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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 9:14, the four angels bound at the great river Euphrates
Angels set loose at the Euphrates call up the prophets' armies from beyond that river, above all Jeremiah 46, where horsemen gather by the Euphrates on the day of the Lord's vengeance.
Revelation 9:14, in every translation this tool compares.
For a town on a border, the bridge to the other side means danger. For Israel the Euphrates was that border. Beyond it lay Assyria and Babylon, the armies God sent to judge his people. Jeremiah 46 pictures horsemen in armor massed by the Euphrates on the Lord's day of vengeance. John hears four angels set loose at the same river, with a huge cavalry behind them.
The great river Euphrates. The Greek of Jeremiah 46:2 has the army at the river Euphrates (epi to potamo Euphrate), and John has those bound epi to potamo to megalo Euphrate. Both scenes have horsemen in armor, countless as locusts (Jeremiah 46:4, 23), and a day set by God (46:10).
Jeremiah's army is Babylon's against Egypt; Isaiah's is Assyria's against Judah. John's invaders are four angels and a cavalry beyond number, and they strike a third of humanity, not one kingdom. John also says the angels were bound, which no prophet says, and that God fixed the hour, day, month and year.
Beale says the river sums up where the last assault on the world was expected to come from. In John's day Rome feared the Parthians beyond it, as Keener and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible note. John takes that fear and the prophets' armies and shows God unleashing both as judgment. The river returns at the sixth bowl in 16:12.
Not a modern army crossing the river. MacArthur and Beale both read the four angels and their riders as demonic forces. The ESV Study Bible reads a picture of war's carnage.
Beale says the river evokes the prophets' armies from beyond the Euphrates in the north, sent to judge Israel (Isaiah 5:26-29; 7:20; 8:7-8; Jeremiah 1:14-15; 6:1, 22; Ezekiel 38:6, 15; Joel 2:1-11) and the nations around it. The strongest echo, he says, is Jeremiah 46: horsemen like serpents and countless locusts, wearing breastplates, by the Euphrates (Septuagint 26:2; also 46:6, 10). The vault's Septuagint of 46:10 calls that day a day of vengeance in a land of the north at the river Euphrates, and 46:23 says the army outnumbers the locust. Beale also notes 1 Enoch 56:5-8, where angels stir up kings from the east, and that John's irregular participle in 9:14 may flag the allusion. The ESV Study Bible says Israel's captors Assyria and Babylon came from the Euphrates, and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible cites Isaiah 8:7-8 and Jeremiah 1:14-15. The grade is drawn here: Beale gives the Jeremiah link with a motive, and river, horsemen and locusts together point to that chapter.
Heiser reads Beale and McDonough on the river: the four presumably wicked angels held at the Euphrates evoke the foe from the north whom God brings to judge Israel, and the echoes of Jeremiah 46 are especially strong. He adds his own point from The Unseen Realm. The north is also the cosmic north, Zaphon, Baal's mountain, so the threat is both human armies and supernatural evil.
Are the four angels evil? Beale, the CSB Study Bible and Heiser, after Beale and McDonough, say yes. Beale also wonders whether they are the four winds held back in 7:1, and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible thinks they are those winds now let loose. The ESV Study Bible reads the scene as human warfare, while Beale and the CSB Study Bible read a demonic host, perhaps with human armies in it too. MacArthur says holy angels are never said to be bound, so these are fallen angels, held and then freed at God's command.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 9:14
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 9:12-21 and 9:14
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:14
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:13-14
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:14
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:14-16
- Septuagint, Jeremiah 46:2, 46:10 and 46:23, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 9:14
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 9: The Fifth and Sixth Trumpet Judgments, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), notes on Revelation 9:14 and 9:16
