Tool Alpha
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 1:8, the Alpha and the Omega
God names himself with the opening and closing letters of the Greek alphabet, a fresh way to say what Isaiah says: God is first and last.
Revelation 1:8, in every translation this tool compares.
Saying from A to Z says the same thing as from start to finish, with different words. In Isaiah God calls himself first and last. In Revelation 1:8 he says it with letters: Alpha and Omega, the opening and closing letters of the Greek alphabet. The picture is Isaiah's. The words are new.
The idea: God stands at the beginning and the end. Isaiah says it in words, first and last. Revelation says it with the two ends of the alphabet. Later in the book John joins the two forms (22:13).
Isaiah never uses the alphabet. Alpha and Omega is John's own phrase. Beale calls it a merism: two far ends that stand for everything between. Keener notes that some Jewish teachers later did the same with the Hebrew alphabet, aleph to tav. In 1:8 the title sits beside the name from 1:4 and the Almighty, a common Greek word for the Lord of hosts.
John has God speak in his own voice, once at the start of the book and once near the end (21:6). The God who began history will finish it. In Isaiah that claim mocks the idols, which cannot say what will happen. Here it backs every promise the book will make.
Not a quote from Isaiah. The Alpha and Omega words are not in Isaiah. Beale says the title could well have been shaped by reflection on Isaiah 41-48; it is a new phrase for an old claim.
Beale thinks the Alpha and Omega pair likely grew out of thinking on Isaiah 41-48, because first and last in 1:17 is based on Isaiah 41:4, 44:6 and 48:12, and the threefold name in 1:8 also links to Isaiah. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says the title evokes Isaiah's first and last; the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible also cites Isaiah 44:6. Keener notes that Greco-Roman writers called the supreme god the first, but that Isaiah 41:4, Josephus and Philo had already called Israel's God first and last. Beale adds Aune's note that the letters AO stood for a divine name in the magical papyri, perhaps as a polemic. The Almighty (pantokrator) is the usual Greek rendering of the Lord of hosts in the Septuagint, and appears often in Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. The grade is drawn here: the idea is traceable to Isaiah, the wording is not.
Heiser reads Isaiah 41:4, 43:10, 44:6 and 48:12 alongside the threefold name, and notes that Revelation later explains Alpha and Omega as the first and the last (21:6; 22:13). He says John mixes the wording so that it fits the Father and the Son alike. He calls Isaiah 43:10 the big one: before God no god was formed, and none after.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-1-1-8\/","n":"Revelation 1:1-8, a revelation sent as a letter","s":"The book opens as a revelation God gave Jesus, sent by his angel to his servant John, with a blessing on the one who reads it aloud and on those who hear. It then greets seven churches in Asia like a letter, from the one who is, was and is to come, and from Jesus, ruler of the kings of the earth, who is coming with the clouds.","r":"Revelation 1:1-8"}
- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 1:8
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 1:8
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 1:8
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 1:8
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 1:8 and word study pantokrator
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 1:8
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 1: The Revelation of Jesus Christ and the Glorified Son of Man, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
