Read The Jewish Annotated New Testament Online
Authors: Amy-Jill Levine
5
From the tribe of Judah twelve thousand
sealed,
from the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Gad twelve thousand,
6
from the tribe of Asher twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Naphtali twelve
thousand,
from the tribe of Manasseh twelve
thousand,
7
from the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Levi twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Issachar twelve
thousand,
8
from the tribe of Zebulun twelve
thousand,
from the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Benjamin twelve
thousand sealed.
9
After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.
10
They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation belongs to our God who is
seated on the throne, and to the
Lamb!”
11
And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,
12
singing,
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
13
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?”
14
I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15
For this reason they are before the
throne of God,
and worship him day and night within
his temple,
and the one who is seated on the throne
will shelter them.
16
They will hunger no more, and thirst no
more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;
17
for the Lamb at the center of the throne
will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of the
water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from
their eyes.”
8
When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
2
And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.
3
Another angel with a golden censer came and stood at the altar; he was given a great quantity of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar that is before the throne.
4
And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.
5
Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth; and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.
THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE CULT
One of the functions of Jewish apocalyptic literature was to reveal a temple cult that prospered in heaven, by God’s very throne, by the hands of angels, according to the stringent precepts of the Torah, regardless of the historical abominations that might be afflicting the Temple in Jerusalem. Stimulated by such ancient blueprints for Jewish liturgical perfection as the desert tabernacle (Ex 25–31; 36–39) and Ezekiel’s heavenly temple (Ezek 40–48), authors of the Enoch and Levi apocalypses (for example), which were composed over the Hellenistic and early Roman periods, incorporated specific details of heavenly and liturgical procedure both to reassure readers and to signify the priestly functions of the angels in heaven. The Qumran Essenes saw themselves as active participants in this heavenly cult through their Sabbath Songs (11QShirShabb), which were supposed to call into action the priestly angels and perhaps even substitute for animal offerings. Neither the final destruction of the Jerusalem Temple nor Jesus-belief eliminated such esoteric interests in a heavenly cult, as we see in Christian texts like the
Testament of Levi
and the Letter to the Hebrews.
Revelation offers remarkably detailed images of this heavenly temple cult, from the blowing of trumpets and pouring of bowls in chs 6–9, details that would also have conjured sights of non-Jewish civic ritual in Asia Minor cities, to the use of incense at the altar (8.1–3). The heavenly temple of John’s apocalypse functions not just as the site of angelic service (cf. 16.17) but also as the spectacle of divine power, alternately veiled (15.8) and visible (11.19) according to the stages of the liturgical process through which the eschaton unfolds. Most importantly, both the angels (including the mysterious twenty-four elders, 4.10–11) and the righteous function primarily as priests and liturgical choristers (4–7; 15.2–8; 20.6), and as at Qumran, the eschatological status of the righteous depends fundamentally on their absolute priestly purity (14.4; 21.7; 22.3–4).
Modern readers might find an uncomfortable paradox between the holy angels’ heavenly ministrations and the horrific cataclysms that each liturgical act causes on earth. But ancient audiences most likely found a reassuring perfection in the scenes of heavenly cult and a satisfying clarity in the extreme forms of divine judgment that John envisioned.
6
Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets made ready to blow them.
7
The first angel blew his trumpet, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were hurled to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.
8
The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea.
9
A third of the sea became blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
10
The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water.
11
The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many died from the water, because it was made bitter.
12
The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light was darkened; a third of the day was kept from shining, and likewise the night.
13
Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew in midheaven, “Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow!”
9
And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit;
2
he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.
3
Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given authority like the authority of scorpions of the earth.
4
They were told not to damage the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
5
They were allowed to torture them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torture was like the torture of a scorpion when it stings someone.
6
And in those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them.
7
In appearance the locusts were like horses equipped for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces,
8
their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth;
9
they had scales like iron breastplates, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle.
10
They have tails like scorpions, with stingers, and in their tails is their power to harm people for five months.
11
They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon,
*
and in Greek he is called Apollyon.
*
12
The first woe has passed. There are still two woes to come.
13
Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four
*
horns of the golden altar before God,
14
saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”
15
So the four angels were released, who had been held ready for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, to kill a third of humankind.
16
The number of the troops of cavalry was two hundred million;
I heard their number.
17
And this was how I saw the horses in my vision: the riders wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire
*
and of sulfur; the heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths.
18
By these three plagues a third of humankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths.
19
For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; their tails are like serpents, having heads; and with them they inflict harm.
20
The rest of humankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands or give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk.
21
And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their fornication or their thefts.
10
And I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire.
2
He held a little scroll open in his hand. Setting his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land,
3
he gave a great shout, like a lion roaring. And when he shouted, the seven thunders sounded.
4
And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.”
5
Then the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and the land raised his right hand to heaven
6
and swore by him who lives forever
and ever,