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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 2:18, the Son of God
The only use of Son of God in Revelation looks ahead to Psalm 2, quoted at the end of the letter, and may recall the son of God in Daniel's furnace.
Revelation 2:18, in every translation this tool compares.
A letter signed with the heir's title warns the reader that the heir's rights come with it. This letter opens with Jesus as the Son of God, the only time Revelation uses the title. It ends by quoting Psalm 2, where God tells his king, you are my Son. Beale also hears Daniel 3, where a figure like a son of God walks in the fire with Daniel's friends.
The title son of God. The Greek of Psalm 2:7 reads huios mou ei sy, you are my son. Daniel 3:25 in the vault's Greek has the fourth figure homoia huio theou, like a son of God. Fire is in both Daniel 3 and Revelation 2:18.
Psalm 2 never says Son of God; God says my son. Daniel 3 has like a son of God, a heavenly helper. John uses a fixed title. The fiery eyes and bronze feet come from chapter 1 and Daniel 10, not from Psalm 2. So the title gathers two passages without quoting either.
The title prepares for the promise of Psalm 2 in verses 26-27. The Son who rules the nations will share his rule. Beale adds that it answers local claims, since Apollo, patron of Thyatira's guilds, and the emperor were both called sons of Zeus. As in Daniel 3, the Son protects the faithful in the fire.
Not a new picture of Jesus. The eyes and feet repeat chapter 1. Only the title is new here.
Beale reads Son of God as John's way of putting son of man from 1:13, since the eyes and feet come from 1:14-15. He hears Daniel 3:25 (and 3:92 in the Greek with its additions), where the friends are saved by one like a son of God, and a Jewish and Christian tradition that took Daniel 7's son of man and Daniel 3's son of God as one figure. The title also anticipates Psalm 2, cited at the end of the letter. Hemer, as Beale reports, ties the bronze to a Thyatiran trade and the title to Apollo Tyrimnaeus and the emperor. The ESV Study Bible connects the Son of God of verse 18 with Psalm 2:7-9, and the CSB Study Bible's cross-references give Psalm 2:7-9 at this verse. The grade is possible: the title is general and the link to Psalm 2 is through the letter's end.
Hemer, as Beale reports, reads the title chiefly against Apollo and the emperor and plays down Daniel; Beale holds that both backgrounds count. Keener and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible stress the local cult of Apollo and the emperor as son of a god without naming Daniel 3. The ESV Study Bible adds Ezekiel 1:27 behind the fiery description.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 2:18
- ESV Study Bible, notes on Revelation 2:18 and 2:26-28
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 2:18
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 2:18
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 2:18
- Septuagint, Psalm 2:7 and Daniel 3:25, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 2:18
