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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 21:6, water from the spring of life without cost
God's gift of water to the thirsty, free of charge, joins Isaiah 49:10, springs of water for the returning exiles, with Isaiah 55:1, come to the waters without money.
Revelation 21:6, in every translation this tool compares.
A town well with a sign that says free to all tells you who owns the water. In Isaiah 49 God leads his people home past springs so they never thirst. In Isaiah 55 he calls the thirsty to come and drink without money. John joins the two. God gives the thirsty water from the spring of life, and it costs them nothing.
The thirsty, given water by God, at no cost. Isaiah 55:1 in Greek calls hoi dipsontes, the thirsty, and John has to dipsonti, the one who thirsts. Isaiah 49:10 has pegon hydaton, springs of waters; John has tes peges tou hydatos, the spring of the water.
Isaiah's springs become one spring whose water is life. Isaiah 55:1 says without money and without price; John uses one word, dorean, as a gift. Isaiah calls people to come and buy; John has God giving. Beale suggests the free gift may also come from the line before the springs in Isaiah 49:10, he who has mercy on them.
Jewish teachers often read the water of Isaiah 55:1 as the Torah, Beale notes. John reads it as eternal life in God's presence, given by grace. In Isaiah the promise was for returning exiles. In John it is for anyone who thirsts and overcomes, and 22:17 repeats the invitation.
Not a reward for martyrs only. Beale answers that view: 22:17 opens the same water to the whole redeemed community.
Isaiah 49:10 in Greek reads they will not hunger or thirst, for he who has mercy on them will comfort them and lead them through springs of waters. Isaiah 55:1 reads hoi dipsontes, poreuesthe eph' hydor, you who thirst, go to the water, and buy without money. Revelation has ego to dipsonti doso ek tes peges tou hydatos tes zoes dorean. Beale calls Isaiah 49:10 the basis of the water image and says Isaiah 55:1 is combined with it. He reads tes zoes as water that is life, from God and the Lamb (22:1, 17; Jeremiah 2:13; Psalm 36:9). Rabbinic texts he cites (Mekilta, Midrash on Psalms) take the water of Isaiah 55:1 as the Torah. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says the line probably echoes Isaiah 55:1; the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible cites Isaiah 49:10 and 55:1; Keener and the ESV Study Bible cite Isaiah 55:1. The grade is drawn here: the free water to the thirsty is distinctive to Isaiah 55:1, but the wording is reshaped.
The sources agree on Isaiah 55:1. Beale makes Isaiah 49:10 the base text; the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible names only Isaiah 55:1. Keener sets it beside the abundant water of the age to come in Isaiah 35:1-2 and Ezekiel 47:1-12. Some, as Beale reports, limit the water to martyrs; he rejects that.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 21:6
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 21:6
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 21:6
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 21:6
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 21:6
- Septuagint, Isaiah 49:10 and 55:1, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 21:6
