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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 17:6, drunk with the blood of the saints
The prophets pictured God's sword and land drunk with his enemies' blood; John turns the image around, so Babylon is drunk on the blood of God's people.
Revelation 17:6, in every translation this tool compares.
A slogan from one side of a war can be turned around and thrown back by the other. Isaiah and Jeremiah pictured God's judgment as a sword or a land drunk with the blood of his enemies. Isaiah also said Israel's oppressors would drink their own blood. John sees the woman drunk on the blood of God's people, the witnesses to Jesus. The image of God's judgment now describes Babylon's crime, which will be judged by the same picture.
Drunkenness with blood. The Greek of Isaiah 34:7 says the land will be drunk with blood (methysthesetai … apo tou haimatos). Jeremiah 46:10 says the sword will be drunk with their blood. Isaiah 49:26 has the oppressors drunk on their own blood. Revelation 17:6 has the woman drunk (methyousan) with the blood of the saints.
In the prophets the one drunk with blood is God's sword, a land under judgment, or oppressors punished. In Revelation it is the oppressor herself, drunk with the blood of the faithful. Beale says the imagery is applied in reverse, so that Babylon will be punished by her own sin. John names the victims as saints and witnesses of Jesus.
The woman's cup of filth (17:4) includes the blood of believers, and she enjoys it. Beale reads the blood as every kind of persecution, including death. Because she drank blood, she will be given blood to drink, as 16:6 already announced.
Not cannibalism. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible notes that drinking blood was a picture of violence, and Beale calls it an ancient idiom for oppression.
Beale says the metaphor of drunkenness with blood is developed from the Greek of Isaiah 34:5-7, 49:26 and Jeremiah 46:10 (26:10 in the Greek order), where it describes God's judgment of the wicked. John applies it in reverse to show that Babylon will be punished by her own sin, as 16:6 reveals. He adds that 1 Enoch 62:12 uses the Isaiah 34 and Jeremiah 46 passages for the judgment of oppressors, and that drinking blood was an idiom for oppression in Josephus and Philo. Ancient writers called Rome drunk with the blood of citizens. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible cites Deuteronomy 32:42, Isaiah 49:26 and Ezekiel 39:19 for the terrifying prophetic picture. The CSB Study Bible's cross-references list Deuteronomy 32:42, Isaiah 49:26, 63:6 and Ezekiel 39:19. The grade is drawn here: the picture is the prophets', the target reversed.
The sources point to different prophetic texts. Beale names Isaiah 34, Isaiah 49:26 and Jeremiah 46:10. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible and the CSB Study Bible add Deuteronomy 32:42 and Ezekiel 39:19, where God's arrows and the birds of prey are drunk with blood. Keener reads the verse against Rome's bloody arena games. MacArthur reads the victims as the witnesses of the tribulation and the woman as a murderer: false religion has killed believers through the centuries, and its final form will be deadlier still.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 17:6
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 17:6
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 17:6
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 17:6
- Septuagint, Isaiah 34:7, 49:26 and Jeremiah 46:10, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 17:6
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 17:6
