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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 15:5, the tent of testimony in heaven
John calls the heavenly sanctuary the tent of testimony, the name the Greek translation gives Israel's desert tent, which the Hebrew calls the tent of meeting.
Revelation 15:5, in every translation this tool compares.
When two languages name the same building differently, the name a writer uses shows which language he learned it in. The Hebrew Bible calls Israel's desert tent the tent of meeting, where God met Moses. The old Greek translation usually calls it the tent of testimony. John sees the sanctuary of that tent opened in heaven, and he uses the Greek name. The tent of the exodus becomes the place the last plagues come from.
The phrase tent of testimony (skene tou martyriou). The Greek of Exodus 38:21 and 40:34-35 uses it for the tent in the wilderness. Beale counts about 140 uses in the Greek Old Testament, most of them in Exodus through Deuteronomy.
The Hebrew of Exodus 40:34 says ohel moed, tent of meeting. The Greek translators wrote tent of testimony, which points to the tablets of the law kept inside. John follows the Greek name. He also places the tent in heaven and calls its inner room the sanctuary (naos). In Exodus the tent was where God dwelt in mercy; here it sends out judgment, Beale says.
The setting stays in the exodus: the sea, the song, and now the tent. Beale says the testimony includes God's law and also the testimony of Jesus. God now shows his just will by judging those who reject it. The sanctuary that once stood for mercy is opened to release the bowls.
Not a second temple in heaven. John's tent is the heavenly original of Israel's tent, the same sanctuary seen opened in 11:19.
Beale reads the phrase as the sanctuary, which is the tabernacle, the heavenly counterpart of the tent that went with Israel in the wilderness, continuing the exodus scene of 15:2-4. He counts about 140 uses of tent of testimony in the Greek Old Testament, 130 of them in Exodus to Deuteronomy, and explains that the testimony was the ten commandments placed in the ark (Exodus 25:21; 31:18; 32:15). The tent also stood for mercy, since sacrifices were made there, but for John it now witnesses to judgment. The Hebrew of Exodus 40:34 has ohel moed, while the Greek translation of the same verse has ten skenen tou martyriou; that John follows the Greek name is a comparison drawn here, not by the sources. The CSB Study Bible's cross-references cite Exodus 38:21 and Numbers 17:7 and 18:2. Wright recalls Sinai, where God gave Moses instructions for the tent of meeting. The grade is drawn here: the phrase is the Greek Old Testament's own name for the tent.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 15:5
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 15:5
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 15:5-8
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 15:1-8
- Septuagint, Exodus 38:21 and 40:34, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- Hebrew text of Exodus 40:34, Miqra according to the Masorah (Sefaria)
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 15:5
