Revelation 4:11, you created all things and by your will they exist

Daniel praises God's power in history: he does what he wills among heaven's armies and earth's people. John makes it creation: God created all things, and by his will they were and were created. Beale says the old Greek translation of Daniel had already read the verse in terms of creation. The speaker changes too, from a humbled king to the elders.

Beale says the hymn stresses that all things exist to serve God's purposes and that he carries out his will through all of history without being stopped. For persecuted Christians that means even their suffering sits inside his plan. Chapter 5 then shows how he carries the plan out: through the Lamb.

Beale finds the closest parallel to 4:11b in Nebuchadnezzar's closing hymn in Daniel 4: the old Greek of 4:37 calls God to ktisanti ta panta (the one who created all things) and gives his will, while Theodotion's 4:35 has God acting kata to thelema autou in heaven and on earth. He argues that the old Greek reads the Aramaic as creative rather than historical sovereignty. Both have aorist verbs of making followed by all things and a will construction. He adds dynamis and time in Daniel 4:34, 36 and doxa in 4:35-36 (old Greek), matching glory, honor and power, and finds a hint of a liturgy shaped by the Greek additions to Daniel 3. The vault's Septuagint gives Theodotion only, so the old Greek wording here rests on Beale. Keener and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible note that Domitian liked to be called our Lord and God. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible lists Daniel 4:37 among heaped-up praises. The grade is drawn here: Beale finds no closer combination of wording, theme and setting.