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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 11:6, power to shut the sky and turn the waters into blood
The witnesses carry Elijah's power to stop the rain and Moses' power to turn water into blood and strike the land with every plague.
Revelation 11:6, in every translation this tool compares.
A new band that plays the hits of two famous groups wants you to think of both. Elijah told King Ahab there would be no rain except at his word. Moses struck the Nile, and the water turned to blood, the first plague on Egypt. John's witnesses can do both. The two great prophets who stood up to idol-serving kings live on in them.
No rain during the prophets' days, as at Elijah's word in 1 Kings 17:1. Waters turned into blood (eis haima), as in Exodus 7:17-20. Striking with every plague: 1 Samuel 4:8 in Greek has the gods who struck Egypt with every plague (pataxantes … en pase plege); John has pataxai ten gen en pase plege.
Elijah and Moses each had one power; John gives both powers to both witnesses, Beale notes. John's verb for turning, strepho, is not the verb of Exodus 7; Psalm 105:29 in Greek has a closer one, a likeness drawn here. Shutting the sky is not in 1 Kings 17 but echoes 1 Kings 8:35 and Deuteronomy 11:17. The plagues strike the whole earth, not Egypt alone.
Moses and Elijah both faced kings who persecuted God's people and served idols. Beale says those plagues punished hardened kings, and the church now carries that prophetic authority against a persecuting world. Wright reads the church's witness in their tradition, ending in martyrdom.
Not a retelling of Exodus or 1 Kings. John takes one power from each prophet and gives both powers to both witnesses.
Beale says the specific allusions are to Elijah's stopping the rain (1 Kings 17; Deuteronomy 11:16-17) and Moses turning water to blood (Exodus 7:17-25), and that the last clause follows the summary of the Egyptian plagues in 1 Samuel 4:8. He ties the three and a half years to Elijah's drought in Luke 4:25 and James 5:17. The vault's Septuagint of 1 Samuel 4:8 reads hoi pataxantes ten Aigypton en pase plege. Exodus 7:17 has metabalei eis haima, while Psalm 105:29 has metestrephe ta hydata auton eis haima, nearer John's strephein auta eis haima. 1 Kings 8:35 has the heavens shut and no rain. Keener, the ESV Study Bible, the CSB Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible name 1 Kings 17:1 and Exodus 7, and the CSB Study Bible's margin adds 1 Kings 8:35 and Deuteronomy 11:17. Walton notes that by withholding rain Yahweh showed his power over Baal, the storm god. Keener notes the hope for a prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15-18) and for Elijah's return (Malachi 4:5). The grade is drawn here: two famous miracles and a near quotation of 1 Samuel 4:8 point nowhere else.
Heiser treats this verse as the basis of the popular view: shutting the sky, people say, Elijah did that; water to blood and plagues, Moses did that. He grants the echoes. His objection is to switching between literal and figurative halfway through the passage. He takes the witnesses as symbols of God's people, as Zechariah 4 and Revelation 12 suggest to him.
Who are the witnesses? Literal readers name Moses and Elijah, or Enoch and Elijah, as the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible and Keener report, and the CSB Study Bible links Moses and Elijah through the transfiguration. Beale, Wright and Heiser read the church in the prophets' mantle. Beale also allows that Peter and Paul may be part of the model. MacArthur, without being dogmatic, gives six reasons they may be Moses and Elijah, among them the plagues, the drought of three and a half years, the transfiguration and Elijah taken up alive.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 11:6, The Ministries of Moses and Elijah as a Model for the Two Witnesses
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 11:6
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 11:5-6
- CSB Study Bible, note and cross-references on Revelation 11:5-6
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 11:6
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 11:3-6 and 11:6
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 11:1-6
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, on 1 Kings 17:1
- Septuagint, 1 Kings 8:35, Exodus 7:17, 1 Samuel 4:8 and Psalm 105:29, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 11:6
- 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 11:5-6
