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Echoes of Revelation
Revelation never quotes the Old Testament outright, yet no New Testament book refers to it more. See both texts side by side, why they don’t match, and what John does with them.
Revelation 1:15, a voice like many waters
The voice like the roar of many waters is God's voice in Ezekiel 43:2 and Ezekiel 1:24, and John follows the Hebrew wording.
Revelation 1:15, in every translation this tool compares.
A tribute band that plays a song from the original record, not a later cover, shows which version it knows. Daniel's shining man had a voice like a crowd. John's figure has a voice like many waters. Those words come from Ezekiel, where God's glory returns to the temple with a sound like many waters. John's wording matches the Hebrew of Ezekiel, not the Greek translation.
A voice like the sound of many waters. In Hebrew Ezekiel 43:2 reads kol mayim rabbim; John has phone hydaton pollon. Ezekiel 1:24 uses the same picture for the sound of the creatures' wings near God's throne.
The Greek translation of Ezekiel 43:2 does not say many waters; it compares the voice to an army camp. So John is closer to the Hebrew here. He also moves the voice from God to Jesus. And he skips the end of Daniel 10:6, where the man's voice is like a crowd, for Ezekiel's stronger image.
In Ezekiel the voice belongs to God himself, as his glory returns to the temple. John gives that voice to Jesus, standing among the lampstands. Beale reads it as another sign of Christ's divine nature, set, like Ezekiel's, in a temple scene.
Not a voice like Daniel's angel. Daniel 10:6 has a crowd. John chose God's voice from Ezekiel instead, Keener and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible both note.
Beale says that just as Daniel 10:6 ends with the man's voice, so does John's portrait, but the language is taken from the Hebrew of Ezekiel 1:24 and 43:2, where God's voice is like the roar of many waters. In the vault's Septuagint, Ezekiel 43:2 reads phone tes paremboles hos phone diplasiazonton pollon, a sound of a camp like the voice of many; Ezekiel 1:24 has hos phonen hydatos pollou, like the sound of much water. The Hebrew of 43:2 is vekolo kekol mayim rabbim. Jewish writings placed Ezekiel's voice in the temple (Midrash Rabbah on Genesis 3.4). Vos, as Beale's introduction reports, counted the shift from Yahweh to the son of man as disregard for context; Beale answers that it is a change of application, since the son of man is plainly divine in Revelation 1. The grade is drawn here by Beale's definitions: the wording is nearly identical to the Hebrew and the setting is God's glory.
Reading verse 15, Heiser says the bronze feet and the roar of many waters sound like Ezekiel 1 and 43, and that John is throwing it all in the blender.
Vos takes the transfer of God's voice to the son of man as ignoring Ezekiel's context; Beale calls it a change of application. Keener adds that later Jewish traditions spoke of waters in the heavens.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 1:13-15, and introduction, Contextual and Noncontextual Use
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 1:13-15
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 1:15
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 1:15
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 1:15
- Septuagint, Ezekiel 43:2 and 1:24, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- Hebrew text of Ezekiel 43:2, Miqra according to the Masorah (Sefaria)
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 1: The Revelation of Jesus Christ and the Glorified Son of Man, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
