Revelation 4:5

The impression of awe is heightened by traits from the primitive Semitic theophany which, especially in judgment, was commonly associated with a thunderstorm (φωναί = the shrieks and roaring blasts of the storm). Thunder in the Apocalypse is either a sort of chorus in praise of God (as here) or punitive (e.g., Revelation 16:18); in Enoch lix. 1 the seer beholds the secrets of the thunder, “how it ministers unto well-being and blessing, or serves for a curse before the Lord of Spirits”. For the “torches of fire” (seven being a sacred number = collective and manifold power, Jastrow 265, Trench 62 70) cf. Ezekiel 1:13 ὡς ὄψις λαμπάδων συστρεφομένων ἀναμέσον τῶν ζῴων καὶ φέγγος τοῦ πυρὸς καὶ ἐκ τοῦ πυρὸς ἐξεπορεύετο ἀστραπή, and Apoc. Bar. xxi. 6, where “holy living creatures, without number, of flame and fire” surround the throne. Fulness, intensity, energy, are implied in the figure, which reflects the traditional association (in the primitive mind) of fire and flame with the divinity, and especially with the divine purity or holiness of which they were regarded as an outward expression. There may be an allusion to the ignes aeterni or sempiterni of Roman mythology, an equivalent for the heavenly bodies; but Jewish eschatology had for over two centuries been familiar with the seven watchers of the heavenly court and their counterparts in Persian and Babylonian mythology. The combination of fire and crystal (Revelation 4:6, see also Revelation 15:2) goes back originally to Exodus 24:9-10; Exodus 24:17, and Ezekiel 1:22; Ezekiel 1:27, mediated by passages like En. xiv. 9, 17 f., 21 23; while the groundwork of the symbol answers to the seven Persian councillors (Ezra 7:14; Esther 1:14) who formed the immediate circle of the monarch, a counterpart of the divine Amshaspands, as well as to the sacred fire of Ormuzd, which (on Zoroastrian principles) was to be kept constantly burning. Seven burning altars, evidently representing a planetary symbolism, also occur in the cult of Mithra, while in the imageless temple of Melcarth at Gades fires always burned upon the altar, tended by whiterobed priests. 5 c reads like an editorial comment or a liturgical gloss; the πρεσβύτεροι, e.g., are undefined.