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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 11:2, the nations will trample the holy city
Nations trampling the holy city draws on Daniel 8:13, where the holy place and the host are trampled, and on Isaiah 63:18, where enemies tread down God's sanctuary.
Revelation 11:2, in every translation this tool compares.
A trampled garden is the image of a place left unguarded. Daniel 8 asks how long the holy place will be trampled. Isaiah 63 laments that enemies have trodden down God's sanctuary. John hears that the outer court is left out of the measuring and handed to the nations. They will trample the holy city, though the inner shrine is kept.
Enemies trampling God's holy place. Daniel 8:13 in Greek asks how long the holy place and the host will be trampled (sympatethesetai); Isaiah 63:18 says adversaries trampled (katepatesan) the sanctuary; John has patesousin, they will trample. Zechariah 12:3 in Greek makes Jerusalem a stone trampled by all the nations.
Daniel and Isaiah mourn the real sanctuary under foreign feet. John splits the court, which is handed over, from the temple, which is measured and kept. He names the holy city and the nations (ethne), as Luke 21:24 does, and adds a time, forty-two months.
Beale reads the trampled court and city as God's true people in their earthly exposure: they suffer, but their worship is kept safe. The ESV Study Bible gives the other view, that literal Jerusalem is meant. Either way the picture comes from Daniel's crisis under Antiochus, read forward.
Not a quotation of Daniel or Isaiah. John takes the trampling from both but names the holy city and the nations in his own words, as Luke 21:24 also does.
Beale says the persecution fulfils Daniel's word that the sanctuary and the host would be trodden down (Daniel 8:13 in Theodotion; also 1 Maccabees 3:45, 51; 4:60), and Isaiah 63:18 uses similar words. Zechariah 12:3 in the Septuagint may also be partly in mind, he says, citing Bauckham. Bauckham reads Daniel 8:11, the place of his sanctuary was cast down or cast out, behind John's order to cast out the outer court. Keener cites Isaiah 63:18 and 1 Maccabees. The ESV Study Bible cites Daniel 8:13 with Luke 21:24, and the CSB Study Bible lists Luke 21:24. The vault's Septuagint has Daniel 8:13 to hagion kai he dynamis sympatethesetai and Isaiah 63:18 katepatesan to hagiasma sou. The grade is drawn here: the trampled sanctuary is traceable to Daniel 8 and Isaiah 63, though the verb varies.
Is the court the church, apostates, or Israel? Beale lists five views and holds that court and city stand for the true people exposed to harm. Charles and others, Beale reports, see the apostate church; dispensational readers see a future Jerusalem; preterists see the city of AD 70. Keener allows a spiritual temple, as at Qumran. MacArthur reads Jerusalem trampled in the future by the Antichrist's forces, the unmeasured court standing for the unbelieving nations God rejects.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), The Metaphors in 11:1-2, The Holy City
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 11:2
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 11:1-2
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references on Revelation 11:2
- Septuagint, Daniel 8:13, Isaiah 63:18 and Zechariah 12:3, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 11:2
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 11:2
