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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 14:10, fire and sulfur
Torment with fire and sulfur recalls the fire and sulfur God rained on Sodom.
Revelation 14:10, in every translation this tool compares.
Naming a famous disaster is shorthand for total ruin. In Genesis 19 the Lord rains sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, and their smoke goes up like a furnace. Prophets later used Sodom as the model of complete judgment. John says the beast's worshipers will be tormented with fire and sulfur before the angels and the Lamb. Revelation already called the great city spiritually Sodom.
Fire and sulfur as God's judgment. The Greek of Genesis 19:24 has theion kai pyr, sulfur and fire; John has pyri kai theio, fire and sulfur.
In Genesis the fire falls once and destroys the cities. John speaks of torment, before witnesses, and verse 11 adds that it goes on. He reverses the order of the two words. The sources do not explain the change.
The worshipers of the beast face a Sodom-like judgment. Keener says fire and sulfur suit a spiritual Sodom (11:8), though the image may be broader. The same pair returns in the lake of fire.
Not a weather report. The sources read fire and sulfur as a figure of judgment drawn from Sodom's story.
Beale says that in the Old Testament fire and brimstone, sometimes with smoke, mark a fatal judgment (Genesis 19:24, 28; Deuteronomy 29:23; Psalm 11:6; Isaiah 34:9-10; Ezekiel 38:22). Keener links fire and brimstone to a spiritual Sodom, citing Genesis 19:24 and Ezekiel 38:22. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible both point to Genesis 19:24; the CSB Study Bible cross-references Luke 17:29, which mentions Sodom. The grade is drawn here as possible: the pair of words is common to several judgment texts.
The sources agree on Sodom as background. They differ on what the fire means: Beale reads ongoing torment, while Fudge, as Beale reports, reads a judgment that ends in destruction and is remembered forever.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 14:10
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 14:9-10
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 14:10
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 14:10
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 14:10
- Septuagint, Genesis 19:24, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 14:10
