Tool Alpha
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 2:13, Antipas, my faithful witness
Jesus gives the martyr Antipas his own title from Psalm 89, faithful witness, and keeps the psalm's grammar to show it.
Revelation 2:13, in every translation this tool compares.
A captain who hands his own armband to a fallen teammate is saying they played the same game. In 1:5 Jesus is the faithful witness, a title from Psalm 89. Now he gives the same title to Antipas, a believer killed at Pergamum. John even keeps the odd grammar he used in 1:5, so readers hear the same psalm again.
Two words, witness and faithful (ho martys … ho pistos). The Greek of Psalm 89:37 has ho martys en ourano pistos, the faithful witness in the sky. Isaiah 43:10 calls Israel God's witnesses.
In the psalm the witness is the moon. In 1:5 it is Jesus. Here it is a man who died for his faith. John adds my twice: my witness, my faithful one. The grammar is odd again: after in the days of, the name and title should change form, but John leaves them as the psalm has them.
Antipas shares his Lord's title because he shared his Lord's path, faithful to death. Beale reads the grammar as a pointer: the reader is sent back to 1:5 and the psalm, so that the martyr's witness is joined to Jesus' own. The ESV Study Bible says Jesus shares his title with Antipas.
Not a slip by a weak writer. Beale argues the grammar is deliberate, as in 1:4 and 1:5, and rejects calling it a careless error.
Beale notes that the phrase Antipas ho martys mou ho pistos mou follows in the days of, where Greek grammar wants the genitive. He rejects the view that this is a careless Semitism or uneducated style. Like the solecisms of 1:4 and 1:5, the nominative is kept because it belongs to the same Old Testament allusion as 1:5, the nominative ho martys … pistos of Psalm 88(89):38(37) in Greek numbering. He adds Isaiah 43:10-12, where Israel is told twice you are my witnesses, also nominative, beside God and his servant. In the vault's Septuagint, Isaiah 43:10 reads ginesthe moi martyres kai ego martys, be my witnesses, and I am a witness. The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible links Antipas to Jesus as faithful witness in 1:5 and 3:14. The grade is drawn here: the title is the psalm's, and Beale's case rests on the grammar.
Beale reports scholars who explain the nominative as an undeclined Semitic name, or as a slip after the name. He answers that no undeclined form of Antipas has been found and that the same clause in 1:5 shows the pattern.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-2-12-17\/","n":"Revelation 2:12-17, Pergamum, where Satan's throne is","s":"To Pergamum Jesus, who wields the sword of judgment, says they have stayed loyal in a city he calls Satan's seat, even after the martyrdom of Antipas. But some follow teaching like Balaam's that leads to idol meals and immorality. The faithful are promised hidden heavenly food and a white stone carrying a new name.","r":"Revelation 2:12-17"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/martus\/","n":"martus","s":"Witness. The English word martyr is the same Greek word, after what happened to the witnesses.","r":"Acts 1:8"}
- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 2:12-13
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 2:13
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 2:13
- Septuagint, Psalm 89:37 and Isaiah 43:10, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 2:13
