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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 9:16, a double myriad of myriads
The cavalry's number doubles the myriads of myriads who stand before God in Daniel 7:10.
Revelation 9:16, in every translation this tool compares.
A crowd can take an old cheer and shout it twice as loud. John hears the size of the horse army: double myriads of myriads. A myriad is ten thousand. Daniel 7 used myriads of myriads for the angels before God's throne. John doubles the figure for a host of horsemen. Beale reads a host no one could count; the CSB Study Bible takes the sum as a real army.
Myriads of myriads. Daniel 7:10 in Greek has myriai myriades, ten thousand myriads, standing before God. John has dismyriades myriadon, twice myriads of myriads, close to his own myriades myriadon in 5:11.
Daniel's myriads serve God at his throne. John's ride out to kill a third of humanity. John adds the prefix dis, twice, which no Old Testament verse has. He says he heard the number, as if to stress it, yet Beale says the plural form makes an exact sum impossible.
Beale reads the number as an uncountable host of demonic forces, and the doubling as a way to heighten it. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible notes that even this evil army carries out God's purpose. It outnumbers every army John's readers knew.
Not Daniel's heavenly host. Daniel's myriads stand before God's throne. John's ride out to kill. The link is the number formula, not the scene.
Beale argues that myrias without a numeral always means an immense, uncountable host, especially in the plural (Genesis 24:60; Deuteronomy 33:2; Daniel 7:10), and that 1 Enoch 40:1 already reads Daniel 7:10 that way. Revelation 5:11 alludes to Daniel 7:10 with myriades myriadon, and 9:16 adds dis-, twice, to intensify it. He also ties the countless horsemen to Jeremiah 46:23 and to armies as many as locusts in Judges 6:5 and 7:12. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says some commentators compare the figure with God's hosts in Psalm 68:17 and Daniel 7:10. The vault's Greek Daniel 7:10 reads myriai myriades pareisteikeisan, ten thousand myriads stood by. The grade is drawn here: two sources propose Daniel 7:10, and the likeness is the number formula only.
Is the number a count, and who are the riders? Beale reads an uncountable host, since the plural myriads never name an exact sum. The CSB Study Bible takes two hundred million as an army large enough to kill a third of humanity, and leans to a demonic army while allowing both. MacArthur reads a demon force, not a human army from Asia, since the kings from the east come with the seventh trumpet, not the sixth. Beale, the ESV Study Bible and Aune, as Heiser reports, read demons. Heiser argues the host must also include human armies, since in 20:7-10 the nations are deceived into marching on Jerusalem, and demons need no deceiving.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 9:16
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:16
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:16-19
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:14-16
- Septuagint, Daniel 7:10, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 9:16
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 9: The Fifth and Sixth Trumpet Judgments, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 9:16
