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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 9:20, idols that cannot see, hear or walk
The gold, silver, bronze, stone and wooden idols join Daniel's list of the gods Belshazzar praised to the Psalms' mockery of idols with feet that do not walk.
Revelation 9:20, in every translation this tool compares.
A new song can list the things in a house the way an old hymn does, and listeners hear the hymn. Daniel scolded Belshazzar for praising gods of metal, wood and stone, gods that do not see or hear. Psalm 115 mocks idols that have feet but do not walk. John joins the two. The survivors cling to idols that see nothing, hear nothing and go nowhere.
The materials: gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood, the list of Daniel 5:4 and 5:23. The senses idols lack: in Daniel's Greek they do not see (blepousi) or hear (akouousi), and in Psalm 115:7 their feet do not walk (peripatesousin). John has blepein, akouein and peripatein.
John drops iron from Daniel's list and puts stone before wood. In place of Daniel's do not know, he takes walk from Psalm 115. Daniel speaks to one king; John speaks of all the survivors. And John puts demons first, a step Deuteronomy 32:17 takes and Daniel does not.
Belshazzar ignored the warning of his father's fall and went on praising idols, and that night he died. Beale sees the same refusal here. The plagues were warnings, and the survivors still cling to what cannot help them. The Psalms add a sting: those who make idols become like them, blind and deaf.
Not a list of materials for its own sake. Beale reads it as the usual biblical mockery of idols, whose makers grow as senseless as the idols.
Beale says the list of idols by material is closest to Daniel 5:4 and 5:23, with Psalms 115:4-7 and 135:15-17 and Deuteronomy 4:28; his note adds that Daniel 5:23 in Theodotion has all the metals and wood, while the Psalms and Deuteronomy have only two of the six. The vault's Greek Daniel 5:23 lists gold, silver, brass, iron, wood and stone and calls them gods that do not see, hear or know; Psalm 115:7 adds feet that do not walk (ou peripatesousin). Revelation 9:20 reads ta chrysa kai ta argyra kai ta chalka kai ta lithina kai ta xylina, ha oute blepein dynantai oute akouein oute peripatein. The ESV Study Bible names Daniel 5:23 with Psalms 115:4-8 and 135:15-18, and the CSB Study Bible lists Deuteronomy 4:28, Psalms 115:4-7 and 135:15-17 and Daniel 5:23. Keener and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible cite the Psalms. The grade is drawn here by Beale's definitions: the list and the senses are nearly word for word from Daniel 5:23 and Psalm 115, and Beale gives the motive.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 9:20
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:20-21
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references on Revelation 9:20
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 9:20-21
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:20
- Septuagint, Daniel 5:4, Daniel 5:23, Psalm 115:4-7 and Psalm 135:15-17, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 9:20
