Texts in Conversation
In Revelation, seven angels stand in front of God, one offering incense with the prayers of the saints, drawing on Jewish traditions such as in Tobit, where the angel Raphael identifies himself as one of seven angels who bring human prayers to God.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Tobit 12:12
Deuterocanon
11 I will show you all the truth and will keep close nothing from you. Already I have shown you and have said, It is good to keep close the secret of a king, but the works of God to reveal gloriously. 12 And now, when you did pray and Sarah, I did bring the memorial of your prayer before the glory of the Lord: and when you did bury the dead, likewise. 13 And when you did not delay to rise up, and leave your dinner, but did go and cover the dead, 14 then I was sent to you to try you; and at the same time God did send me also to heal Sarah your daughter-in-law. 15 I am Raphael, one of the seven angels, which stand and enter before the glory of the Lord. 16 And they were both troubled, and fell upon their faces; and they were afraid. 17 And he said to them, Do not be afraid, peace be to you; bless God to all eternity.
Date: 225–175 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Revelation 8:2
New Testament
1 Now when the Lamb opened the seventh seal there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. 2 Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 3 Another angel holding a golden censer came and was stationed at the altar. A large amount of incense was given to him to offer up, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar that is before the throne. 4 The smoke coming from the incense, along with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand. 5 Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it on the earth, and there were crashes of thunder, roaring, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. 6 Now the seven angels holding the seven trumpets prepared to blow them.
Date: 92–96 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... the other angel is given much incense to offer first and, secondly, it is the smoke of the incense that goes up before God when he offers. In both cases the phrase about the prayers of (all) the saints, formulated in the dative, is linked to the incense in a more indirect manner so that the incense and its smoke is in focus. Some explain the incense as symbolic of the prayers of the saints. Thus Caird 1966, 107 notes, “The incense is the symbol of the prayers.” (In texts like 1 Enoch 15:2; 99:3; 3 Baruch 11-16; Tobit 12:12 and Testament of Levi 3:7 angels are portrayed as bearers of human prayer to God ...) A much quoted parallel that seems to support this position is Psalm 141:2: “May my prayer be set before you like incense.” Aune (1998, 513) quotes this Psalm and Paraleipomena Jeremiou 9:1-4 as examples of a close connection between incense and prayer. If this would be true, the incense symbolizes prayers and the act of mediation, putting too much pressure on the text here. But the theory that incense symbolizes prayers runs into difficulties as well. In Revelation 5:8 incense is indeed explicitly explained as the prayers of the saints, but here in Revelation 8:3-4 there is no such identification ..."
Pieter G. R. de Villiers, “The Eschatological Celebration of Salvation and the Prophetic Announcement of Judgment: The Message of Revelation 8:1–6 in the Light of Its Composition,” Neot 41.1 (2007): 67–96.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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