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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 17:15, the waters are peoples and nations
The angel explains the many waters as peoples and nations, a picture Isaiah uses when the nations roar like many waters.
Revelation 17:15, in every translation this tool compares.
When a crowd surges at a stadium gate, people say it moved like a wave. Isaiah pictured the noise of many nations roaring like the roar of mighty waters. John's angel explains the waters where the prostitute sits: they are peoples, crowds, nations and languages. The many waters of Babylon become the many peoples she rules.
Many waters as many nations. The Greek of Isaiah 17:13 reads many nations like much water (hos hydor poly ethne polla). Revelation 17:15 says the waters are peoples, crowds, nations and languages (laoi kai ochloi … kai ethne kai glossai).
Isaiah compares the nations to roaring waters; John explains the waters as nations outright. Isaiah's nations rush against Zion and are driven off; John's peoples are ruled by Babylon. John's fourfold list follows the pattern of Daniel, where it names the subjects of Babylon's king (Daniel 5:19), not Isaiah's wording.
Beale says the waters were Babylon's source of wealth and defense, and now the peoples are the basis of her trade and power. He links this to 16:12: when the kings turn the peoples against her, the waters dry up. Heiser hears the language of Babel: peoples, nations and languages.
Not a map of rivers. The angel gives the meaning himself: the waters are peoples.
Beale says the formula of universality comes from Daniel, where it names the subjects of the Babylonian king (Daniel 5:19, and in the Greek 3:2 and 4:37), and identifies here those under the harlot's influence. Isaiah 17:12-13 also uses many waters for many nations (compare Isaiah 8:7; 23:10; Jeremiah 46:7-9; 47:2). The many waters already allude to Jeremiah 51:13, the Euphrates and canals of Babylon, which the Aramaic paraphrase calls the house of her treasures. Jewish texts read many waters as hostile nations (the Aramaic paraphrases of Song of Songs 8:7 and Isaiah 21:1). Keener cites Isaiah 17:12-13 at 17:1. The CSB Study Bible's cross-references list Isaiah 17:12 and Jeremiah 51:13, and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible cites Jeremiah 51:13. The grade is drawn here: the equation of waters and nations is Isaiah's, the list is Daniel's.
Heiser adds Isaiah 17:12-13, which Beale does not mention: the many nations sound like many waters. He reads the list of peoples, nations and languages as the language of the Tower of Babel and Deuteronomy 32, where the nations were divided and placed under other gods. So Babylon's waters are the nations of the Babel rebellion, part of what he calls a recipe for chaos.
The sources agree that the waters here are peoples, as the angel says. They read the river of 16:12 differently. Beale ties the two together: the dried Euphrates pictures the peoples turning on Babylon. MacArthur reads the waters of 17:15 as the world's nations under the harlot's rule, and the drying of 16:12 as God drying the real river for the armies from the east.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 17:15
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 17:1
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 17:15
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 17:15
- Septuagint, Isaiah 17:12-13 and Jeremiah 51:13, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 17:15
- 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 17:1 and 16:12
