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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 7:14, robes washed and made white
Being made white through trial comes from Daniel's last chapters, and the washing recalls the prophets' promise that sin would be made white as snow.
Revelation 7:14, in every translation this tool compares.
Gold is not ruined by the furnace; it comes out purer. Daniel 11 and 12 say that the wise will be tested and made white through the trials of the end. Isaiah and the psalms speak of sins washed and made white as snow. John's crowd has washed its robes, whitening them in the Lamb's blood. They were purified through the trial, by the Lamb's death.
Being made white. Daniel 12:10 in Greek has many will be whitened (ekleukanthosi); John has they made them white (eleukanan). Isaiah 1:18 and Psalm 51:7 in Greek use the same verb for sins made white.
Daniel says the faithful are made white by testing. Isaiah says God will make scarlet sins white. John joins the two and adds what no Old Testament text could: the robes are made white in blood, the Lamb's. The paradox of whitening in blood is John's own.
Beale reads the robes as purity shown by faith that held on through trials. The faith is in the Lamb's death for them. For Beale the crowd fulfills Daniel's hope for faithful Israel, and the cleansing comes from the cross.
Not a picture Daniel paints. Daniel's wise are made white by testing, and Isaiah's sins are made white as snow. No Old Testament text makes robes white in blood.
Beale says the idea of being made white by persevering through tribulation is found in the Old Testament only in Daniel 11-12: Daniel 11:35 speaks of refining and making white until the end, and 12:10 has many purified and made white. He reports Bauckham's support for the Daniel background, and calls it the most plausible. In the vault's Theodotion Daniel, 12:10 reads eklegosi kai ekleukanthosi kai pyrothosi kai hagiasthosi polloi. Beale also hears Genesis 49:11, where Judah's ruler washes his robe in the blood of grapes, and Exodus 19:10, 14, where Israel washes garments before meeting God. He says the image generally reflects Isaiah 1:18, 64:6 and Zechariah 3:3-5. The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible says washed white recalls the promises of Psalm 51:7 and Isaiah 1:18; the CSB Study Bible's cross-references list the same; the ESV Study Bible compares Psalm 51:7. The grade is drawn here: Beale names Daniel as the plausible background, but no single text supplies the whole picture.
Beale reads the blood as Christ's atoning death, and MacArthur reads it the same way. Bauckham, as Beale reports, reads it mainly as the saints' own suffering, like soldiers washing after battle. Keener calls the image ritual: sacrificial blood purified things for worship. On who washed their robes, Beale argues for all the redeemed, since 22:14 uses the picture of everyone who enters the city. MacArthur reads people saved in a tribulation still to come and killed for their faith.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), Clothing Washed White: The Old Testament Background, and Additional Considerations on the Old Testament Background of 7:14ff.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 7:13-14
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 7:14
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 7:14
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 7:13-14
- Septuagint, Daniel 12:10, Daniel 11:35, Isaiah 1:18 and Psalm 51:7, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 7:14
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 7:14
