Revelation 7:1

As on the synoptic scheme (Matthew 25:31), physical convulsions and human terrors are followed by a pause during which the saints are secured. It is impossible and irrelevant to determine whether the winds' blast and the sealing were already conjoined in the fragment or oral traditions which lay before this editor, or whether their combination is due to himself. They reflect the tradition underlying the synoptic apocalypse (Mark 13:24-27, etc., cf. Revelation 6:12 to Revelation 7:3), but here the safeguarding of the elect comes before, instead of alter, the advent, and the four winds are agents of destruction instead of mere geographical points; besides, the role of messiah is omitted altogether. It is assumed not merely that these angels are the spirits of the four winds (Zechariah 6:5, and repeatedly in Enoch, e.g., lxix. 22, “the spirits of the waters and of the winds and of all zephyrs”), but that some onset of the winds is imminent (Revelation 7:2, cf. En. xviii. 22), as part of the horrors of the last catastrophe (for punitive winds, see Sir 39:28). Stray hints proving the existence of such a tradition (cf. Daniel 7:2) have been collected (cf S. C. 323 f.; A.C. 246, 247) e.g., from Sibyll. viii. 203 f., etc., where a hurricane is to sweep the earth previous to the resurrection of the dead (trees being here singled out as most exposed to a storm's ravages). If such allusions are not mere echoes of the present passage, they would appear to indicate a runlet of eschatological tradition flowing behind more important ideas. Or are the saints like trees of God (Ps. Sol. 14:2, 3) never to be uprooted by a wind or onset of foes (ibid. viii. 6)? It is no longer possible to be sure. In En. Revelation 18:1 f. by a semi-Babylonian touch, the four winds are identified with the four pillars of the heaven and the foundations of the earth; in Apoc. Bar. vi. 4, 5, four angels with lamps are restrained by another angel from lighting them (cf. also E. Bi. 5303). There seems to be no allusion to the notion of a blast (from the sea) as a form of mortal fate (e.g., Oed. Col. 1659, 1660; Iliad, vi. 345 f.); on the contrary, the idea goes back to Zechariah 6:8 (LXX), whence the prophet had already developed Revelation 6:1-8. As Revelation 14:1 f. roughly answers to Revelation 7:9 f., so the appearance of wild beasts out of the agitated sea of the nations (in Daniel 7:1-8) corresponds to the sequence of Revelation 7:1-4; Revelation 13:1 f.

The earth is a rectangular plane or disc on which John looks down from heaven's dome resting on it, to observe (Revelation 7:2) a fifth angel “ascending” from the sun-rising (the east as the source of light, cf. on Revelation 16:20, the site of paradise, the sphere of divine activity?). ζῶντος, here (as in Revelation 15:7; cf. Hebrews 10:31) in O.T. sense (cf Deuteronomy 32:39 f.; Ezekiel 20:33; Jeremiah 10:10, etc.) of vitality to succour and to punish, God's “life” being manifested in his effective preservation of the saints and chastisement of their enemies or of the world in general. He lives and keeps alive. Here, as in the parent passage, Ezekiel 9:4-6 (cf. Exodus 12:13 f. and the “Egyptian” character of the plagues in chap, 8.), the true δοῦλοι of God are distinguished by a mark denoting God's ownership. Before the crisis good and evil must be discriminated (Spitta, 80 f.). Cf. Ps. Sol. 15:6 f. on the immunity of the righteous, ὅτι τὸ σημεῖον τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπὶ δικαίους εἰς σωτηρίαν, λιμὸς καὶ ῥομφαία καὶ θάνατος μακρὰν ἀπὸ δικαίων : where as these plagues hunt down the wicked, τὸ γὰρ σημεῖον τῆς ἀπωλείας ἐπὶ τοῦ μετώπου αὐτῶν. This royal, sacred sign, which in Ezekiel is the cross or Tau as the symbol of life and is here probably ליהוה authenticates the bearers as God's property (cf. Herod, ii. 113, vii. 233) and places them beyond risk of loss. It identifies them with his worship and also (cf. on Revelation 2:17) serves to protect them as an amulet against harm (see Deissm. 351, 352 on φυλακτήρια as protective marks and amulets). In Test. Sol. (tr. Conybeare, Jew. Quart. Rev. 1898, p. 34) an evil spirit declares he will be destroyed by the Saviour “whose number (στοιχεῖον), if anyone shall write it on his forehead, he will defeat me”. Mr. Doughty also describes (Ar. Des. i. 171) a false Christ in Syria who declared he had God's name sculptured between his eyebrows; i.e. the wrinkles resembled the Arabic hieroglyph for Allah. For the religious significance of such tattooing as a mark of divine ownership see R. S. 316; and, for the connection of Revelation 6:12 f. and Revelation 7:1 f., the basal passage in Daniel 11:40; Daniel 11:44; Daniel 12:1. The parallel device of Antichrist later on (Revelation 13:16, etc.) shows that this sealing is something special, baptism or the possession of the Spirit (as in Paul) is the guarantee of destined bliss. A contemporary expression of the idea occurs in Clem. Rom. lix., lx.: “We will ask that the Creator of all things preserve intact to the end the appointed number of his elect throughout all the world, etc”. As Revelation 6:1-8; Revelation 6:12 f. are free reproductions, with a special application, of the ideas underlying Mark 13:7-8; Mark 13:24-25, so Revelation 7:1 f. is an imaginative sketch on the lines of Mark 13:27. The Apocalypse, however, has no room for the false messiahs of Mark 13:6; Mark 13:22, etc. (cf. on Revelation 13:11 f.) as a peril. See further4Ezr 6 5, “Ere they were sealed who laid up the treasure of faith,” and Melito (Otto ix. 432, 476) the apologist, who preserves a dual tradition of the end, including wind as well as fire = et selecti homines occisi sunt aquilone uehementi, et relicti sunt iusti ad demonstrationem ueritatis, (whilst at the deluge of fire) seruati sunt iusti in area lignea iussu dei. But the Apocalypse like Philo, stands severely apart from the current Stoic notion, adopted in Sib. iv. 172 f.; 2 Peter, etc., of a destruction of the world by means of a final conflagration.