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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 9:4, not to harm the grass or any green thing
Locusts that may not touch grass, plants or trees turn the locusts of Exodus upside down, since those ate every green thing in Egypt.
Revelation 9:4, in every translation this tool compares.
A guard dog trained to ignore the steak and go for the burglar has been taught against its nature. Locusts eat green things. In Exodus 10 they ate every plant and left nothing green in Egypt. John's locusts are ordered to spare the grass, plants and trees. They may hurt only people who lack God's seal on their foreheads. The plague has switched targets.
The green things (chloron) and trees of Exodus 10:15, where nothing green was left on the trees or in the fields. John names the grass, every green thing and every tree.
Exodus says the locusts ate it all. John says they must not touch it. The harm moves from crops to people, and only to those without God's seal. In Exodus the plagues also passed over Israel; in John the sealed of 7:3 are spared. The sources say the change shows these are not real locusts and that the judgment falls on rebels, not on nature.
The judgment is aimed. Beale says it strikes rebellious people, not the earth, and the sealed are kept from its harm as Israel was kept from the plagues. The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible draws the same contrast with Exodus.
Not a contradiction of 8:7, where the grass burned. Beale reads the order as a point about the target, people not nature, and the trumpets as overlapping in time.
In the Septuagint Exodus 10:15 ends that no green thing (chloron ouden) was left on the trees or in the plants of the field. John writes that the locusts must not harm ton chorton tes ges oude pan chloron oude pan dendron, the grass of the earth, any green thing or any tree. Beale sets the two side by side: the Exodus locusts devoured everything, but John's are told to spare it and harm only unbelievers. He links the exception to the seal of 7:2-3 and to the plagues that did not touch Israel (Exodus 8:22-24; 9:4-7, 26; 10:21-23). The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible says locusts always devour plants (Exodus 10:15; Joel 1:4), but these are told not to. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible and the CSB Study Bible draw the conclusion that these are no normal locusts. Heiser reads Beale's comparison in the lecture. Beale's word here is a contrast, not his label for an inverted use, so the label and the grade are drawn here: the reversal of Exodus 10:15 is plain and uniquely traceable.
Who are the sealed? Beale reads all true believers, whom God's seal keeps from the locusts' spiritual harm, as the plagues passed over Israel. MacArthur reads the two groups of chapter 7: the 144,000 Jewish evangelists and the people they bring to faith. The CSB Study Bible reads the 144,000 of Israel, perhaps with their converts.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 9:4
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:4
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:4
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:2-10
- Septuagint, Exodus 10:15, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 9:4
- 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 9:4
