Revelation 17:14, they will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them

Revelation 17:14

Revelation 17:14, in every translation this tool compares.

First, in plain English

A chant from the other team's stands can be turned around after the final whistle. Daniel watched a horn make war against God's holy ones and prevail over them. John uses the same words, then flips the ending. The kings make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb conquers them. The enemy's victory in Daniel becomes the enemy's defeat.

What matches

Making war, and one side overcoming. In the Greek of Daniel 7:21 that horn made war with the saints (epoiei polemon meta ton hagion) and beat them. Revelation 17:14 says they will make war with the Lamb (meta tou arniou polemesousin) and the Lamb will conquer them.

Why it doesn't match exactly

In Daniel the horn wins against the saints. In John the kings fight the Lamb and lose. John keeps Daniel's unusual war with (meta) and reverses the outcome. He uses conquer (nikao) where Daniel's Greek has prevailed. The called, chosen and faithful, the saints Daniel saw defeated, now share the Lamb's victory.

What John does with it

Beale says the reversal is deliberate irony: the beast is defeated by the same warlike means he used against the saints. Revelation 13:7 and 11:7 used Daniel 7:21 for the beast's victory; here the line is turned. It answers the question of 13:4: who can fight against the beast?

What this echo is not

Not careless Scripture-twisting. Beale calls the reversal intentional, a way to show the beast punished by his own sin.

Go deeper

Beale says the battle wording comes from Daniel 7:21, sets the Greek of Daniel beside 17:14a, and notes that here, as in Daniel, kings appear as horns. The change does not cancel the allusion: Beale says Daniel's ending is turned around and given to the saints' champion, as in 12:7-8 and 1 Enoch 90:12-13, where a lamblike figure also defeats beasts. The prediction of the beast's victory becomes an ironic type of his defeat. Daniel 7:22, where judgment is given to the saints, lies behind the faithful who share the victory. Beale also argues that war with (meta) reflects the precise allusion to Daniel, not a general Semitic idiom. The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible says the verse reverses 13:7 and cites Daniel 7:21-22. The grade is drawn here: the wording is Daniel's, the outcome turned.

The ancient world behind this passage

{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-17-7-18\/","n":"Revelation 17:7-18, seven hills and seven kings","s":"The angel explains the woman and the beast: the beast once was, now is not and will come up from the Abyss; its seven heads are seven hills and also seven kings, five fallen, one living and one still to come, and the beast is an eighth who belongs to the seven. Its ten horns are ten kings who will make war on the Lamb, and in the end the beast and the horns turn on the woman, the great city that rules the kings of the earth, and burn her.","r":"Revelation 17:7-18"}

Read with the Divine Council Index

{"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/daniel-7-9-14\/","n":"Daniel 7:9-14","s":"Thrones are set in place, plural, the court sits, and one like a son of man comes on the clouds.","r":"Daniel 7:9-14"}

Sources

G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 17:14
NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 17:14
Septuagint, Daniel 7:21, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 17:14