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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 21:25-26, its gates will never be shut
The gates that are never shut, through which the glory and honor of the nations is brought, come from Isaiah 60:11.
Revelation 21:25-26, in every translation this tool compares.
A front door left open all night tells you the neighbors have nothing left to fear. Ancient cities closed their gates at night against attack. Isaiah 60 promised Jerusalem that her gates would stay open day and night, so the wealth of the nations could come in. John sees gates that are never shut in the day. Then he adds that there is no night there at all.
Gates that are never shut, and the nations' riches brought in. The Greek of Isaiah 60:11 has the gates not shut (ou kleisthesontai) day and night; John has ou me kleisthosin, they will never be shut. Both speak of what belongs to the nations being brought into the city.
Isaiah says the gates stay open day and night. John says they are not shut by day, and then explains there is no night. Isaiah has the force or wealth of the nations brought in; John has their glory and honor. John leaves out Isaiah's picture of kings led in procession.
Open gates mean perfect safety: no enemy remains, and nothing evil can get in, as verse 27 says. Beale also reads them as lasting welcome. The nations will never again be shut out of God's presence. Genesis 3:24 barred the road back to Eden's tree. Here the gates stand open.
Not a picture of a long line still waiting outside. Beale says the open gates show eternal access, not people entering bit by bit over endless time.
Isaiah 60:11 in Greek reads kai anoichthesontai hai pylai sou diapantos, hemeras kai nyktos ou kleisthesontai, eisagagein pros se dynamin ethnon, your gates will be open continually; day and night they will not be shut, to bring to you the power of the nations. Revelation 21:25-26 reads hoi pylones autes ou me kleisthosin hemeras, nyx gar ouk estai ekei, kai oisousin ten doxan kai ten timen ton ethnon eis auten. Beale prints the two side by side and says the wording of 21:26 is based on Isaiah 60:11. He notes the phrase glory and honor appears elsewhere in Revelation only in the praise of God and the Lamb (4:9, 11; 5:12-13), which supports reading the nations' gift as worship. He cites 1QM 12.12-15, which also alludes to Isaiah 60:11-12 for end-time Zion. Keener, the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible and the CSB Study Bible all name Isaiah 60:11.
Who brings the glory, the kings or the nations? Beale says Isaiah 60:11 does not settle it and the point does not depend on it. The CSB Study Bible reads the verses as showing that nations and rulers keep their distinctions in the eternal state; Beale reads them as figurative. MacArthur, on 21:24, says all peoples merge into the one people of God, with no more divisions.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 21:24-26
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 21:25-26
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 21:25 and 21:26
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 21:25
- CSB Study Bible, note and cross-references on Revelation 21:22-27
- Septuagint, Isaiah 60:11, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 21:25-26
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 21:24
