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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 3:10, the hour of trial
The hour of trial coming on the whole world may echo Daniel 12, the time of trouble at the end when God's people are delivered.
Revelation 3:10, in every translation this tool compares.
A storm warning that names the hour tells people to get ready, not to panic. Daniel 12 speaks of a time of trouble like no other, when God's people whose names are written are rescued. Jesus promises Philadelphia that he will keep it from the hour of trial coming on the whole world. Beale, Heiser and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible hear Daniel here.
A coming time of trouble for the whole world, testing, and a promise to God's people. Daniel 12:10 speaks of many tested and purified. John has he hora tou peirasmou, the hour of testing, and peirasai, to test.
The Greek of Daniel in the vault says kairos thlipseos, a time of trouble, not an hour. Beale cites the older Greek translation, which has that hour. Daniel speaks of a nation's distress; John of the whole inhabited world. John adds that the trial falls on those who dwell on the earth.
Daniel 12 speaks of a time of trouble that refines the wise and exposes the wicked. John promises a faithful church that Christ will keep it from a coming hour of trial. That hour will fall on the whole world. Beale reads Daniel's double effect here. He ties the line to 7:14, where saints come out of the great trouble.
Not a quotation of Daniel 12. Daniel speaks of a time of distress unlike any before. John's words for the hour of trial are his own, with Daniel's picture behind them.
Beale says 3:10 may well allude to Daniel 12:1, 10 in the older Greek, where that hour is described as the day of tribulation and many are tested and sanctified. He cites Gundry on John 17:15, the only other New Testament use of keep from, where Jesus asks that his followers be kept from the evil one, not taken out of the world. The vault's Greek of Daniel is Theodotion's and reads kairos thlipseos in 12:1, so the hour wording cannot be checked here; that limit is noted here. The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible ties the hour of trial to Daniel 12:1-2. Keener notes that Allen Kerkeslager reads the hour as the day of judgment. The grade is possible: the idea is shared, and the key word cannot be confirmed in the vault's Greek.
Heiser says the verse is not a promise that keeping faith spares you from every hardship. It refers to the ultimate day of the Lord, the final judgment, which God's family will not suffer. He calls it probably an allusion to Daniel 12:1, the time of trouble when those written in the book are delivered.
The sources disagree on keep from. Beale and the ESV Study Bible read protection through the trial, and Heiser reads protection from the final judgment. The CSB Study Bible thinks removal before the trial more likely and names the pretribulation view. MacArthur reads the hour as the seven years of tribulation still to come, set out in chapters 6-19, the same as Daniel's seventieth week (Daniel 9:24-27) and Jacob's time of distress (Jeremiah 30:7). He takes keep from, whose preposition means out of, as support for the church being taken up before it, the pretribulation rapture. Kerkeslager, as Beale and Keener report, reads the hour as Christ's final coming in judgment.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 3:10
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 3:10
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 3:10
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 3:10
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 3:10
- Septuagint, Daniel 12:1 and 12:10, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 3:10
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 3: Letters to the Churches: Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 3:10
