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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 1:4, him who is and who was and who is to come
John's name for God takes the Greek form of the name given at the burning bush, the one who is, and adds who was and who is to come.
Revelation 1:4; Revelation 1:8, in every translation this tool compares.
A speaker who quotes a famous line in a second language can end up with words that sound new. At the burning bush God gives his name as I AM. The old Greek translation turned that into the one who is. John uses that Greek form for God, then adds two more phrases: who was, and who is coming. He even breaks a rule of Greek grammar to keep the name as Exodus has it.
The core words are the same in Greek: ho on, the one who is. That is how the Greek Old Testament puts God's name in Exodus 3:14. John uses the same two words for God in 1:4 and again in 1:8.
An English Bible reads I AM WHO I AM at the bush, because it follows the Hebrew. John follows the Greek translation, which says the one who is. He then adds two phrases Exodus does not have: who was, and who is coming. Beale traces that expansion to Isaiah's names for God as first and with the last, and to Jewish retellings of the name. John also keeps the name in the wrong case after the word from, so that it looks just as it does in Exodus.
John greets the churches from the God of the exodus, the one who rescued Israel from Pharaoh. The added words make him Lord of the past and of what is coming. To churches facing Rome, Beale says, the name promises that God rules history and will finish it. In 1:8 God speaks the same name himself, with the Almighty.
Not a slip in John's Greek. Scribes later added God after the word from to fix the grammar. Beale and other commentators hold that John broke the rule on purpose, to point readers back to Exodus.
The Hebrew of Exodus 3:14 is ehyeh asher ehyeh, I will be what I will be, or I am who I am. The Greek translation reads ego eimi ho on, I am the one who is, and then ho on has sent me. Revelation 1:4 reads apo ho on kai ho en kai ho erchomenos. After apo (from) Greek needs the genitive case, but John leaves ho on in the nominative, the form it has in Exodus. Beale calls the grammar intentional and says some manuscripts insert God after from to smooth it. He traces the three-part title to Exodus 3:14 together with Isaiah 41:4, 43:10, 44:6 and 48:12, and to later Jewish expansions: in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Deuteronomy 32:39 God names himself in all three tenses: present, past and future. Those targums are later than John, as Beale's dates show. Keener adds that the title also resembles an occasional Greek title for an eternal deity. The grade is drawn here by Beale's definitions: ho on is identical and the solecism points to it. Beale's category is analogical use joined to stylistic use.
Heiser follows Beale and says the broken grammar is deliberate: the name stays as Exodus 3:14 has it in Greek, like a red flag sending readers back to the bush. He adds a point from McDonough and Pausanias. Greek writers said of Zeus that he was, is and will be, and Zeus was hailed as the Most High. Heiser concludes that John's added words answer that claim: "it's very clear that John's taking a swipe at Zeus". He also notes, after Aune, that Philo used the same Greek name for God and was never called a blasphemer.
Beale and Keener note Greek parallels: Pausanias records Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus will be. Beale thinks the pagan formula may have prompted John to use the Jewish one as an answer to it. Keener says the title is related to the Greek formula but especially reflects Exodus. Heiser, after McDonough, goes further and calls the added words a deliberate answer to Zeus. Beale rejects the view that John borrowed only from Deuteronomy 32:39, since its first and last parts do not match his.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 1:4a and 1:8
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 1:4
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 1:4-6
- Septuagint, Exodus 3:14, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- Hebrew text of Exodus 3:14, Miqra according to the Masorah (Sefaria)
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 1:4 and 1:8
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 1: The Revelation of Jesus Christ and the Glorified Son of Man, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
