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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 14:15-16, put in your sickle, for the harvest is ripe
The command to send the sickle because the harvest is ripe, and then to gather the grapes, follows Joel 3:13, the only Old Testament text with both the sickle and the winepress as judgment.
Revelation 14:15-16; Revelation 14:18, in every translation this tool compares.
Farmers know when a field is ready, and a good farmer does not wait. Joel 3 pictures the nations gathered for judgment: put in the sickle, the harvest is ripe; come and tread, the winepress is full, for their evil is great. John sees two reapings. The son of man is told to put in his sickle because the harvest is ripe, then an angel gathers the earth's grapes for the winepress. Joel's double picture becomes two scenes.
Send the sickle, for the harvest is ripe, and then the full winepress. John's drepanon, sickle, is the word of the Greek of Joel 3:13. The order, harvest and then grapes, is Joel's.
The Hebrew of Joel says ki vashal katsir, the harvest is ripe, a grain harvest. The Greek translation turns it into the vintage, ho trygetos. John has ho therismos, the harvest, which agrees with the Hebrew; the comparison is drawn here. John splits Joel's one command into two scenes with two reapers. He adds a crown and a cloud.
Beale says both reapings are judgment, as in Joel: God's judgment of the nations when their evil is full. The repeating stresses how complete it is. Others read the first reaping as the gathering of God's people.
Not agreed by all readers to be two pictures of judgment. Beale, Heiser and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible read both as judgment; Bauckham, Wright and the ESV Study Bible read the grain harvest as salvation.
Beale says both 14:14-16 and 14:17-20 depend on Joel 4:13 (3:13 in English Bibles), the only Old Testament passage where harvesting with a sickle is used as a figure, and the only one where harvest and winepress appear together. He sets out the Greek, notes Joel's plural sickles, and cites Mark 4:29, which quotes Joel with harvest. He adds Jeremiah 51:33 and Isaiah 18:5. The Hebrew in Sefaria reads shilchu maggal ki vashal katsir. The CSB Study Bible cross-references Joel 3:13; Keener, the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, the ESV Study Bible and Wright all point to Joel 3. Beale calls the Joel text the model for the twofold picture. The grade is drawn here: the sickle and the ripe harvest occur together only in Joel.
Heiser calls Joel 3:13 an important passage and reads it as plainly Day of the Lord language: the nations surrounding Jerusalem, the valley of decision. It answers the question whether the sickle brings salvation or judgment, he says: it is pretty clearly judgment of the wicked. He adds Jeremiah 51:33 and Micah 4:12-13.
Bauckham, as Beale reports, reads the grain harvest of verses 14-16 as the gathering of God's people, and only the grapes as judgment. The ESV Study Bible, the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible and Wright lean the same way. Beale, Heiser and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible read both as judgment, since both of Joel's images are judgment.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 14:15-16 and 14:17-20a
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 14:14-16 and 14:17-19
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 14:14-20
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 14:14-20
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 14:15
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, notes on Revelation 14:14-20 and 14:15
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 14:14-20
- Septuagint, Joel 3:13, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- Hebrew text of Joel 4:13, Miqra according to the Masorah (Sefaria)
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 14:15 and 14:18
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 14: The Lamb, the 144,000, and the Harvest of the Earth, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
