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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 19:20, fire and sulfur
The burning sulfur of the lake may echo Ezekiel 38:22, where God rains fire and sulfur on Gog and his armies.
Revelation 19:20, in every translation this tool compares.
Two words that always come as a pair can carry a whole story with them. In Ezekiel 38 God judges Gog with plague, hail, fire and sulfur rained down on him and his troops. John's lake burns with sulfur. Beale, and Heiser after Kline, hear Ezekiel's judgment of Gog here, since the birds of verses 17 and 18 come from the next chapter.
Fire and sulfur together as God's weapon against the end-time enemy. The Greek of Ezekiel 38:22 has pyr kai theion; John has tou pyros … en theio.
In Ezekiel the fire and sulfur rain down from above. In John they fill a lake. Ezekiel lists plague, blood, rain and hailstones too; John keeps only the pair. Gog's whole army is struck in Ezekiel. In John only the two leaders go into the lake; their army dies by the sword.
The pair ties the beast's end to the Gog story that shapes this whole battle. Kline, as Heiser reports him, lists Ezekiel's weapons that John reuses. They include the sword, the hail and the burning sulfur.
Not a link that rests on Ezekiel alone. Fire and sulfur also fell on Sodom, and the pair is common in judgment scenes. The echo is possible because the next chapter of Ezekiel is plainly in view.
Beale says fire and brimstone echo Ezekiel 38:22, where the same two words describe the judgment of Gog and Magog, which is clearly alluded to in 19:17-18 and 21. He notes the participle burning agrees with lake in gender but with fire in case, perhaps on purpose. He cites Ezekiel 38:22 and 39:6 again when he argues that 19:17-21 and 20:7-10 are the same battle, by sword and by fire. Heiser reads Kline's list: sword (Ezekiel 38:21), hail and fiery sulfur (38:22; 39:6), set against 16:21 and 19:20. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible notes that Jewish tradition pictured Gehenna as burning. The grade is possible: a common pair of words, proposed by two sources.
Reading Kline, Heiser lists the instruments of judgment shared by Ezekiel and John: earthquakes (Ezekiel 38:19-20), the sword (38:21), and hail with fiery sulfur (38:22; 39:6). He sets the last against Revelation 16:21 and 19:20. For him this is part of the proof that Revelation 16, 19 and 20 recycle one Gog event.
Beale and Heiser tie the sulfur to Ezekiel 38:22. Wright hears the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Keener treats judgment by fire as a standard feature of Jewish accounts of the end.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 19:20 and Allusions to Ezekiel 38-39 in 19:17-21 and 20:8-10
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 19:11-21
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 19:20-21
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 19:20
- Septuagint, Ezekiel 38:22, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 19:20
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 19: The Rider on the White Horse, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
