Revelation 6:15-17

Note the sevenfold description of the effect produced on humanity (Revelation 19:18, cf. Revelation 13:16), the Roman χιλίαρχοι (= tribuni), the riches and rank of men (ἰσχ. a dramatic touch = defiant authority, like Mrs. Browning's Lucifer: “strength to behold him and not worship him, Strength to be in the universe and yet Neither God nor God's servant”; see especially Ps. Sol. 15:3, 4), the distinction of slaves and free as a pagan, never as an internal Christian, division; also the painting of the panic from O.T. models (reff.). Those who are now the objects of dread, cower and fly to the crags and caves a common sanctuary in Syria (cf. Introd. § 8). Mr. Doughty describes a meteoric shock in Arabia thus: “a thunder-din resounded marvellously through the waste mountain above us; it seemed as if this world went to wrack.… The most in the mejlis were of opinion that a ‘star' had fallen” (Ar. Des. i. 462, 463). The Hosean citation (cf. Jeremiah 8:3) here, as in Luke, gives powerful expression to the dread felt by an evil conscience; even the swift agony of being crushed to death is preferable to being left face to face with the indignation of an outraged God. To stand (cf. Luke 21:36) is to face quietly the judgment of God (1 John 2:28), which is impossible except after a life which has resolutely stood its ground (Ephesians 6:13) amid reaction and served God (Revelation 6:10-11). The panic of kings, etc., is taken from the description of the judgment in Enoch 62 63, where before the throne of messiah “the mighty and the kings” in despairing terror seek repentance in vain; “and one portion of them will look on the other, and they will be terrified, and their countenance will fall, and pain will seize them,” at the sight of messiah. In Apoc. Bar. xxv. also the approach of the end is heralded by stupor of heart and despair among the inhabitants of the earth, while a similar stress falls (i n Sap. 6:1-9) on kings, etc., and (in En. xxxvii. lxxi. generally) on the earth's rulers. There is no need to suspect καὶ … ἀρνίου (16) as an editorial gloss (Vischer, Spitta, Weyland, de Faye, Völter, Pfleiderer, von Soden, Rauch, J. Weiss, Briggs); it may be a characteristic touch designed to point the O.T. citation (for αὐτοῦ in 17 or in Revelation 22:3 cf. 1 Thessalonians 3:11; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17), rather than a scribal or editorial insertion in what was originally a Jewish source.

The great day of God's wrath has come, but the action is interrupted by an entre-acte in 7, where as in Revelation 10:1 to Revelation 11:13, the author introduces an intermezzo between the sixth and the seventh members of the series. A change comes over the spirit of his dream. But although this oracle is isolated by form and content from its context, it is a consoling rhapsody or rapture designed to relieve the tension by lifting the eyes of the faithful over the foam and rocks of the rapids on which they were tossing to the calm, sunlit pool of bliss which awaited them beyond. They get this glimpse before the seventh seal is opened with its fresh cycle of horrors. The parenthesis consists of two heterogeneous visions, one (Revelation 6:1-8) on earth and one (Revelation 6:9-17) in heaven. The former (and indeed the whole section, cf. the ἑστῶτες of 9) is an implicit answer to the query of Revelation 6:17, τίς δύναται σταθῆναι; it is an enigmatic fragment of apocalyptic tradition, which originally predicted (cf. Ezekiel 9:1 f.) God's safeguarding of a certain number of Jews, prior to some catastrophe of judgment (“Cry havoc, and let slip the winds of war!”) upon the wicked. The chapter is not a literary unit with editorial touches (Weyland, Erbes, Bruston, Rauch), nor is 9 17 a continuation of 6. (Spitta). Revelation 6:1-8 are a Jewish fragment incorporated ay the author, who writes 9 17 himself (so, e.g., Vischer, Pfleiderer, Schmidt, Porter, Bousset, von Soden, Scott, Wellhausen). The fact that a selection, and not the whole, of the Jews are preserved, does not (in view of 4 Esdras) prove that a Jewish Christian (Völter, J. Weiss) must have written it. The scenery is not organic to John's proper outlook. After Revelation 6:8 he shows no further interest in it. The winds are never loosed. The sealing itself is not described. The sealed are not seen. An apparent allusion to this remnant does occur (Revelation 16:1), but it is remote; John makes nothing of it; and the detached, special character of Revelation 7:1-8 becomes plainer the further we go into the other visions. The sealed are exempted merely from the plague of the winds, not from martyrdom or persecution (of which there is no word here); one plague indeed has power to wound, though not to kill, them (Revelation 9:4-5). The collocation of the fragment with what precedes is probably due in part to certain similarities like the allusions to the wind (Revelation 6:13), numbering (Revelation 6:11), and the seals (Revelation 6:1 f.). The real problem is, how far did John take this passage literally? This raises the question of the relationship between 1 8 and 9 17; either (a) both are different forms of the same belief, or (b) two different classes of people are meant. In the former event (a) John applies the Jewish oracle of 1 8 to the real Jews, i.e., the Christians, who as a pious remnant are to be kept secure amid the cosmic whirl and crash of the latter days (Revelation 6:12-17, cf. Revelation 3:10 and the connexion of Nahum 1:5-7). The terror passes and lo the saints are seen safe on the other side (Revelation 6:9-17). This interpretation of Christians as the real Israel or twelve tribes is favoured not only by early Christian thought (cf. 1 Peter 1:1; James 1:1, Herm. Sim. ix. 17), but by the practice of John himself (e.g., Revelation 18:4). Here as elsewhere he takes the particularist language of his source in a free symbolic fashion; only, while the archaic scenery of 1 8 suffices for a description of the safeguarded on earth, he depicts their beatified state (Revelation 6:9-17) in ampler terms. The deeper Christian content of his vision implies not deliverance from death but deliverance through death. His saints are not survivors but martyrs. Hence the contrast between 1 8 and 9 17 is one of language rather than of temper, and the innumerable multitude of the latter, instead being a supplement to the 144,000, are the latter viewed after their martyr-death under a definitely Christian light. The O.T. imagery of 1 8 mainly brings out the fact that the true Israel (Galatians 6:16) is known and numbered by God; not one is lost. The alternative theory (b) holds that in taking over this fragment and adding another vision John meant Jewish Christians by the 144,000. The latter identification (so, e.g., Prim., Vict., Hausrath, Vischer, Spitta, Hirscht, Forbes, Bousset) is less probable, however, in view of the general tenor of the Apocalypse (cf. Introd. § 6), for the usual passages cited as proof (cf. notes on Revelation 14:1 f., Revelation 21:12; Revelation 21:24) are irrelevant, and while John prized the martyrs it is incredible that 9 17 was meant to prove that martyrdom was required to admit Gentile Christians even to a second grade among the elect (Weizsäcker, Pfleiderer). A Jewish Christian prophet might indeed, out of patriotic pride, regard the nucleus of God's kingdom as composed of faithful Jews, without being particularist in his sympathies. Paul himself once held this nationalist view (Romans 9-11.), but it is doubtful if it represented his final position, and in any case the general conception of the Apocalypse (where Christians are the true Jews, and where particularist language is used metaphorically, just because literally it was obsolete) tells on the whole in favour of the view that 9 17 represents 1 8 read in the light of Revelation 5:9 (so, e.g., de Wette, Bruston, Porter, Wellhausen, and Hoennicke: das Judenchristentum, 194 f.). Only, the general description of redeemed Christians in Revelation 5:9 is specifically applied in Revelation 7:14 to the candidatus martyrum exercitus. Here as elsewhere John apparently conceives the final trial to be so searching and extensive that Christians will all be martyrs or confessors. The wonderful beauty of 9 17, whose truth rises above its original setting, requires no comment. It moved Renan (479, 480), after criticising “le contour mesquin” of the Apocalypse in general, to rejoice in the book's “symbolical expression of the cardinal principle that God is, but above all that He shall be. No doubt Paul put it better when he summed up the final goal of the universe in these words, that God may be all in all. But lor a long while yet men will require a God who dwells with them, sympathises with their trials, is mindful of their struggles, and wipes away every tear from their eyes.”