Revelation 7
Revelation 7 is the seventh chapter of the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is traditionally attributed to John the Apostle, but the precise identity of the author remains a point of academic debate. Chapter 6 to Chapter 8:5 record the opening of the Seven Seals. This chapter contains the writer's vision of "the Four Angels of the Four Winds", the sealing of the 144,000 and the "Praise of the Great Multitude of the Redeemed". The passage in this chapter is 'an intercalation in the numbered series of seven'.
Text
The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 17 verses.Textual witnesses
Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are among others:- Papyrus 115
- Codex Sinaiticus
- Codex Alexandrinus
- Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus
The sealed of Israel ()
ownership as well as protection : these people are protected 'to serve God as the messianic army'. Just as a census in the Old Testament era provides the reckoning of Israel's
military strength, the counting of 144,000 persons of the twelve tribes of Israel indicates the strength of the messianic army who will fight the war against God's enemies in the last days. The tribe of Judah, being the tribe of the Messiah, is numbered first.
Verse 1
"Holding" is interpreted as "holding back" the winds. The noncomformist biblical commentator Matthew Henry suggests that "the blowing of the four winds together means a dreadful and general destruction". The Septuagint and Vulgate versions of Zechariah 6:5 refers to "the four winds of heaven", although the King James Version and many other translations refer to "the four spirits of the heavens". The Pulpit Commentary suggests that translation as "the four winds" is "doubtless correct": "the winds are supposed to be God's servants, waiting his pleasure to be sent forth on his errands". Jamieson, Fausset and Brown relate the holding back of judgment to the plea given to the saints on the opening of the fifth seal in Revelation 6:English clergyman John Keble uses the image in his poem, All Saints Day:
New Testament scholar Ronald L. Farmer believes the author of Revelation assumed a flat Earth in this verse. Hebrew Bible scholar Dr. Kyle Greenwood believes that this verse references the four compass points, like in Revelation 20, Isaiah 11 and Ezekiel 7. He claims that this "seems to have been an idiom related to the four cardinal directions, which encompassed the totality of earth’s surface."
Verse 4
- "The children of Israel": Greek: "the sons of Israel," normally denoting 'the Israelites as an ethnic entity', but many scholars see the expression in this context refer to Christians, instead.
Verses