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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 11:7, the beast from the Abyss will make war on them
The beast rising from the Abyss to make war on the witnesses and overpower them takes its words from Daniel 7, where beasts rise from the sea and the horn makes war on the holy ones.
Revelation 11:7, in every translation this tool compares.
A villain who walks on wearing an old enemy's armor tells the crowd who he is. In Daniel 7 four beasts rise from the sea. The last beast's horn makes war on God's holy ones and wins. John's beast comes up from the Abyss, makes war on the witnesses, overpowers them and kills them. It is Daniel's beast, named in Revelation here for the first time.
Making war (poiein polemon) and winning against God's people. Daniel 7:21 in the vault's Greek reads the horn made war with the holy ones and prevailed against them (epoiei polemon meta ton hagion kai ischysen pros autous); John has poiesei met auton polemon kai nikesei autous. Daniel 7:3 has beasts going up (anebainon) from the sea; John's beast goes up (anabainon) from the Abyss.
Daniel's beasts rise from the sea; John's from the Abyss, the prison of 9:1. Daniel's prevailed becomes conquer (nikao), John's word for overcoming. Daniel's horn attacks the holy ones; John's beast, the two witnesses. John adds that the beast kills them, and only when their witness is finished.
Beale says the article, the beast, marks it as the one Daniel foresaw. Since Daniel's horn attacks a nation, he reads the witnesses as a community. 13:7 repeats the words with saints in place of witnesses. In Daniel the saints then receive the kingdom (7:22, 27), and the same turn follows in 11:11-15.
Not a new villain. He is introduced with the article as one already known, and Revelation 13 and 17 describe him further from Daniel 7.
Beale sets Daniel 7:3, 21 beside 11:7: the beast arising from the sea, the horn making war on the saints and overcoming them (7:21 in Theodotion, with a similar line in 7:8 in the Septuagint), and the beast ascending from the Abyss making war, overcoming and killing. Codex A, he notes, adds fourth to the beast, tightening the link. He reads the phrase as both the beast's work through the church age and its final attack (17:8; 20:7-10). The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible ties 11:7 to 13:1 and 13:7 and to Daniel 7:3, 21. The CSB Study Bible cites Daniel 7:20-21, 25 and lists 7:11. The ESV Study Bible uses the parallel with 13:7 to read the witnesses as the saints. The vault's Greek Daniel 7:21 reads epoiei polemon meta ton hagion kai ischyse pros autous. The grade is drawn here by Beale's definitions: the words are nearly identical and Revelation 13 confirms the source.
When does the attack come? Beale says at the end of history, though the beast's spirit works throughout; the CSB Study Bible places it before the beast's forty-two months, in Jerusalem. Keener notes Jewish texts that expected a final war on God's people. MacArthur reads the beast as the Antichrist, one ruler whose power is satanic, who can kill the witnesses only when God lifts his protection at the end of their work.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 11:7
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 11:7
- CSB Study Bible, note and cross-references on Revelation 11:7
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 11:3-14
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 11:7
- Septuagint, Daniel 7:3 and 7:21, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 11:7
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 11:7
