Texts in Conversation
Revelation’s promise that God will wipe away every tear echoes Isaiah’s vision of death’s defeat at the end of the exile, where God ironically swallows death like the Canaanite god Mot, the ancient deity of death and the grave.
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Isaiah 25:8
Hebrew Bible
6 The Lord of Heaven’s Armies will hold a banquet for all the nations on this mountain. At this banquet there will be plenty of meat and aged wine—tender meat and choicest wine. 7 On this mountain he will swallow up the shroud that is over all the peoples, the woven covering that is over all the nations; 8 he will swallow up death permanently. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from every face, and remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. Indeed, the Lord has announced it! 9 At that time they will say, “Look, here is our God! We waited for him, and he delivered us. Here is the Lord! We waited for him. Let’s rejoice and celebrate his deliverance!” 10 For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain23. Moab will be trampled down where it stands, as a heap of straw is trampled down in a manure pile.
Date: 7th-5th Centuries B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Revelation 7:17
New Testament
13 Then one of the elders asked me, “These dressed in long white robes—who are they and where have they come from?” 14 So I said to him, “My lord, you know the answer.” Then he said to me, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb! 15 For this reason they are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night in his temple, and the one seated on the throne will shelter them. 16 They will never go hungry or be thirsty again, and the sun will not beat down on them, nor any burning heat, 17 because the Lamb in the middle of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Date: 92-96 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Revelation employs biblical language and imagery in every chapter, but the author never quotes texts exactly. In some cases he paraphrases a biblical passage rather closely (e.g., Hosea 10:8/Revelation 6:16; Isaiah 25:8/Revelation 7:17), but often the connections are less direct. Some studies note nearly three hundred possible allusions to Scripture in Revelation, yet a precise number is difficult to determine because it is not always clear what qualifies as an allusion. Moreover, a single passage in Revelation may combine elements from several biblical texts, as in the proclamation of God as holy and almighty (Revelation 4:8/Isaiah 6:3; Amos 3:13), or may recall expressions that appear in similar forms in multiple passages of Scripture, such as the promise of God dwelling among people in a covenant relationship. The clearest and most frequent allusions are to the books of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Psalms, but the writer also draws on all the books in the Pentateuch, along with Samuel, Kings, Job, Proverbs, Jeremiah, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, and Zechariah. Some scholars note possible allusions to passages in Judges, Esther, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Habakkuk, and Malachi, though these are less apparent ..."
Koester, Craig R.
Revelation: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
(p. 123) Yale University Press, 2014
* 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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