Revelation 22:2, leaves for the healing of the nations

Ezekiel speaks of every kind of fruit tree; John names the tree of life from Genesis. Ezekiel's leaves simply heal; John's heal the nations. The Greek of Ezekiel uses a word for health (hygieia); John uses therapeia, healing. Beale reads the single tree as standing for many trees, since one tree cannot grow on both banks. Twelve crops, one each month, fits the book's twelves.

The tree Adam lost is open again, and now it serves the whole world. In Ezekiel the river renews Israel's land. In John the healing reaches people from every nation who belong to the Lamb. Beale reads the healing as the finished work of Christ's death, given once and for all, since there is no more sickness or death in the new creation (21:4).

Beale says the leaves for healing are based on Ezekiel 47:12, which is itself modeled on Eden's garden and river in Genesis 2:9-10, and that the tree of life shows John read Ezekiel's fruitful land as Eden restored (Genesis 3:22, 24). In his introduction he gives this verse as an example of universalization: leaves promised to Israel become leaves for the nations. The Hebrew of Ezekiel 47:12 ends vealehu litrufah, its leaf for healing. Some manuscripts of Revelation drop of the nations, which Beale thinks brings it closer to Ezekiel. Keener says John changes Ezekiel's trees to bring in the tree of life from Genesis, and that some Jewish writers counted twelve trees, a tree per month. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible notes the added of the nations; Wright calls this one of John's most moving reworkings. Beale gives no grade word here; the grade is drawn here: trees, river banks, monthly fruit and healing leaves could only come from Ezekiel 47:12.