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The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas
The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.
The plagues of Egypt
The blows God struck on Egypt before the exodus, from water turned to blood to the death of the firstborn, while Israel was spared. Revelation's trumpets and bowls replay them on the whole world.
A remake can shuffle the scenes of a film everyone has seen, and the audience still knows the story. Before Israel left Egypt, God struck the land with plagues: water turned to blood, hail, locusts, darkness and at last the death of the firstborn, while Israel was spared. Every Jewish reader knew that story by heart. Revelation's trumpets, and later its bowls, retell those plagues on a world scale, in a new order and in sets of seven. Whether these plagues mainly warn people to turn back or mainly judge those already hardened is read in more than one way.
Keener writes that the trumpet and bowl judgments draw chiefly on the ten plagues of Egypt, reworked into sevens. Other Jewish retellings, such as Pseudo-Philo and Artapanus, also treated the number and order of the plagues freely. Beale sets out the pattern. The first trumpet matches the hail of Exodus 9, and the second and third the water turned to blood of Exodus 7. The fourth matches the darkness of Exodus 10 and the fifth its locusts, though the order differs. Wright and the cultural backgrounds notes read the trumpets the same way. Beale adds that each Egyptian plague was suited to a particular Egyptian god and so was a judgment on that god. The cultural backgrounds notes link the darkness with Egypt's sun god (Exodus 12:12). God had protected his people in Goshen during the plagues, and the seal on the foreheads of God's servants in Revelation 7 plays the same part. The blood of the Passover lamb delivered Israel from the last plague, so the slain Lamb of Revelation 5 is the one whose blood shields his people. Pharaoh's refusal set the pattern for a world that will not turn. Jewish people counted unrepentance in the face of plain judgments as folly. Jewish thinkers, with many Gentiles, held that God sends such judgments in mercy, to invite repentance. The cultural backgrounds notes add that John is doing more than retelling the exodus: he describes judgments on the whole world in the language of the familiar biblical story.
An analogy: a protest song set to a hymn tune everyone knows. The words are about today, but the tune tells the listeners which old story they are standing in.
Because every Jewish reader knew the plagues on Egypt, the hail, bloodied waters, darkness and locusts that follow the trumpets from Revelation 8:7 onward announce a new exodus, with God's sealed people spared as Israel was in Goshen. Paul quotes God's word to Pharaoh from the plague story in Romans 9:17, and Stephen recalls the wonders done in Egypt in Acts 7:36.
Not the old tune left untouched. A protest song keeps the hymn's melody note for note. John reorders the plagues and fits them into sevens, and the target is now the whole world rather than one nation; the old story supplies the pattern, not a script.
What the plagues are for. Beale argues that, as in Exodus, where God had already hardened Pharaoh's heart, the trumpet plagues are best seen less as warnings meant to bring the majority to repentance than as judgments on those already hardened, though they carry a warning too. The cultural backgrounds notes and Keener stress that God sends such judgments mercifully, to invite repentance, and the cultural backgrounds notes add that striking only a third or a tenth leaves the majority a chance to turn.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-15-1-16-11\/","n":"Revelation 15:1-16:11, the song of Moses and the first bowls","s":"Those who have overcome the beast stand beside a sea of glass mixed with fire and sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb. Seven angels dressed like priests come out of the heavenly temple with seven golden bowls of God's wrath, and the first five bring sores, seas and rivers turned to blood, scorching sun and darkness on the beast's throne.","r":"Revelation 15:1-16:11"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-16-12-21\/","n":"Revelation 16:12-21, the Euphrates dried and Armageddon","s":"The sixth bowl dries up the Euphrates to make way for the kings from the east, and three frog-like spirits from the dragon, the beast and the false prophet gather the kings of the world to battle at the place called Armageddon. The seventh bowl brings a voice saying it is done, the greatest earthquake ever, the splitting of the great city and hundred-pound hailstones.","r":"Revelation 16:12-21"}
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- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 5:6, 7:3, 8:6-12, 8:7, 8:8-9, 9:3 and 9:20-21
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, Introduction to Revelation (Interpreting Revelation), and notes on Revelation 7:1-8, 8:7-9:19, 8:12, 9:3-11, 9:18 and 9:20
- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, The Old Testament Background of the Trumpet Judgments, section The Exodus Plagues
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 8:6-13
