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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 9:8, teeth like lions' teeth
The locusts' lion teeth come straight from Joel 1:6, where the locust nation has the teeth of a lion.
Revelation 9:8, in every translation this tool compares.
A cartoonist who draws a shark's grin on a tax bill is borrowing a picture everyone knows. Joel 1 describes a locust nation that strips the land bare. Its teeth are a lion's teeth. John gives his locusts the same lion teeth. With crowns, human faces and long hair, the picture is meant to frighten. These creatures tear.
Teeth like a lion's. Joel 1:6 in Greek reads hoi odontes autou odontes leontos, its teeth are a lion's teeth. John has hoi odontes auton hos leonton, their teeth were like lions'.
Joel says the teeth are a lion's teeth; John says they were like lions'. Joel's lion teeth chew Israel's crops. John's locusts have been forbidden to touch crops, so their teeth point to harm done to people. John also adds women's hair, which nothing in Joel explains, Beale says.
Joel used the lion to show how much a swarm destroys. John uses it to show how savage the demonic swarm is. Keener notes that in Joel the picture would scare farmers, while in Revelation it calls up the lion's famous ferocity.
Not a description of a real insect. The lion teeth are borrowed from Joel to show fury, not anatomy.
Beale says the lion teeth are based on Joel 1:6, where the locusts are like a nation whose teeth are a lion's, and notes later Jewish writings that gave the Egyptian locusts lion teeth too, which would make the link between Exodus and Joel a natural one. Walton explains that comparing locusts to a lion was common in the ancient Near East because of the insect's coloring and the shape of its face and mouth, and that Joel pictures the swarm as an invading army. Keener, the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible and the CSB Study Bible all name Joel 1:6. For the hair, Beale finds no convincing parallel, though some think of locust antennae, and Keener thinks of long-haired Parthians. The vault's Septuagint confirms odontes leontos in Joel 1:6. The grade is drawn here: the phrase is almost identical to Joel 1:6, and lion-toothed locusts point to no other text.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 9:8
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 9:8
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:8
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:7-9
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references on Revelation 9:8
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, on Joel 1:6
- Septuagint, Joel 1:6, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 9:8
