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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 17:12, for one hour
The kings rule for one hour, and Babylon falls in one hour, an echo of the one hour in the Greek of Daniel 4, the story of Nebuchadnezzar's fall.
Revelation 17:12; Revelation 18:10; Revelation 18:17; Revelation 18:19, in every translation this tool compares.
A phrase from an old story can come back with its whole meaning attached. In the Greek version of Daniel 4 the phrase one hour appears in the story of Nebuchadnezzar, the proud king of Babylon who was made like a beast. John uses one hour for the reign of the ten kings with the beast. Then the mourners cry three times that Babylon's judgment came in one hour. Babylon's old king and the new Babylon share the same brief clock.
The phrase one hour (mia hora). Beale cites the old Greek of Daniel 4:17a, one hour, for the time God made Nebuchadnezzar like a beast. In the other Greek version of Daniel 4:19, Daniel is struck dumb for about one hour (horan mian). Revelation 17:12 has one hour (mian horan); 18:10, 17 and 19 have in one hour (mia hora).
The phrase stands only in the Greek of Daniel 4, not in the Aramaic or in English Bibles. Daniel 4:17a is a line found only in the old Greek. In Daniel the hour belongs to the king's beastlike period or to Daniel's dismay; in John it is the kings' brief reign and Babylon's sudden fall. John repeats it as a refrain.
Beale says God is sovereign even over the ungodly kings who ally with the beast, as he was over Nebuchadnezzar. The one hour also marks Babylon's judgment: her prosperity is stripped away in a moment, like the king's. The repeated cry of the mourners rings with Daniel's story.
Not a sixty-minute timetable. Beale says the hour was the shortest unit of time ancient people knew and here means a brief time.
Beale says the kings' reign for one hour echoes Daniel 4:17a in the old Greek (hora mia), the period in which God made Nebuchadnezzar like a beast. One hour is repeated in chapter 18 for the time Babylon the Great was judged (18:10, 17, 19), a combined allusion to the one hour of Daniel 4:17a and to Babylon the Great in Daniel 4:30. He adds that Daniel 4:19 in both Greek versions has one hour for Daniel's amazement at the vision of the king's judgment. In Daniel the king's beastliness is linked with the beasts of Daniel 7, which may be why John joins the two chapters. The vault's interlinear prints only the Greek version called Theodotion, which lacks 4:17a, so that line is cited here from Beale. The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible links the kings' one hour to Babylon's ruin in one hour. The CSB Study Bible compares the hour of testing (3:10). The grade is drawn here: the phrase is short, but Beale and Heiser both trace it to Daniel 4.
Heiser reads Beale and McDonough on 17:12. The kings rule for one hour, the time in the Greek of Daniel 4:17 when God made King Nebuchadnezzar like a beast. God rules even the kings who side with the beast against the Messiah. The same one hour returns for Babylon's judgment in 18:10, 17 and 19, which also draws on Daniel 4.
The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible and the CSB Study Bible read one hour simply as a very short time, with no Daniel background named. The CSB Study Bible ties it to the beast's forty-two months. Beale and Heiser trace it to Daniel 4. MacArthur reads the one hour of 17:12 as a figure for the brief three and a half years of the beast's rule, and the single hour of chapter 18 as a short time of swift judgment.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 17:12 and 18:10
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, notes on Revelation 17:12 and 18:10
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 17:12-13
- Septuagint, Daniel 4:19, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 17:12 and 18:10
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 17-18: The Fall of Babylon the Great, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 17:12 and 18:19
