Read The Jewish Annotated New Testament Online
Authors: Amy-Jill Levine
who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it: “There will be no more delay,
7
but in the days when the seventh angel is to blow his trumpet, the mystery of God will be fulfilled, as he announced to his servants
*
the prophets.”
8
Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, “Go, take the scroll that is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.”
9
So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll; and he said to me, “Take it, and eat; it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth.”
10
So I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.
11
Then they said to me, “You must prophesy again about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.”
11
Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Come and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there,
2
but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample over the holy city for forty-two months.
3
And I will grant my two witnesses authority to prophesy for one thousand two hundred sixty days, wearing sackcloth.”
4
These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.
5
And if anyone wants to harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes; anyone who wants to harm them must be killed in this manner.
6
They have authority to shut the sky, so that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have authority over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire.
7
When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them,
8
and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that is prophetically
*
called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.
9
For three and a half days members of the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb;
10
and the inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and celebrate and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to the inhabitants of the earth.
11
But after the three and a half days, the breath
*
of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and those who saw them were terrified.
12
Then they
*
heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud while their enemies watched them.
13
At that moment there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
14
The second woe has passed. The third woe is coming very soon.
15
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying,
“The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord
and of his Messiah,
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and he will reign forever and ever.”
16
Then the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God,
17
singing,
“We give you thanks, Lord God Almighty,
who are and who were,
for you have taken your great power
and begun to reign.
18
The nations raged,
but your wrath has come,
and the time for judging the dead,
for rewarding your servants,
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the prophets
and saints and all who fear your name,
both small and great,
and for destroying those who destroy the
earth.”
19
Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.
12
A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
2
She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth.
3
Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.
4
His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born.
5
And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule
*
all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne;
6
and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days.
7
And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back,
8
but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.
9
The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
10
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming,
“Now have come the salvation and the
power
and the kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Messiah,
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for the accuser of our comrades
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has been
thrown down,
who accuses them day and night before
our God.
11
But they have conquered him by the
blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony,
for they did not cling to life even in the
face of death.
12
Rejoice then, you heavens
and those who dwell in them!
CHAOS MONSTERS
The bizarre polymorphic beasts that arise in ch 13 to threaten and delude the earth belong to the most archaic biblical traditions of creation and would have been easily recognized as such by early audiences. The idea that the God of Israel, like other Canaanite gods, defeated and bound the monsters Leviathan/Rahab and Behemoth—respectively sea- and land-monsters—at the beginning of time is invoked in such disparate biblical sources as Ps 74 and Job 41, and Isaiah calls for its reenactment, to perfect the earth once again (Isa 27.1; 51.9–10). While many sources from John’s own period still refer to these primordial beasts by name (
1 En
. 60.7–9;
2 Bar
. 29.4;
4 Ezra
6.49–52), the book of Daniel had begun a tradition of imagining their anonymous reappearance in horrific forms that reflected the imperial powers of history (Dan 7), and it is this visionary tradition that John draws upon in ch 13.
We
know they are primordial chaos monsters, but John just beholds them fearfully.
Other frightening beasts in Revelation draw on the same archaic traditions of chaos in creation. The seven-headed Satan-dragon (ch 12) owes much to early images of Leviathan (cf. Isa 27.1), even while its harassment of the woman and infant have been shown to follow more closely the Greek myth of Leto and the child Apollo, threatened by the monster Python, than ancient Canaanite mythology. Interestingly, the Satan-dragon is said to serve God’s own eschatological designs (17.17) before its final destruction (20.9–10). So also the minor demon Death, a latter-day version of the ancient Canaanite drought-monster Mot, is introduced first as an agent of divine wrath (6.7–8) before its final destruction (20.14). This paradoxical status, instrument of God and enemy of God, pertains to many demonic figures in the ancient world.
Like many Jewish apocalyptic authors, John depicts the eschatological theater as a subtle and shifting balance between divine violence and a demonic—or at least initially extra-divine—violence, at the end of which is perfect peace and order.
But woe to the earth and the sea,
for the devil has come down to you
with great wrath,
because he knows that his time is
short!”
13
So when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued
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the woman who had given birth to the male child.
14
But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to her place where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.
15
Then from his mouth the serpent poured water like a river after the woman, to sweep her away with the flood.
16
But the earth came to the help of the woman; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth.
17
Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus.
18
Then the dragon
*
took his stand on the sand of the seashore.
13
1
And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads; and on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads were blasphemous names.
2
And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And the dragon gave it his power and his throne and great authority.
3
One of its heads seemed to have received a death-blow, but its mortal wound
*
had been healed. In amazement the whole earth followed the beast.
4
They worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?”
5
The beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months.
6
It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven.
7
Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them.
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It was given authority over every tribe and people and language and nation,
8
and all the inhabitants of the earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slaughtered.
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