sea. )
Verse 9
καὶ ἀπῆλθα πρὸς τὸν ἄγγελον λέγων αὐτῷ δοῦναί μοι τὸ βιβλαρίδιον. καὶ λέγει μοι· λάβε καὶ κατάφαγε αὐτό, καὶ πικρανεῖ σου τὴν κοιλίαν, ἀλλ’ ἐν τῷ στόματί σου ἔσται γλυκὺ ὡς μέλι
(I went to the angel to tell him to give me the little scroll, but he said to me, "Take it and eat it until it is completely gone. It will cause pain in your stomach, but will be as sweet as honey in your mouth.)
Verse 10
Καὶ ἔλαβον τὸ βιβλαρίδιον ἐκ τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ ἀγγέλου καὶ κατέφαγον αὐτό, καὶ ἦν ἐν τῷ στόματί μου ὡς μέλι γλυκὺ καὶ ὅτε ἔφαγον αὐτό, ἐπικράνθη ἡ κοιλία μου
(I took the little scroll from the angel's hand and ate it. It was as sweet as honey in my mouth and caused indigestion in my stomach.)
What follows in Chapter 11 makes it very clear that God gave John the message that God's people of the Old Testament didn't accept Jesus. Because of this, his people of the New Testament shouldn't be confused. God did send his son. All of their suffering at the hand of the Jews would be vindicated.
The first two verses of Revelation 11 depicted an angel asking John to measure the temple. The precedent for this was found in two places, Ezekiel 40-43 and Zechariah 2.1-2. In Ezekiel, God asked the prophet to measure all the gates and all the courtyards so that they people could be given the exact plan. With the exact plan, they would hopefully not sin anymore, but repent and change their ways, as indicated in Ezekiel 43.10. With the exact plan, they also would hopefully quit worshiping idols from surrounding nations and stop following their kings' morality rather than God's laws, as in Ezekiel 43.7. They had been disgracing God's name, but hopefully they would change. The 1260 days referred to symbolize a shortened time or a Godless time, or both. 1260 = 42 months = 3 1/2 years, which is half of 7, the number representing a perfect time or a Godly time since 7 was the number of Heaven (3, the trinity) and Earth (4, the four corners of the Earth).
Verses 3-6 of Revelation addressed two witnesses. They were identified in verse 3 with two olive trees and a lampstand, a reference to Zechariah 4.11-14 where two witnesses were chosen by God to serve him. Although the two witnesses were not further identified in Zechariah, there were two witnesses that people in Jesus' day referenced when speaking of Jesus, Moses, referenced in John 1.21 and Elijah, referenced in Matthew 11.14. The reference from John is based on Deuteronomy 18.18, the Matthew reference was based on Malachi 4.5. Revelation 11.6 tells who the two witnesses were in case Revelation 11.3-4 left any doubt.
Verse 6
οὗτοι ἔχουσιν τὴν ἐξουσίαν κλεῖσαι τὸν οὐρανόν, ἵνα μὴ ὑετὸς βρέχῃ τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς προφητείας αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐξουσίαν ἔχουσιν ἐπὶ τῶν ὑδάτων στρέφειν αὐτὰ εἰς αἷμα καὶ πατάξαι τὴν γῆν ἐν πάσῃ πληγῇ ὁσάκις ἐὰν θελήσωσιν
(In the days when they were representing God, they had the power to prevent the sky from a drop of rain making anything wet and the power to turn rivers and lakes into blood and strike the land with plagues whenever they desired.)
These two witnesses were powerful. They could stop rain and inflict plagues. Very clearly, these were the two actions of Elijah ( 1 Kings 17.1) and Moses (Exodus 9-11). These two men as witnesses had to have been representative of the Jewish nation and how they should have represented God to the nations of the Earth.
Revelation 11.7-14 shows what happens to the two witnesses. In this case the two witnesses were not the focus of the passage. They symbolized the Jews as a group during the days of Jesus. He came to give a new covenant, or at least a new understanding of the Old Covenant, before the Jews killed him. The lifeless bodies of the witnesses were paraded in the streets of Jerusalem for all to view. Everyone should have taken note that when Jesus was killed, the Jewish nation's life was gone, not because Jesus represented the Jews, but because he represented a new beginning for God with the Jews, a new understanding of the kind of people God expected his own to be.
Three more references from the Apocalyptic sections of the Old Testament were echoed in Revelation 11.7-14 and applied to the Jews. The first echo is from Daniel 7.7, 19-28. The fourth beast of Daniel's vision comes to mind.
Revelation 11
Verse 7
Καὶ ὅταν τελέσωσιν τὴν μαρτυρίαν αὐτῶν, τὸ θηρίον τὸ ἀναβαῖνον ἐκ τῆς ἀβύσσου ποιήσει μετ’ αὐτῶν πόλεμον καὶ νικήσει αὐτοὺς καὶ ἀποκτενεῖ αὐτούς
(And when they had completed their testimony, the beast who had risen from the Earth's depths went to war against them, subduing and killing them.)
Interestingly, the Roman army, which is many times correlated to the fourth beast in Daniel, closed in on the group of people who had been a thorn in their sides in this region of the world. They sacked Jerusalem in 70 ACE and 3 years later finished off the last of the dissenters on the top of a bluff called Masada. One might say the Jewish nation had been subdued and killed.
As a result, when people wanted to talk about what might come after this in the grand scheme of things, Daniel was brought up. It talked about the times of the end. Other apocalypses, such as the book of 2 Esdras written shortly before the time of Jesus, also dealt with the end through a series of visions delivered by angels. And, extant in Jesus' day were the Dead Sea Scrolls. The War Scroll in particular spoke of the Sons of Light and the last days. So, yes, people talked about the idea of the end in the two hundred years either side of the life of Jesus. The written format used to capture the discussion that took place was the apocalyptic form. In fact, some believed that one of the most popular books read before and during the time of Jesus, the book of Enoch, with all of its apocalyptic characteristics, written and compiled over the course of this 400 year time period, could be the sealed scrolls referred to in Daniel.
Revelation came along most of the way through the four hundred year period referred to above. Since the interpretation of the fourth beast presented in Daniel 7 was the Roman Empire to many Jews, it is altogether possible and likely that John picked up the storyline of Daniel with his beast from the depths of the Earth to be the fourth beast who would destroy the enemies of the Christians. These enemies would include the Jews who lost their second temple in the sack of Jerusalem and who continued to harass the Christians.
The second reference is from Isaiah 1. The chapter could not be clearer. God's people were acting disdainfully. They directly disobeyed the Law given to them. God was finished with them. He would have destroyed them all like he did with the residents of Sodom, but he had compassion on the few who were trying. One can see this reflection in Revelation 11.8.
Verse 8
καὶ τὸ πτῶμα αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τῆς πλατείας τῆς πόλεως τῆς μεγάλης, ἥτις καλεῖται πνευματικῶς Σόδομα καὶ Αἴγυπτος, ὅπου καὶ ὁ κύριος αὐτῶν ἐσταυρώθη
(Their bodies will be paraded in the streets of the great city, which is symbolically called Sodom and Egypt, where their lord was crucified.)
In addition to Sodom, Egypt was mentioned as the symbolic name for the Jews. God had wiped out the Egyptians' first-born progeny and all of Pharaoh's army in the Reed Sea because of Pharaoh's impudence. The comparison to the same attitude of the Jews in John's time cannot be missed.
The third reference is from Ezekiel 37.1-14, the vision of the valley of the dry bones. God took skeletons and slowly made the bones ready to live again. Then he breathed life back into the bodies. The video reading of these verses above is a striking visual of the reference John was using. The application was to the renewal of Israel. And that was Jesus' mission as well - to renew a clearer understanding or make a new covenant with Israel. So, John speaks of life reentering the witnesses because that was Jesus' stated reason for coming to Earth (John 10.10).
Verse 11
καὶ μετὰ τὰς τρεῖς ἡμέρας καὶ ἥμισυ πνεῦμα ζωῆς ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ εἰσῆλθεν ἐν αὐτοῖς, καὶ ἔστησαν ἐπὶ
τοὺς πόδας αὐτῶν, καὶ φόβος μέγας ἐπέπεσεν ἐπὶ τοὺς θεωροῦντας αὐτούς
(And after three and a half days the spirit of life from God reentered them, and they stood on their feet. Those who had been watching this were speechless and tentative of what might come next.)
But the witnesses weren't allowed to continue on the Earth. God called them to Heaven in much the same way that he had taken Elijah in the first place. Their purpose on Earth was finished. Symbolically, the image of the witnesses was that the purpose of the Jews, which had been communicated to the prophets in the first place, was finished. Now the people who believed in God's son would carry on. There was an earthquake and destruction of a tenth of Jerusalem's population to depict the Jews' destruction of purpose, then everyone praised God. Both of the chapters of Isaiah 1 and Ezekiel 37 end with the renewal of God's purpose after he promised to destroy them in captivity for their evils. Revelation 11 presents the metamorphosis of Judaism into Christianity to reassure the Christians that God was not leaving any matter untended in redeeming those who had suffered for Jesus' sake.
There is a bit of subtle seasoning nestled in the wording of Revelation 10.10. The little scroll, which in Ezekiel contained the Jews' preoccupation with God's giving up on them and their sighs and chants of sorrow for God's abandonment of them had to be eaten. The analogy was that the scroll tasted sweet, as supplications often seem to people who make them, but the effect of the list was that they had to be expunged from Ezekiel's body, they had caused indigestion. If something is that onerous to God, then he would try to rid himself of the cause and rebuild, renew, and recreate something new that would have a different effect on people's lives.
I am eternally grateful that Jesus paid the price and offered me life and a room in his father's great complex of heavenly rooms. I am also glad to know that belief in God's son is worth everything I have on this Earth. I feel affirmed by this portion of Revelation that God will come to his people's rescue. I feel a part of his people because after John ate the scroll, he was told to tell everyone, all people of every language, nation, and race that God has renewed and recreated his relationship with his people. I live many years after the collapse of the Roman Empire. The empire I live in has oppressions of its own against Christians. But, God still defends his people and seeks to restore a relationship with those who accept the life given by his son. I am eternally grateful.
Historical note:
The Letter of Barnabas, written probably in the reign of Emperor Hadrian about 40 years after Domitian, interprets the Old Testament prophecies in exactly the same way as John does in this interlude in Revelation. The letter helped Christians and others see how different their faith was from the beliefs of the Jews. Hadrian had very great tolerance for Christianity, allowing it to flourish. God did show up for his suffering people under Domitian.
[Songs used are How Great Is Our God by Laura Story and Our God by Chris Tomlin.]
[Introductory artwork Jeremiah Mourning Over the Destruction of Jerusalem by the Rembrandt van Rijn, retrieved from
http://www.fulcrumgallery.com/Rembrandt-van-Rijn/The-Prophet-Jeremiah_155724.htm , and
YouTube of Dry Bones by doulos lesou christou, retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dafYxu8cQQ.]
[The Greek text used is the Nestle-Aland 28th edition, for all verses except Revelation 11.11]
[The Greek text used is Westcott Hort, UBS4, for Revelation 11.11]
[Translations from Greek are my own.]
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