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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 17:8, the beast comes up and goes to destruction
The beast that rises from the abyss and goes to destruction follows Daniel 7, where beasts rise from the sea and the last is destroyed.
Revelation 17:8; Revelation 17:11, in every translation this tool compares.
A villain who keeps coming back in a film series still has a final scene written for him. In Daniel 7 four great beasts come up out of the sea, and the last is killed and its body burned. John is told that the beast he saw was, is not, and is about to come up from the abyss and go to destruction. The words mock God's own name in 1:4, the one who is, who was and who is coming. The beast's comeback ends where Daniel's beast ended.
A beast that comes up and is destroyed. The Greek of Daniel 7:3 says four beasts came up (anebainon) from the sea; 7:11 says the beast was destroyed (apoleto). Revelation 17:8 says the beast is about to come up (anabainein) from the abyss and goes to destruction (apoleian).
Daniel's beasts come up from the sea; John's from the abyss, the realm of demons (9:1-2). Daniel sees four beasts in turn; John sees one beast that gathers their features. John adds the pattern was, is not, will come, a mocking copy of God's name in 1:4 and of Christ's death and rising (1:18). Daniel's beast is burned; John's simply goes to destruction, with burning kept for the woman (17:16).
Beale says the threefold pattern mocks the beast: he imitates Christ's death and resurrection, but his comeback ends in ruin, not eternal life. The world marvels at him, but those whose names God has recorded for life are not fooled. His power is real but short.
Not a beast who cannot be stopped. Every source reads the beast's rise as already doomed. The text says he goes to destruction.
Beale traces the longer third part, rising and then going to ruin, to Daniel 7, which shows the last beast three times coming up onto the stage of history and then being destroyed (7:3, 11, 17-18, 23, 26). He calls 17:8a a collective allusion to these portrayals and sets the Greek of Daniel 7:11, the beast was destroyed, beside John's goes to destruction. The same Daniel texts lie behind 11:7, where the beast rises from the abyss to make war on the witnesses. Jewish writings applied Daniel 7:11 to Rome's judgment. The threefold formula parodies the divine name of 1:4, 8 and 4:8, as Keener, the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible also note. The ESV Study Bible says the beast's future appearance in unprecedented violence will be short-lived. The vault's Greek of Daniel 7:3 (the version called Theodotion) has anebainon ek tes thalasses; 7:11 has apoleto. The grade is drawn here: Beale names the source, and the shared verbs are close.
The sources read the beast's was and is not differently. Beale says is not means the lasting effect of his defeat at the cross and resurrection, and the formula shows a beast at work from the start of history to its end. The ESV Study Bible says the beast once received a mortal wound and came back to life, and its future rise will be brief. MacArthur reads the words as the Antichrist's faked death and return to life, after which a demon from the abyss possesses him; the beast is both a king and his kingdom.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/gods-of-the-bible\/the-beast-from-the-sea\/","n":"The beast from the sea","s":"The empire-beast of Revelation carrying the famous number.","r":"Revelation 13:1-10"}
- {"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"}
- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 17:8a and 17:11
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 17:7-8
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 17:8
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 17:8
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 17:8
- Septuagint, Daniel 7:3, 7:11 and 7:17, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 17:8
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 17:8 and 13:3
