Texts in Conversation
Revelation’s vision of a city whose gates never close recalls Isaiah’s picture of Jerusalem continually open to receive the wealth of nations. In Isaiah, this celebrates restored prosperity at the end of the exile, which Revelation reshapes into an image of universal security where no night or threat remains.
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Isaiah 60:11
Hebrew Bible
8 Who are these who float along like a cloud, who fly like doves to their shelters? 9 Indeed, the coastlands look eagerly for me; the large ships are in the lead, bringing your sons from far away, along with their silver and gold, to honor the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has bestowed honor on you. 10 Foreigners will rebuild your walls; their kings will serve you. Even though I struck you down in my anger, I will restore my favor and have compassion on you. 11 Your gates will remain open at all times; they will not be shut during the day or at night so that the wealth of nations may be delivered, with their kings leading the way. 12 Indeed, nations or kingdoms that do not serve you will perish; such nations will definitely be destroyed.
Date: 7th-5th Centuries B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Revelation 21:25
New Testament
22 Now I saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God—the All-Powerful—and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God lights it up, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their grandeur into it. 25 Its gates will never be closed during the day (and there will be no night there). 26 They will bring the grandeur and the wealth of the nations into it, 27 but nothing ritually unclean will ever enter into it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or practices falsehood, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Date: 92-96 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The first clause alludes to Isaiah 60:11, 'Your gates shall always be open; day and night they shall not be shut,' while the second reflects Zechariah 14:7, 'On that day there shall be continuous day (it is known to the Lord), not day and not night, for at evening time there shall be light'. There is some difficulty with the text as it stands, for the statement that the gates of the city will not close by day is true of all ancient cities. The text would be more comprehensible if [that] were omitted, for then the text would read, 'The gates of the city will never close, for there is no night there.' ... The import of the adverb ekei, 'there,' may be that day and night alternate as usual outside the holy city, but within the city itself the light from God and the Lamb mean that there is no night. There is a close parallel in 1QM 12:13–15 ..."
* 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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