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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 4:8, holy, holy, holy
The creatures sing the threefold holy of Isaiah 6:3, but John changes Isaiah's title for God and replaces the earth full of his glory with the one who was, is and is coming.
Revelation 4:8, in every translation this tool compares.
A choir can sing a famous anthem and change the last line so that it fits the day. The creatures never stop calling God holy three times. That song comes from Isaiah 6, where the seraphim cry it to one another in the temple. John keeps the triple holy. He names God the Lord God Almighty, and in place of Isaiah's whole earth full of his glory he praises the one who was, is and is to come.
The triple holy. Isaiah 6:3 in Greek has hagios, hagios, hagios kyrios, holy, holy, holy Lord, and Revelation 4:8 has the same four words. In both, heavenly beings next to the throne sing it without ceasing. The six wings in the same verse also come from Isaiah 6:2.
The Hebrew says YHWH tsevaot, Lord of hosts. The Greek of Isaiah keeps the Hebrew word as sabaoth. John writes ho theos ho pantokrator, God the Almighty. That is the form the Greek of Amos and other prophets uses for Lord of hosts. He drops Isaiah's line about the earth full of God's glory. He adds the three-part name from 1:4.
Isaiah's vision leads to judgment on a people who will not hear. Beale notes that Revelation later borrows the next verse, the temple filling with smoke, when God's anger is poured out in 15:8. So the song of holiness in 4:8 prepares for the judgments to come. They come from the God who rules all of time.
Not a new hymn made up for the church. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible notes that the song was already part of Jewish prayer. Beale says John takes it from Isaiah or from a tradition built on it.
Beale says the influence of Isaiah 6 continues in 4:8b: the trisagion finds its background in Isaiah 6:3, perhaps directly, perhaps through a tradition based on it, and probably both. Isaiah 6 is drawn in because its theophany is so like Daniel 7 and Ezekiel 1. He traces the Lord God Almighty to its recurrent use in the Greek prophets (Amos 3:13; 4:13; Hosea 12:5; Nahum 3:5; Zechariah 10:3). In the vault's Septuagint, Amos 3:13 reads kyrios ho theos ho pantokrator, word for word Revelation's title, where the Hebrew has Yahweh, God of hosts. The second name, the one who was, is and is coming, comes from Exodus 3:14 and Jewish tradition (see 1:4). Jewish writings had the cherubim praise God without sleep (1 Enoch 39:11-14; 61:12; 2 Enoch 21:1). Keener and the NIV Biblical Theology and CSB Study Bibles all cite Isaiah 6:3. The grade is drawn here: the triple holy can hardly come from anywhere else.
Heiser says the triple holy comes right out of Isaiah 6. That is one of three council scenes, with Daniel 7 and Ezekiel 1, that John blends to build the throne room. As in The Unseen Realm, he adds that Isaiah's seraphim may look like serpents as well as fire. They guard the throne. But he says the fire imagery does not depend on Isaiah 6 alone.
Prigent and others, Beale reports, take the triple holy and the new song from the liturgy of the synagogue or early church. Beale answers that they are just as likely taken from the Old Testament. Keener and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible note that the song had entered synagogue prayer, which allows both.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 4:8b and on 4:1-5:14, Chapters 4-5 as a Heavenly Liturgy
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 4:8
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 4:8
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 4:8
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 4:8
- Septuagint, Isaiah 6:2-3 and Amos 3:13, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- Hebrew text of Isaiah 6:3 and Amos 3:13, Miqra according to the Masorah (Sefaria)
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 4:8
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 4: The Throne Room of Heaven, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
