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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 3:12, the name of the city of my God
Writing the name of God's city on the faithful may recall the last verse of Ezekiel, where the new city's name is The Lord Is There.
Revelation 3:12, in every translation this tool compares.
A city that names itself after its founder tells you who it belongs to. Ezekiel's book ends with a city whose name will be The Lord Is There. Jesus promises to write God's name on the faithful. He will also write the name of God's city, the new Jerusalem. Beale hears Ezekiel: the city's name speaks of God living among his people.
The name of the city of the last days, tied to God's presence. The Greek of Ezekiel 48:35 has to onoma tes poleos, the name of the city. John has to onoma tes poleos tou theou mou, adding of my God.
Ezekiel gives the city's name, The Lord Is There. John never states the name; he writes it on people. Ezekiel's city stands around the new temple; John's comes down from heaven. In the vault's Greek, Ezekiel 48:35 even loses the name: it reads the name of the city shall be its name.
The name of the city goes with God's name and Christ's new name, and Beale reads all three as one thing: God's presence with his people. Revelation 21 describes the city in words drawn from Ezekiel's temple vision. Philadelphia had taken a new name from Caesar after an earthquake; the faithful will carry God's.
Not the name Jerusalem written on a forehead. The sources read the names as marks of belonging and presence.
Beale says the promise recalls Ezekiel 48:35, where the name of the new Jerusalem is The Lord Is There because his temple and glory dwell in it. He cites the Babylonian Talmud Baba Bathra 75b, which repoints the Hebrew to read the Lord is its name, and notes that Midrash on Psalm 21.2 and Pesikta de Rab Kahana 22.5a give the Messiah and the city God's name. Sefaria's Hebrew reads veshem ha'ir miyom YHWH shammah. The vault's Greek reads the same consonants as its name, not there. That reading of the Greek is drawn here. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible names Jeremiah 33:16 and Ezekiel 48:35, and the CSB Study Bible's cross-references give Ezekiel 48:35. The grade is possible: three sources point to it, and the wording is only the name of the city.
The sources stress different things. Beale reads the names as God's presence and draws in Ezekiel's temple. The ESV Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible note Philadelphia's earlier renaming for Caesar. MacArthur reads the new Jerusalem as the capital city of heaven, where those who conquer hold citizenship forever, and God's name on them as his character stamped on those who belong to him. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible adds Jeremiah 33:16, where Jerusalem is called The Lord Our Righteousness.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 3:12
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 3:12
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 3:12
- ESV Study Bible, notes on Revelation 3:7-13 and 3:12
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 3:12
- Septuagint, Ezekiel 48:35, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- Hebrew text of Ezekiel 48:35, Miqra according to the Masorah (Sefaria)
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 3:12
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 3:12
