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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 11:15, our Lord and his Christ
Our Lord and his Christ, the raging nations and God's wrath come from Psalm 2, where the kings of the earth rise against the Lord and his anointed and he speaks to them in his anger.
Revelation 11:15; Revelation 11:18, in every translation this tool compares.
A film's last scene can answer the question its first scene asked. Psalm 2 asks why the nations rage and the kings plot against the Lord and his anointed one. God laughs, speaks in his anger, and sets his king on Zion. John's heavenly voices sing the answer: the kingdom belongs to our Lord and his Christ. The nations raged, and God's wrath has come.
The Lord and his anointed: Psalm 2:2 in Greek has tou kyriou kai … tou christou autou, and John has tou kyriou hemon kai tou christou autou. Also the nations (ethne) of Psalm 2:1 and God's anger (orge) of Psalm 2:5; John has the nations were angry and your wrath (orge) came.
In Psalm 2 the kings are still plotting against the Lord's anointed; in John the kingdom is already his. The psalm's Greek verb for the nations is ephryaxan, they raged or snorted; John's orgisthesan, were angry, matches Exodus 15:14 in Greek instead. John adds our to Lord and spreads the psalm across two verses.
Psalm 2 was for early Christians a central prophecy of Jesus, Wright says. The New Testament reads it as begun at his first coming. Here, Beale argues, it is the final judgment. The nations' rage is met by God's wrath, the punishment fitting the crime. The ESV Study Bible says the song reverses the present, when rulers still rage against the Anointed.
Not a quotation of Psalm 2. John takes its Lord and anointed, its raging nations and its wrath, and spreads them across two verses of a song.
Beale notes the allusion to Psalm 2:2 in 11:15 and says the Lord and his anointed judge the nations for their rage, following Psalm 2:1-2, 5, 10-12; since Psalm 2 is used for final judgment in 19:15, the same is likely here. In the vault's Septuagint, Psalm 2:1 reads hinati ephryaxan ethne, 2:2 kata tou kyriou kai kata tou christou autou, and 2:5 en orge autou. Revelation 11:15 has tou kyriou hemon kai tou christou autou; 11:18 has ta ethne orgisthesan, kai elthen he orge sou. Keener says the raging nations, God's wrath and Christ's rule echo Psalm 2. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says 11:15 may recall Psalm 2:2 and calls 11:18 a quotation from the Greek of Psalm 2:1, though that verse in the vault's Septuagint uses a different verb, a point drawn here. The ESV Study Bible cites Psalm 2:1-2, the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible Exodus 15:14 and Psalm 2:1, and the CSB Study Bible Psalm 2:1. The grade is drawn here by Beale's definitions: the Lord and his Christ is nearly word for word from Psalm 2:2.
Reading 11:18, Heiser says the raging nations recall Psalm 2, why do the nations rage, and the early messianic psalms. The time for the dead to be judged is, he says, final judgment, day of the Lord language. Psalm 2 here belongs to the end, not to AD 70.
Consummation or first coming? Beale says the setting of judgment points to the end, though Psalm 2 is fulfilled at Christ's first coming elsewhere in the New Testament (Acts 4:25-27; Hebrews 1:5). Some, he reports, read the reign as begun at the resurrection. MacArthur reads God's wrath as still future, spoken of as present because it is certain, and the nations' rage as leading to their last war on Christ (16:14; 19:17-21).
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 11:15 and 11:18
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 11:18
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 11:15 and 11:18
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 11:15-18
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 11:18
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references on Revelation 11:18
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 11:15-19
- Septuagint, Psalm 2:1, 2:2 and 2:5, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 11:15 and 11:18
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 11: The Two Witnesses and the Seventh Trumpet, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 11:18
