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Jewish circles, but in Christian circles.
The Testaments thus remain an important witness to pre-Christian Jewish exegesis, ethics, and eschatology.
of the Lord said to me, Levi, come in” (T. Levi 2.6).2 The angel escorts Levi
heavens, a typical number for the levels of the heavens in Jewish visionary literature.
the three intervening heavens, Levi sees various angelic orders, whose actions are conceived largely in priestly and Levitical terms. Next to the highest heaven are the “angels of the presence,” an elite order of angels who “make expiation to the Lord for all the sins committed unwittingly by the righteous”
Another celestial order, the “thrones and powers,” sit in the fourth heaven,
Levi’s angelic guide contrasts the deep reverence with which these heavenly forces give God proper glory with the ignorant irreverence of the majority of human beings, who “do not perceive these things, and they sin and provoke the Most High” (T. Levi 3.10). Even after God’s judgments begin to be revealed, Levi’s angelic guide predicts, human beings “will be unbelieving and persist in their iniquities” (T. Levi 4.1; cf. Rev 9:20–21; 16:9, 11).
Reading John’s account of the entities and activities around the heavenly throne of God alongside Testament of Levi’s account of the patriarch’s ascent leads us away from symbolic readings of the various figures around the throne (which replace the strange images with more familiar realities, like the four Gospels or the twelve patriarchs plus the twelve apostles)
In both texts, the heavens must first be opened before the visionary can perceive what lies beyond the visible sky (Rev 4:1). In Revelation, Christ himself (and not an angel) issues the invitation to the prophet John to “come up” into the divine realm.
Although it has been popular to identify these “seven spirits of God” in Revelation as the Holy Spirit, no doubt because of the winsomeness of finding the Trinity visually represented in Revelation 4–5, the prominence of “the angels of the Presence” in Testament of Levi (as well as texts like Tobit) should give us pause. John himself will shortly speak (again) of “the seven angels who stand before God” in 8:2 in a manner that assumes that the hearers have prior acquaintance with this group.
The fourth vision presents a woman, ostensibly mourning the loss of her only son, suddenly transformed
into the glorious, heavenly Zion.
The Lion Who Challenges Rome. The sixth vision, the “eagle vision,” suggests some parallels with Revelation 5. The vision itself (4 Ezra 11) describes a great eagle (a frequent symbol for the Roman Empire), with twelve wings and three heads (symbolizing Roman rulers), arising from the sea. This eagle subjugates the entire world without opposition. As the vision unfolds, various wings gain power but eventually disappear. Finally, the smaller two of the three heads conspire to form a joint rule, but are temporarily defeated by the largest head. When this third head disappears, the smaller heads
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Most significant for Revelation 5 is the surprising fact that the lion is the messiah—an allusion to the “Lion of Judah” in Genesis 49:8–9. The image of the messiah arising from the line of David alludes to Isaiah 11:1,
Surprisingly, given the lion imagery, this messiah achieves justice without the clear use of political or military force. Instead his rebuke and judgment alone appear
unlike other Jewish writings (e.g., 1QSb 5:29), where the lion depicts a messianic military warrior who destroys Israel’s enemies and conquers the nations.
Finally, the messiah (following the eagle’s defeat) ushers in a joyful time until “the end” (4 Ezra 12:34). Given that the lion is not an OT messianic image, it is plausible that John knew of a later Jewish depiction of the messiah as a lion, possibly as presented in 4 Ezra, and may have drawn upon it in Revelation 5.
At a more significant level, however, this reverses popular Jewish expectations of the messiah as a conquering warrior who would defeat the Roman Empire. Such hopes aligned with the messiah depicted as a lion, not a lamb! Yet just as the Passover Lamb was the means by which God defeated Pharaoh and
In this way, imagery associated with the messiah as a conquering Lion is transformed into the unexpected imagery of the slaughtered Lamb who now reigns because of his submission, death, and resurrection. The Lamb, not the Lion, is the victorious, divine warrior in Revelation (e.g., 17:14; cf. 6:16).
Drawing on messianic imagery from the OT and later Jewish traditions reflected in 4 Ezra, John radically redefines popular messianic hopes and expectations. The power and strength (political, military, or other) of a lion is not what is needed to defeat evil kings or kingdoms. Instead, it is the surprising vulnerability and weakness of a Lamb, who was slaughtered and resurrected, that vanquishes evil and ushers in the new creation.
11). The importance of food laws as the point of testing loyalty lies behind controversies we find in the New Testament (Mark 7:17–23; Acts 10:9–16; Rom 14:17).
The importance of the death of these seven, and the faithfulness of their mother (whose cause of death in 7:41 is unexplained) is that, in some sense, they have died for the people, an idea echoed in the words of Caiaphas about Jesus: “Better . . . that one man die for the people” (John 11:50; 18:14).
In this sense, the martyrs under the altar are archetypal of what it means to be a follower of the lamb.
Patient Endurance. The depiction of martyrs in Revelation clearly shares a number of assumptions with the account in 2 Maccabees—the virtue of suffering at the hands of an evil oppressor, the justice of the sovereign God, and the certainty of judgment.
God’s judgment will come after eschatological delay, and will be effected by God alone and not by military or political action.
What guarantee of God’s faithful judgment could this author offer the righteous ones? It is here that Psalms of Solomon 15:6–9 employs the motif of a divine “mark” on the people of God (the same image that the author of Revelation later also takes up as both a “seal” and a “mark”):
For God’s mark is on the righteous for (their) salvation.
war, for on their forehead (is) the mark of destruction.
“for on their forehead (is) the mark of destruction.”
The psalm’s frequent use of symbolic, colorfully descriptive language suggests that, in both instances, the “mark” is likely not physically visible but is, rather, known (obvious) in view of “the day of the Lord’s judgment” (15:12).
Here the “mark” is clearly a positive sign of protection—assurance that, in the face of uncertainty, the LORD would look after Cain in his vulnerable state.
the scene of the 144,000 suggests they are fully accounted and known (7:1–8); second, the vision of the innumerable multitude communicates overwhelming responsiveness to the Lamb’s work of restoring earth’s peoples (7:9–17; cf. 5:9–10). Two scenes, one message: these are the people who “can stand” as a result of God’s faithfulness to them.
chapter 7 plays a critical role in preparing readers for the later introduction of the “mark of the beast” in Revelation 13.
That this traditional image also appeared in Psalms of Solomon 15 suggests that Ezekiel’s vision of a grieving remnant who are promised the assurance of protection became singularly formative for some early Jewish and Christian communities.
eschatological vindication communicated in both Psalms of Solomon 15 and Revelation 7.
In fact, Jewish writers often discuss silence in heaven. To help better understand John’s comment, comparison can be made with the Testament of Adam, a complex but intriguing text of Jewish and Christian origin.
This means that at least this part, but most likely the whole Horarium, was composed in the first century and testifies to beliefs and practices current around the time Revelation was written.
The twelfth hour is the waiting for incense, and silence is imposed on all the ranks of fire and wind until all the priests burn incense to his divinity. And at that time all the heavenly powers are dismissed. (T. Adam 1:10–12)
offering of the incense is marked by the silence of “all the ranks of fire and wind” (1:12).
“He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants” (NIV).
the identification of the angels as wind or flaming fire becomes even clearer. For example, the epistle to the Hebrews quotes the LXX: “He makes his angels spirits [or winds], and his servants flames of fire”
but there is a tradition within Judaism that says that the angels will be silent in order for the prayers of Israel to rise to God’s throne.
Bauckham points to several rabbinic texts that describe the angels becoming silent so that God can hear the prayers of his people.3 While these texts are later than the first century AD, they provide some additional material that helps to explain the silence of the angels in the Testament of Adam.
John does not describe the purpose of the silence. He assumes instead that his readers will know what it signifies. The Testament of Adam helps to break the silence.
Revelation 4 indicates that the praises of angelic beings are constantly sounding forth in God’s throne room. Revelation 4:8 tells us about the four living creatures—“Day and night they never stop saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come” (cf. Isa 6).
silence holds forth in heaven.
“The prayers of all God’s people” (8:3) are specifically the martyrs’ appeals for justice.6 The silence of the angels implies that God hears only these prayers at this time.
The silence indicates the solemn nature of the situation.
Theologically, this connection between God’s judgment and the prayers of his people is important. God does not judge like a tyrant, nor is his judgment comparable to a toddler’s irrational tantrum. Rather, God judges precisely to bring justice, to restore what is right and vanquish evil. God’s judgment is his response to the prayers of the faithful who have suffered “because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained” (6:9).
Reading Revelation alongside the Testament of Adam helps us to see potential connections in John’s vision that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. The silence of the heavenly beings allows the prayers of the martyrs to sound forth. The silence tells us that God hears our prayers and will act to vindicate his people.
