Exodus 32:32

Hebrew Bible

30 The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a very serious sin, but now I will go up to the Lord—perhaps I can make atonement on behalf of your sin.” 31 So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people has committed a very serious sin, and they have made for themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, if you will forgive their sin…, but if not, wipe me out from your book that you have written.” 33 The Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me—that person I will wipe out of my book. 34 So now go, lead the people to the place I have spoken to you about. See, my angel will go before you. But on the day that I punish, I will indeed punish them for their sin.” 35 And the Lord sent a plague on the people because they had made the calf—the one Aaron made.

Revelation 3:5

New Testament

2 Wake up then, and strengthen what remains that was about to die, because I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. 3 Therefore, remember what you received and heard, and obey it, and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will never know at what hour I will come against you. 4 But you have a few individuals in Sardis who have not stained their clothes, and they will walk with me dressed in white because they are worthy. 5 The one who conquers will be dressed like them in white clothing, and I will never erase his name from the book of life, but will declare his name before my Father and before his angels. 6 The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

 Notes and References

"... Among the texts given above only Revelation 20:12 distinguishes the opened “book of life” from the books opened for judgment. In Revelation the expression “book of life” occurs a number of times (Revelation 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:15; 21:27), while elsewhere in the New Testament it appears only in Philippians 4:3. An approximate form of the expression, “book of the living”, is attested in the Book of Parables at 1 Enoch 47:3 and in Psalm 69:28 (“let them be blotted out from the book of the living and let them not be enrolled among the righteous”). A more exact equivalent is preserved in the Eschatological Admonition of 1 Enoch 108:3, where it is twinned with “the books of the holy ones”. The latter text announces that the names of the wicked “will be erased from the book of life”, a phrase that has its negative equivalent in Revelation 3:5: “To those who conquer ... I will not blot your name out of the book of life”. Both Revelation 3:5 and 1 Enoch 108:3 are allusions to Psalm 69:28 and, perhaps secondarily, to Exodus 32:32; they go beyond the texts from the Hebrew Bible, however, in regarding the book of life as a list of names of those who will survive the eschatological judgment, an idea which among literature composed before the Common Era is also found in Daniel 12:1 and Jubilees 36:10 (compare also 1 Enoch 103:2; 104:1). Since the motif is broadly shared, it is difficult to isolate influence on or an immediate link with Revelation from either the Book of Parables or Eschatological Admonition ..."

Stuckenbruck, Loren T. The Myth of Rebellious Angels: Studies in Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Texts (p. 317) Mohr Siebeck, 2014

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