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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 1:6, a kingdom and priests
What God promised Israel at Mount Sinai, to be a kingdom of priests, John says Jesus has made of his people.
Revelation 1:6, in every translation this tool compares.
A school can hand a famous founder's motto to a new class, and the motto now names them. At Mount Sinai God told Israel that they would be a kingdom of priests. John says Jesus has already made his people a kingdom and priests. John applies Israel's title to everyone Jesus has freed, from every nation.
Both join two ideas, a kingdom and priests, to name God's people. Both follow a rescue: Israel's from Egypt, and the church's by Jesus' blood. In Exodus the people are God's own treasure (19:5). John begins with the one who loves us.
Three things change. The Hebrew says a kingdom of priests, and the Greek translation says a royal priesthood. John writes two nouns, a kingdom, priests, as the Targum, an Aramaic paraphrase, also does (Keener). Exodus speaks of the future, you shall be. John speaks of a fact, he has made us. And the people named are not one nation but all who are freed from their sins.
John hands Israel's vocation to the church. Priests stand between God and people and bring God's presence near. Beale reads the verse as a present office: believers already serve as kings and priests, by bearing faithful witness as Jesus did. Revelation 5:10 and 20:6 return to the same line.
Not a claim that Israel is erased. John widens Israel's calling to people from every nation (5:9-10). The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible speaks of believers grafted into Israel's heritage, not of a swap.
Beale calls this a clear allusion to Exodus 19:6. The Hebrew is mamleket kohanim, a kingdom of priests; the Greek translation reads basileion hierateuma, a royal priesthood; Revelation has basileian, hiereis, kingdom, priests. Keener notes that the Targum of the verse also reads a kingdom and priests. Beale lists Jewish readings that make two offices of it: Targum Neofiti has kings and priests, and Jubilees 16:18 and Philo have kingdom and priesthood. He argues the believers' reign has begun now, citing the aorist he made, the parallel in 5:10, and 1:9, where John shares the kingdom. In Beale's terms this is universalization: a title given to Israel is applied to a people from every tribe and nation. 1 Peter 2:9 uses the same verse for the church. Walton's commentary is not cited here; the Jewish Study Bible notes that later Jewish tradition read the verse as a duty for the whole people to live by a code of holiness.
Heiser calls verses 5 and 6 proof of his reading of the chapter: Israel's calling to be priests who bring God's presence to the nations is now the church's. He reads Tabb's note on the Hebrew and Greek of Exodus 19:6 and the treasured possession of 19:4-5. He adds a caution: "the church is a new Israel it's not the new Israel". John, he says, treats the church as the rightful outcome of Israel, not a replacement.
Commentators split on when believers reign. Beale argues they reign now, in a hidden way, through faithful endurance. Others he names, such as Fiorenza and Beckwith, hold that the reign is only future (20:6; 22:5) and that believers are now priests and citizens of the kingdom. MacArthur reads the kingdom as God's rule, entered now by faith, with believers as priests who may come before God. At 1:9 he names their eager hope of Christ's thousand-year reign on earth. The CSB Study Bible says the wording may mean believers are already a kingdom and priests. Manuscripts differ too: some read for us instead of us, and some kings and priests.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 1:5 and 1:6, and introduction, Universalization
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 1:6
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 1:6
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 1:6
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 1:5-6
- The Jewish Study Bible, note on Exodus 19:5-6
- Septuagint, Exodus 19:6, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- Hebrew text of Exodus 19:6, 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)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 1:6 and 1:9
