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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 16:6, blood to drink
The angel's verdict, that those who poured out the saints' blood are given blood to drink, joins Psalm 79's lament over Jerusalem with Isaiah's promise against Israel's oppressors.
Revelation 16:6, in every translation this tool compares.
An old saying holds that those who live by the sword will die by it. Psalm 79 grieves that the nations poured out the blood of God's people like water around Jerusalem, and asks God to avenge it. Isaiah promises that Israel's oppressors will drink their own blood like wine. The angel of the waters says the same of the third bowl. The persecutors spilled the blood of God's people and his prophets, so God now hands them blood to drink.
Blood poured out, then blood given to drink. The Greek of Psalm 79:3 says they poured out (exechean) their blood like water. Revelation 16:6 says they poured out (exechean) the blood of saints and prophets. Isaiah 49:26 has the oppressors drinking their own blood (pionetai … to haima).
The psalm asks God to avenge his servants' blood (79:10); John hears an angel declare that God has done it. Isaiah's oppressors drink their own blood like new wine and get drunk; John has God give them blood to drink. John names the victims saints and prophets, the whole church in Beale's reading, and adds a short verdict: they deserve it.
The psalm was prayed after Babylon wrecked Jerusalem. Now the same kind of judgment falls on the new Babylon and its followers. Beale and Heiser call it a reversal: the persecutors receive what they gave. The third bowl answers the martyrs' cry of 6:10.
Not a call for believers to take revenge. In the psalm and in Revelation God does the avenging. Wright stresses that vengeance belongs to God, not to the Lamb's followers.
Beale says Isaiah 49:26 probably stands behind the wording, and that the Midrash Rabbah on Leviticus applies it to the judgment of the nations in the time to come. Psalm 79:3, 10, 12 is also echoed: they poured out their blood like water; let the avenging of your servants' blood be known among the nations. Beale reads both kinds of blood as suffering of every kind, death included. He notes the Jewish tradition that God turned Egypt's water to blood because Pharaoh had killed Israel's infants (Wisdom 11:5-7), and that Wisdom uses deserving for the Egyptians' punishment. Keener and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible cite the same tradition. The ESV Study Bible cites Isaiah 49:26. The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible lists Deuteronomy 32:43, 2 Kings 9:7, Psalm 79:10, 12 and Isaiah 49:26, and the CSB Study Bible's cross-references give Isaiah 49:26 and 2 Kings 9:7. The grade is drawn here: two texts supply the two halves of the line.
Heiser calls 16:6 a citation of Psalm 79:3, a psalm from after Babylon's conquest, and reads it as reversal: what Babylon did to God's people now happens to those who bear the beast's mark. He then adds Deuteronomy 32:43, which Beale does not mention: the heavenly ones rejoice, the gods bow, and God avenges his children's blood. He calls that verse a microcosm of the bowls and of the day when the gods are destroyed.
The sources name different texts. Beale leads with Isaiah 49:26 and Psalm 79. Heiser leads with Psalm 79 and adds Deuteronomy 32:43, which the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible also lists. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible stresses the exodus pattern of blood for blood. Beale allows that the persecutors may also shed one another's blood, as in 17:16.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 16:6
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 16:6-7
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 16:6
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 16:4-7
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 16:6
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 16:6
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 18:1-8
- Septuagint, Psalm 79:3, 79:10 and Isaiah 49:26, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 16:6
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 15-16: The Seven Angels, Seven Plagues, Seven Bowls of God's Wrath, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
