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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 3:14, the Amen, the faithful and true witness
Jesus' titles to Laodicea draw on Isaiah 65:16, the God of Amen, and Isaiah 43:10, God's witnesses, both tied to the new creation.
Revelation 3:14, in every translation this tool compares.
A signature at the bottom of a contract says this is binding. In Isaiah 65 God is named the God of Amen, the God whose word holds. Right after, he promises a new heaven and earth. Isaiah 43 calls God and his servant witnesses. Jesus takes the name Amen for himself and calls himself a witness who is faithful and true. Beale reads beginning of God's creation as the new creation his rising began.
Amen as a name, and the ideas faithful and true. The Hebrew of Isaiah 65:16 has Elohei amen twice, the God of Amen. The Greek translation renders it ton theon ton alethinon, the true God. John has ho Amen, ho martys ho pistos kai alethinos.
The Greek translation turns Isaiah's Amen into true. John keeps the Hebrew word as a name, then adds faithful and true, as if translating it twice. Isaiah speaks of God; John of Jesus. Witness comes from Isaiah 43:10 and Psalm 89, not from Isaiah 65. And Beale ties beginning of creation to Isaiah 65:17, the new heavens and earth.
Beale reads the titles as one claim: Jesus is the faithful witness, and his resurrection is the start of God's new creation. To a lukewarm church whose witness has gone quiet, he presents himself as the witness to follow. He also comes as the true judge who will spit out the unfaithful.
Not a claim that Jesus was the first thing God made. Beale and the ESV Study Bible read beginning as the start and ruler of creation, not its first product.
Beale argues that Isaiah 65:15-16 primarily stands behind the Amen title. In the Bible only Isaiah 65:16 and Revelation 3:14 use Amen as a name. The Greek versions of Isaiah 65:16 differ: the Septuagint has the true God, Aquila and Jerome have faithfully, and Symmachus keeps amen. Together, Beale notes, they give almost the same amplified reading as Revelation 3:14. Isaiah 43:10-12 adds witness: Israel, God and his servant are witnesses to a new act of creation, from the beginning. The vault's Septuagint confirms ton alethinon in 65:16; Sefaria's Hebrew has beElohei amen. Beale reads the beginning as the new creation launched by the resurrection, building on firstborn of the dead in 1:5. The grade is drawn here: Amen as a name occurs only in Isaiah 65:16.
Silberman and Montgomery, as Beale reports, read Amen as a misreading of amon, master workman, in Proverbs 8:30, with beginning from Proverbs 8:22. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible links beginning to the divine titles first and last in Isaiah 41:4, 44:6 and 48:12. MacArthur reads beginning as originator of creation, against a claim, which he thinks was alive at Laodicea, that Christ was created. The CSB Study Bible reads originator of creation, Christ as agent of creation. Keener points to 2 Corinthians 1:20.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 3:14, and The Old Testament Background of Christ's Titles in 3:14
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 3:14
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 3:14
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 3:14
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 3:14
- Septuagint, Isaiah 65:16 and 43:10, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- Hebrew text of Isaiah 65:16, Miqra according to the Masorah (Sefaria)
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 3:14
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 3:14
