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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 2:14-16, the teaching of Balaam
The false teachers at Pergamum are named after Balaam, who taught Moab how to lead Israel into idol feasts and immorality, and the Nicolaitans may be his namesakes in Greek.
Revelation 2:14-16, in every translation this tool compares.
Calling a schemer a Judas tells everyone what kind of betrayal you mean. Balaam was hired to curse Israel and could only bless. Then he showed Moab another way: lure Israel to idol feasts and sexual sin. Jesus says some at Pergamum hold the teaching of Balaam. The Nicolaitans, Beale and Heiser argue, carry Balaam's name in Greek form.
Balaam and Balak by name, Israel's sons, eating idol sacrifices and sexual sin. The Greek of Numbers 25:1-2 has ekporneusai, to fornicate, and ephagen … ton thysion ton eidolon, they ate the sacrifices of the idols. Numbers 31:16 blames Balaam's advice. Numbers 31:8 says he was killed by the sword.
Numbers never quotes Balaam's plan; it reports the result and later blames his counsel. John adds that Balaam taught Balak to set a stumbling block. He uses the word eidolothyta, food offered to idols, where Numbers has the sacrifices of their idols. The setting moves from Moab's camp to a Christian church.
Beale sees a principle carried across: then and now, the danger was closeness to pagan worship dressed as wisdom. The sword in 2:16 fits the story, since Balaam was threatened by the angel's sword and died by the sword. Heiser adds that Nicolaitan means one who conquers the people. Rabbis read Balaam's name the same way.
Not a ban on all meat from the market. Beale and Heiser, following Witherington, read the idol food as meals eaten at pagan worship, the case Paul also forbids in 1 Corinthians 10.
Beale traces the episode through Numbers 22:5 to 25:3 and 31:8, 16: Balaam could not curse Israel, so he advised Moab's women to draw Israel's men into feasts for their gods. Balaam became proverbial for the false teacher who works for gain (Deuteronomy 23:4; Nehemiah 13:2; 2 Peter 2:14-16; Jude 11). He notes that Balaam faced the drawn sword of the angel (Numbers 22:23, 31) and was killed by the sword (31:8; Joshua 13:22), the fate threatened in 2:16. In the vault's Septuagint, Numbers 31:8 reads apekteinan en rhomphaia, they killed with the sword, the same word as Revelation's rhomphaia. On the Nicolaitans, Beale notes that nika laon means he overcomes the people, and that rabbinic writings read Balaam's name as he consumes the people or lord over the people (Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 105a). Keener, the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, the ESV Study Bible, the CSB Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible all name Numbers 25 and 31:16. The grade is drawn here: the names make the source certain.
Heiser follows Aune and Beale. Nicolaitan was not a real sect but a label built from the name: nika laon, he conquers the people, matches a rabbinic reading of Balaam. The church fathers who traced it to Nicolas in Acts 6:5 had no basis, he says. Is this really repurposing the Old Testament? A little, he answers: John wants readers to feel that Pergamum is reliving the disaster of Balaam.
The sources differ on the Nicolaitans. Beale and Heiser read the name as a play on Balaam, and Wright mentions the idea. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says we can only guess, noting both the later link to Nicolas and the link to Balaam. The ESV Study Bible calls them a sect not identifiable with certainty. Keener notes that church fathers later called them a Gnostic sect.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 2:6, 2:14 and 2:15-16
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 2:6 and 2:14-15
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 2:6 and 2:14
- ESV Study Bible, notes on Revelation 2:6 and 2:14-16
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 2:14-15
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, notes on Revelation 2:6 and 2:14
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 2:12-17
- Septuagint, Numbers 25:1-2, 31:8, 31:16 and 22:23, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 2:14-16
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 2: Letters to the Churches: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, and Thyatira, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
