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Revelation

About this book
Chapter 4

1 After these things I looked, and there was a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet said: “Come up here so that I can show you what must happen after these things.” 2 Immediately I was in the Spirit, and a throne was standing in heaven with someone seated on it!⁠ 3 And the one seated on it was like jasper and carnelian in appearance, and a rainbow looking like it was made of emerald encircled the throne. 4 In a circle around the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on those thrones were twenty-four elders.⁠ They were dressed in white clothing and had golden crowns on their heads. 5 From the throne came out flashes of lightning and roaring and crashes of thunder.⁠ Seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God, were burning in front of the throne, 6 and in front of the throne was something like a sea of glass, like crystal. In the middle of the throne and around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back.⁠ 7 The first living creature was like a lion, the second creature like an ox, the third creature had a face like a man’s, and the fourth creature looked like an eagle flying.⁠ 8 Each one of the four living creatures had six wings and was full of eyes all around and inside. They never rest day or night,⁠ saying: “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God, the All-Powerful, Who was, and who is, and who is still to come!” 9 And whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to the one who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders throw themselves to the ground before the one who sits on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever, and they offer their crowns before his throne, saying: 11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, since you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created!”⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Sirach 18:1 and Revelation 4:11

Deuterocanon · New Testament

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Summary

Sirach 18 and Revelation 4 both refer to God as the eternal creator, using stock language that highlights his authority over the universe. Phrases describing divine power, creation, and eternal life echo a shared liturgy and interpretive tradition.

Passages

Sirach 18:1

Deuterocanon · Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
1 He who lives forever created the whole universe. 2 The Lord alone is just.
195–180 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Sirach

Revelation 4:11

New Testament
9 And whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to the one who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders throw themselves to the ground before the one who sits on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever, and they offer their crowns before his throne, saying: 11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, since you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created!”
92–96 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Revelation

References

"... The presence of such a Daniel 4:35-37 influence in verse 11 would be explainable because of the Danielic influence and echoes already seen in verses 9-11, especially the double occurrence of the Daniel 4:34 allusions in verses 9-10. In fact, the language of Daniel 4:35-37 may be appended by John - consciously or unconsciously - to the divine attribute of eternity because this is the hymnic pattern in the Daniel (9, Masoretic) text. Whether John is drawing from a tradition which had already combined these two LXX and Theodotion (or Masoretic) readings, or whether he knew them both in some textual form and combined them consciously, we are not able to say with certainty. Perhaps the former is the case, since the parallels from Qumran, Wisdom and the Psalms may represent some such circulating tradition, and such hymnic language would have been susceptible of easy adaption for repeated use in early Jewish and Christian liturgy. On the other hand, the Danielic framework of Revelation 4-5 may point to the latter alternative ..."
G. K. Beale, The Use of Daniel in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature and in the Revelation of St. John (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 200.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Sirach 18:1 and Revelation 4:11

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