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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 16:18, an earthquake such as never was
The seventh bowl's storm and quake join the thunder and lightning of Sinai with Daniel's time of trouble such as never was.
Revelation 16:18, in every translation this tool compares.
A newspaper that calls a storm the worst since records began is using a formula people trust. At Mount Sinai there were thunders, lightnings and a trembling mountain when God came down. Daniel foretold a time of trouble like none since nations began. The seventh bowl brings lightning, rumbling, thunder and an earthquake like none since people have lived on the earth. Sinai's storm and Daniel's last trouble meet.
Lightning, voices, thunder and quaking, and the formula never before. Exodus 19:16 in Greek has voices (phonai) and lightnings (astrapai). Daniel 12:1 in Greek has a time of affliction such as has not happened (oia ou gegonen) since there was a nation on the earth (epi tes ges). Revelation 16:18 has such as did not happen (hoios ouk egeneto) since people were on the earth (epi tes ges).
Exodus has thunder and lightning, and the quake is in the mountain. Daniel's formula describes distress; John applies it to an earthquake. Beale notes that Daniel's formula itself comes from Exodus 9:18, 24, the plague of hail, which John uses three verses later. John swaps nation for humankind, widening it to all people.
Sinai was where God came down; the bowls end with God appearing to judge. Beale says the link to Daniel 12 makes clear this is the last judgment, when God's people are delivered and the wicked are raised to shame. Babylon falls, and with it the cities of every nation.
Not a quotation of Daniel. John borrows Daniel's formula, such as never was, and applies it to an earthquake in place of a time of distress.
Beale says lightnings, sounds, thunders and a great earthquake are based in large part on the Sinai scene of Exodus 19:16-18, which the Old Testament and Jewish writings reuse for the last judgment, as Revelation does at 4:5, 8:5 and 11:19. He calls it beyond chance that the wording such as had not been since humanity came to be on the earth comes from Daniel 12:1, the end-time distress after which God's people are delivered. Daniel's formula is itself a typological use of Exodus 9:18, 24 (compare Exodus 10:6, 14; 11:6), and it appears again in Matthew 24:21, Mark 13:19 and the War Scroll (1QM 1.11-12). Keener says the language suggests God's appearing at Sinai (Exodus 19:16). The CSB Study Bible's cross-references give Exodus 19:16-19. The Greek of Daniel 12:1 in the vault's interlinear (the version called Theodotion) reads oia ou gegonen aph' hou gegenetai ethnos epi tes ges, close to John's wording. The grade is drawn here: the Sinai picture is general, the Daniel formula close.
Beale finds both Sinai and Daniel 12:1 here. Keener names only Sinai. Bauckham, as Beale reports, explains why hail closes the series: it was joined to the Sinai scene in the exodus story, and Joshua 10:11 and Ezekiel 38:19-22 may also have shaped it. Beale reads the storm and quake as the stock picture of God coming to judge, as at 4:5, 8:5 and 11:19. MacArthur reads a real earthquake, the strongest in the earth's history, that ends God's wrath just before Christ returns.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 16:18
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 16:17-18
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 16:18
- Septuagint, Exodus 19:16, Exodus 9:24 and Daniel 12:1, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 16:18
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 16:17
