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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 15:7, seven golden bowls full of God's wrath
The bowls of God's anger draw on Isaiah's cup of wrath, which God takes from Jerusalem and hands to her oppressors, and on the gold bowls of the temple.
Revelation 15:7, in every translation this tool compares.
A waiter who brings the bill on the same tray as the dessert links the two in your mind. In Isaiah, Jerusalem has drunk the bowl of God's anger to the bottom. Then God takes it from her hand and gives it to those who tormented her. John's seven angels receive gold bowls full of God's anger. The bowls also look like the gold vessels of the temple, so worship and judgment meet in one picture.
A vessel filled with God's anger (thymos). The Greek of Isaiah 51:17 and 51:22 speaks of the cup of God's rage (to poterion tou thymou). Revelation 15:7 speaks of bowls full of the rage of God (phialas … tou thymou tou theou), and 16:19 calls it a cup.
Isaiah's Greek has cup (poterion) and drinking cup (kondy). John has bowl (phiale), the word for the shallow bowls of temple service. Beale notes that Isaiah's Hebrew word for bowl is a borrowed Assyrian word found only there, and that the Aramaic paraphrase of Isaiah renders it with a loanword from the Greek phiale. In Isaiah the bowl passes from Jerusalem to her enemies; John hands it to angels to pour out.
The bowls echo the gold bowls of incense in 5:8, which held the saints' prayers. Beale reads the bowls of anger as God's answer to those prayers for justice (6:9-11). Isaiah's twist, where the cup moves from the victims to their oppressors, fits bowls aimed at Babylon.
Not kitchen bowls. Aune, as Heiser reports, renders the word as bowls used in offerings, and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible agrees. They are temple vessels.
Beale says the image of bowls comes partly from the Old Testament, where bowls appear about thirty times in the priestly service at the altar, probably to carry out the ashes and fat of sacrifices. Some are tied to the tent of witness (Numbers 4:14-15; 7:13-89) and some are called gold bowls (1 Chronicles 28:17; 2 Chronicles 4:8, 22). The image also derives in part, he says, from Isaiah 51:17, 22, where the bowl of the cup of God's wrath, once poured on sinful Israel, is now poured on her tormentors, Babylon. He adds that bowl and cup can be synonyms (Proverbs 23:31 in the Greek). Keener thinks of the incense bowls of the temple and of the cup of wrath at 14:9-10. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible calls them bowls used in offerings, and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible links them to the bowls of prayers in 5:8. The grade is drawn here: the picture of a vessel of wrath moving to the oppressor is traceable to Isaiah 51.
Heiser follows Aune. The word is better rendered as bowls used in offerings. It appears twelve times in Revelation, mostly in scenes set in the heavenly tent. In the Old Testament such bowls likely carried ashes and fat out of the holy place. So, he says, the earth is about to be cleaned and made ready. The Messiah will live there, and it will be holy ground again.
Keener derives the bowls mainly from the temple's incense bowls. Beale joins the temple bowls to Isaiah's cup of wrath. Heiser, after Aune, stresses offering bowls and reads them as cleansing the earth. The views overlap more than they clash.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 15:7
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 15:7
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 15:7
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 15:7
- Septuagint, Isaiah 51:17 and 51:22, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 15:7
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 15-16: The Seven Angels, Seven Plagues, Seven Bowls of God's Wrath, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
