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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 6:13-14, stars falling like figs, the sky rolled up like a scroll
The falling stars and the sky rolled up like a scroll come from Isaiah 34:4, where the host of heaven is judged with the nations.
Revelation 6:13-14, in every translation this tool compares.
A painter can borrow one striking image from an old master and everyone knows the source. Isaiah 34 pictures God's anger at the nations and their host. The sky rolls up like a scroll, and the stars drop like leaves from a vine or fruit from a fig tree. John uses the same pictures. Stars fall like figs shaken by a strong wind, and the sky splits away, rolling up like a scroll.
Stars falling, a fig tree, and the sky rolled like a scroll. The Greek is close: biblion (scroll) and the verb roll (helisso) in both, and the stars fall (pipto) in both.
Isaiah has leaves falling from the fig tree in the Greek, and withered fruit in the Hebrew. John has unripe figs shaken by a great wind, which fits the Hebrew fruit better than the Greek leaves (a point drawn here). Isaiah says the sky is rolled up; John says it is split off as a scroll is rolled.
In Isaiah the judgment falls on the nations and on the host of heaven at once. John moves the picture to the sixth seal, a judgment on the whole world. Beale reads the stars as heavenly powers behind the nations, judged together with the earthly ones.
Not a quotation of Isaiah 34:4. John keeps the falling stars, the fig tree and the scroll. He changes Isaiah's falling leaves to unripe figs shaken by a gale, and has the sky split away.
Beale calls Isaiah 34:4 the most formative of the texts behind 6:12-14, the one after which 6:13-14a is most closely patterned. In the vault's Septuagint, 34:4 reads takesontai pasai hai dynameis ton ouranon, kai heligesetai ho ouranos hos biblion, kai panta ta astra peseitai hos phylla ex ampelou kai hos piptei phylla apo sykes. Revelation has hoi asteres … epesan … hos syke ballei tous olynthous autes … kai ho ouranos apechoristhe hos biblion helissomenon. The Hebrew of 34:4 has tseva hashamayim, the host of heaven, and ukhnovelet mitte'enah, like withered fruit from a fig. Beale notes that the Greek renders the host of heaven as the powers of the heavens and identifies them as stars. Keener, the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, the ESV Study Bible, the CSB Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible all cite Isaiah 34:4. Walton says the image of the sky rolled like a scroll is unique in the Hebrew Bible, and that dimming stars meant defeated star gods. The grade is drawn here.
Heiser reads Beale's list of texts and then stresses Isaiah 34:4, where God is angry at the nations and at their host. He says that this word form, their host, always means things in the sky in the Hebrew Bible, never earthly armies, and that the Greek renders it with dunamis, a word for supernatural powers. So the falling stars mean the judgment of the powers of darkness along with earthly powers: "we're not talking about something NASA can defeat". He adds 1 Enoch's falling stars as rebel Watchers and calls this the worldview of Deuteronomy 32 and Daniel 10.
Keener thinks the stars may symbolize angelic hosts but probably just show the cosmic scope of judgment. Beale and Heiser read them as powers. The ESV Study Bible reports a literal reading as a meteor shower, and Beale grants that a few of the source texts may be literal. MacArthur reads a massive asteroid or meteor shower, since the word star can name any body in the sky. He takes the vanished sky as a real change to the earth's atmosphere.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 6:12-14
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 6:12-14
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 6:13 and 6:14
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 6:12-17
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 6:14
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 6:14
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, on Isaiah 34:4
- The Jewish Study Bible, Isaiah 34:4
- Septuagint, Isaiah 34:4, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- Hebrew text of Isaiah 34:4, Miqra according to the Masorah (Sefaria)
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 6:13-14
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 6: The Opening of the First Six Seals, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 6:13 and 6:14
