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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 13:5-6, a mouth speaking great things for forty-two months
The beast's boastful mouth and its forty-two months come from Daniel's little horn, who speaks great things against the Most High for three and a half times.
Revelation 13:5-6, in every translation this tool compares.
A tyrant's loud boasts and a fixed term in office tell you both his pride and his limit. In Daniel 7 a little horn has a mouth speaking great things. It speaks against the Most High and oppresses the holy ones for three and a half times. John says the beast was given a boasting, blaspheming mouth, and power for forty-two months. Daniel's boaster and Daniel's limit both return.
A mouth speaking great things, stoma laloun megala, word for word from the Greek of Daniel 7:8. Speaking against God, and a limited time that equals three and a half years.
Daniel counts three and a half times; John says forty-two months. John adds blasphemies against God's name, his dwelling and those who dwell in heaven. Daniel's horn speaks against the Most High and wears out the saints. Beale says John also blends in the horn of Daniel 8, so two of Daniel's tyrants become one.
Beale reads the boasting as self-worship and deceit, the beast claiming divine honors. The limit shows who is really in charge: the beast is given a mouth and a time. Only God sets times, Beale says, and the devil would never choose three and a half years.
Not a new span of time. Forty-two months is Daniel's three and a half times counted in months. John keeps Daniel's limit and changes only the unit.
Beale calls verse 5 a collective allusion to Daniel 7:6, 8, 11, 20 and 25. Much of it is word for word, and three elements, a blaspheming mouth, a given authority and a set time, occur together only in Daniel. He notes the Greek of 7:6 uses given (edothe) for the beast, as John does, and cites 1 Maccabees 1:24 for Antiochus speaking proudly. Verse 6 refers again to Daniel 7:25, and the dwelling recalls the sanctuary of Daniel 8:10-13. Keener, the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, the ESV Study Bible, the CSB Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible all cite Daniel 7:8, 20 or 25. The grade is drawn here: the phrase is identical to the Greek of Daniel 7:8.
Following Beale and McDonough, Heiser finds clear parallels to Daniel 7:6, 8, 11, 20 and 25 in the beast's speech. He notes that the odd word given comes straight from Daniel 7's language for the beasts.
The ESV Study Bible says many futurists read the forty-two months as the second half of a future great tribulation. The CSB Study Bible reads them as the last three and a half years, after the two witnesses. MacArthur reads them as the last half of Daniel's seventieth week, the Great Tribulation. It begins, he says, with the abomination of desolation, and God allows the Antichrist to rage for that set time. Beale reads the period as the whole time from Christ's resurrection to his return. With Keener he takes it as a symbol of the whole church age.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 13:5 and 13:6
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 13:5-6
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 13:5 and 13:6
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 13:5
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 13:5-7 and cross-references at Revelation 13:5
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 13:5
- Septuagint, Daniel 7:8, 7:20 and 7:25, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 13:5-6
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 13: The Two Beasts: From the Sea and the Earth, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 13:5
