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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 6:16, fall on us
The cry to the mountains and rocks to fall on them and hide them is Hosea's picture of idolaters facing judgment.
Revelation 6:16, in every translation this tool compares.
Some lines are so tied to one scene that you can quote them without naming the play. Hosea warned that the people of Samaria, ruined for their idols, would beg the mountains to cover them and the hills to fall on them. Jesus used the same words on the way to the cross. In Revelation people everywhere call on the mountains and rocks. They beg them to fall and hide them.
A cry to the mountains to fall on us. The Greek is close: Hosea 10:8 has erousi tois oresi … pesate eph' hemas; John has legousin tois oresin … pesete eph' hemas.
Hosea pairs mountains and hills; John has mountains and rocks. Hosea asks first to be covered, then to be fallen on; John reverses the order and says hide us. And John adds what they hide from: the face of God and the anger of the Lamb.
In Hosea the cry follows the fall of Israel's altars. Beale says John uses it for the final judgment of idolaters everywhere. They would rather die under the rocks than face God and the Lamb.
Not a prayer for mercy. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible notes that they call on the mountains, not on God.
Beale says the cry alludes to Hosea 10:8. Like Isaiah 2, Hosea pictures idolaters looking for shelter from God's anger among the hills and rocks; Jeremiah 4:29 is included as well. In the vault's Septuagint, Hosea 10:8 reads kai erousi tois oresi, kalypsate hemas, kai tois bounois, pesate eph' hemas; John has kai legousin tois oresin kai tais petrais, pesete eph' hemas kai krypsate hemas. Keener says the hiding and crying reflect Hosea 10:8; the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible quotes Hosea and notes its use in Luke 23:30; the ESV Study Bible, the CSB Study Bible's cross-references and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible all cite Hosea 10:8, and Wright names it as a scene the prophets described. The grade is drawn here: the wording is nearly identical.
Wright reads the scene as huge political turmoil within history, asking why people would hide in caves if the universe were really ending. Beale reads it as the final judgment. Keener also sees the end of the age. MacArthur sets the scene in a tribulation still to come, when the world's people see for the first time where all their trouble comes from, after living as usual until then.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 6:16
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 6:15-16
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 6:16
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 6:12-17
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 6:16
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 6:16
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 6:9-17
- Septuagint, Hosea 10:8, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 6:16
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 6:16
