Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Revelation 14:6-20, Babylon fallen, the harvest and the winepress
Three angels announce an eternal gospel, the fall of Babylon and the undiluted cup of God's wrath for those who worship the beast, and a voice blesses those who die in the Lord. Then one like a son of man reaps the earth's grain with a sickle, and an angel gathers its grapes into the great winepress, from which blood flows as high as the horses' bridles.
Revelation 14:6-20, in every translation this tool compares.
Three angels speak in turn: one calls all peoples to honor their creator, one announces the fall of Babylon, and one warns that those who worship the beast will face God's undiluted anger. A heavenly voice declares that believers who die faithful from this point are blessed and will find rest. Then two harvests follow, a grain harvest reaped by a heavenly Son of Man figure and a grape harvest crushed in the winepress of God's anger, with a flood of blood flowing from it. Whether both harvests mean judgment, or one of them the gathering of God's people, is debated.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/babylon-the-code-name\/","n":"Babylon as a name for Rome","s":"Babylon burned Jerusalem's first temple and carried Judah into exile. By the first century Jews were calling Rome by its name, and Christians did the same for the city that ruled and scattered them.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/imperial-cult\/","n":"Caesar worshiped as savior and lord","s":"Augustus and the emperors after him were hailed as savior, lord and son of a god, and in the eastern provinces they were worshiped. The titles the Gospels give Jesus were already being used for Caesar.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/burial-and-mourning\/","n":"Burial and mourning","s":"Mourners came at once, the dead were buried the same day, wrapped in linen in rock tombs, and family carried the duty of burial. Pagan mourning, with little hope beyond a shadowy underworld, could be bleak.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/son-of-man\/","n":"The Son of Man","s":"Plain Aramaic for a human being, and also the figure in Daniel 7 who comes on the clouds and receives a kingdom. It is Jesus' favorite way of speaking about himself in the Gospels.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sowing-and-harvest\/","n":"Sowing, harvest and threshing","s":"The farming year every hearer lived by: seed scattered on thin and thorny ground, weeds that look like wheat, the harvest rush, and grain winnowed in the wind while the chaff burned.","r":""}
Fallen, fallen echoes Isaiah 21:9. Jews called Rome Babylon and counted it Daniel's fourth kingdom (the cultural backgrounds notes and article Babylon and Rome; Keener). Heiser reports Aune's point that every Jewish text equating Babylon with Rome comes after AD 70, which would favor a later date, notes that the argument cuts both ways, and will not settle the date. Wine was usually mixed with water; God's is poured undiluted, from the old cup of wrath (Psalm 75:8; Jeremiah 25:15; the cultural backgrounds notes; Keener). Rest for the righteous dead was standard Jewish hope, and over half the Jewish epitaphs found in Rome say in peace (Keener). Blood up to the bridles was stock battle exaggeration, as in 1 Enoch (Keener; Heiser, after Aune), and 1,600 stadia is forty times forty (Keener). Keener and Heiser read both harvests as judgment, after Joel 3:13; the cultural backgrounds notes call only the vintage certainly judgment; the ESV Study Bible reads the grain as believers gathered; Wright reads both as "images of salvation, not of condemnation". The one like a son of man is Jesus (the ESV Study Bible; Heiser) or perhaps an angel, since he takes an order from another angel (Keener).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 14:8, 14:9-10, 14:13, 14:14-16, 14:17-19 and 14:20
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 14:8, 14:10, 14:13, 14:14-20, 14:19-20 and 14:20
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 14:14-20
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Revelation 14:8, 14:14 and 14:14-20
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article Babylon and Rome
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 14: The Lamb, the 144,000, and the Harvest of the Earth, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
