Tool Alpha
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 14:19-20, the great winepress of God's wrath
The winepress trodden outside the city, with blood up to the horses' bridles, draws on Isaiah 63, where the Lord treads the nations like grapes, alone, and their blood stains his clothes.
Revelation 14:19-20, in every translation this tool compares.
Grape juice on a farmer's boots looks like blood, and the prophets noticed. In Isaiah 63 someone comes from Edom in red-stained clothes. He has trodden the winepress alone, trampled the nations in his anger, and their blood has spattered his robes. John sees the earth's grapes thrown into the great winepress, which stands for God's anger. It is trodden outside the city, and blood flows as high as a horse's bridle.
A winepress trodden in God's anger, with blood instead of wine. The Greek of Isaiah 63:2-3 has a trampled winepress, lenos, I trampled them, and their blood on the earth; John has the winepress was trampled, epatethe he lenos, and blood came out.
In Isaiah the one who treads is the Lord, alone. John says it is trodden outside the city, and adds the bridles and 1,600 stadia. The winepress is great, megan, in a masculine form that does not agree with its noun; Beale thinks Isaiah 63's Hebrew and Greek explain the clash. In 19:15 Christ is the one who treads.
John tells readers who the divine warrior of Isaiah 63 is: Christ. Heiser stresses the point. The judgment of the nations happens outside the city, where the faithful are safe, as in Joel's valley near Jerusalem. Beale, Heiser and Keener read the blood to the bridles as a stock way to say the slaughter is beyond counting.
Not Isaiah's scene unchanged. In Isaiah the Lord treads the winepress alone. John sets it outside the city and adds the bridles and the 1,600 stadia.
Beale says the first part of verse 20 is based on Joel 3:13b together with Isaiah 63:2-3, and cites Lamentations 1:15, where the Lord trod the winepress of Judah. He sets out the Greek of Isaiah 63:2-3 and argues the masculine great may point to Isaiah, where the Hebrew winepress, purah, is followed by a masculine them. He compares 1 Enoch 100:3, where horses walk up to their chests in sinners' blood. Keener says the image is particularly from Isaiah 63:1-6, and the CSB Study Bible cross-references it; the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, the ESV Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible point to it. Heiser, after Aune, calls it an allusion to Isaiah 63:1-6. The grade is drawn here: the winepress of wrath trodden is Isaiah's picture.
Heiser reads Aune: the winepress alludes to Isaiah 63:1-6, the divine warrior with blood-stained clothes, and 19:15 shows the rider treads it. By putting Jesus in that role, John says who the divine warrior is: in the Old Testament there is only one, God, or the angel of the Lord. He cites Tremper Longman and says Jesus "does not come back blowing kisses".
Wright reads the vintage as the martyrs' own blood, shed outside the city as Jesus' was, and so as salvation through suffering. Caird, as Beale reports, also reads martyrdom. Beale, Keener and Heiser read judgment on the nations, from Isaiah 63 and Joel 3. MacArthur places the slaughter at Armageddon, on the Plain of Esdraelon, outside Jerusalem. He takes the blood as splashing about four feet high, or running in channels that deep, and the 1,600 stadia as about the distance from Armageddon to Edom.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-14-6-20\/","n":"Revelation 14:6-20, Babylon fallen, the harvest and the winepress","s":"Three angels announce an eternal gospel, the fall of Babylon and the undiluted cup of God's wrath for those who worship the beast, and a voice blesses those who die in the Lord. Then one like a son of man reaps the earth's grain with a sickle, and an angel gathers its grapes into the great winepress, from which blood flows as high as the horses' bridles.","r":"Revelation 14:6-20"}
- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 14:17-20a and 14:20b
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 14:17-19 and 14:20
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 14:19-20 and 14:20
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 14:17-20
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 14:20
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 14:19
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 14:14-20
- Septuagint, Isaiah 63:2-3 and Lamentations 1:15, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- Hebrew text of Isaiah 63:3, Miqra according to the Masorah (Sefaria)
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 14:19-20
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 14: The Lamb, the 144,000, and the Harvest of the Earth, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 14:19 and 14:20
