THE The Book AND: Symbols Revelation

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THE SYMBOLS OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION


AND THEIR SOURCES.
BY JOEL N. ENO.

THE Book of Revelation


Hebrew prophets, its chief
is saturated with the imagery of the
model being the Book of Daniel,
while it borrows freelv from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel and
Zechariah.
Of the three theories as to the period to which the visions refer,
the one which places it near the time of the Revelator has now
superseded for the most part the theory that the visions cover the
history of the Church through all time, and the theory that most
of the fulfilments are still in the future. The Revelator himself
indicates both at the very beginning and in the last chapter that the
events described are imminent ; so also does the identification of
some of the events by him as he describes them. "The Revelation
of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants
things which must shortly come
and again, "The Lord to pass" ;

God show unto his servants


of the holy prophets sent his angel to
the things which must shortly be done," Rev. 1 and compare xxii. i. ;

6, 7, 10, 12, repeating the idea also expressed in 3. "The time i.

is at hand."
To follow the book chapter by chapter, consecutively. The
figure of Jesus's beloved as "kings and priests" is taken from Ex.
xix. 6, "Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests" ; but is used also
by Peter, "a royal priesthood," 1 Peter ii. 9. The cometh
figure "he
with clouds" is in Daniel vii. 13, "One like the Son of man came
with the clouds of heaven" ; in Revelation followed by an allusion
to Zech. xii. 10, upon me whom they have pierced,
"They shall look

and they shall mourn." Yet the combination in a closer parallel


had been made by Jesus in Matt. xxiv. 30. "Then shall all the tribes
of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in
the clouds of heaven."
678 THE OPEN COURT.

The description of the Son of man. Rev. i. 13-16. parallels


Dan. vii. 9 and x. 5, 6: "The Ancient of days did
whose garment sit,

was white as snow, and the hair of pure wool"


his head like the ;

"Behold, a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded


with fine gold of Uphaz. His body also was like the beryl, and his
face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire,
and his arms and feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice
of his words like the voice of a multitude." "Out of his mouth
went a sharp sword," compares with Is. xlix. 2, "He hath made
my mouth like a sharp sword" and with the "candlesticks" compare
;

Ex. xxv. 31, 32, 37, and Zech. iv. 2.


While it is to be carefully noted that the book is directly ad-
dressed to no other than the seven churches, and at the end reiterates
that it is "to testify unto you these things in the churches," strictly
identified by the closing exhortation of each of the seven, "He that
hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the diurches,"

with no evidence that the book is a general epistle, most commen-

tatorsseem to have assumed that it is general. This oversight may


go toward accounting for the diversities of interpretation among
the more than eighty commentaries written upon it, though the
special addresses to the seven explain themselves. The expression
"He shall rule them with a rod of iron," in Rev. ii. 27 and xii. 5.

is found in Ps. ii. 9.

The vision is resumed in Rev. iv, with a throne set in heaven.


The description, with that of the four beasts, identifies it with
Ezekiel's vision, Ezek. "Above the firmament. .. .was the
i. 25-28,
likeness of a throne. .. .and upon the likeness of the throne was
the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it. And I saw
as the color of amber, as the appearance of fire. from the appear- . . .

ance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his
loins even downward .... As the appearance of the bow that is in
the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness
round about" a clear correspondence to the Revelator's red sardine
;

stone, and the "rainbow round about the throne."


Each of Ezekiel's four beasts (Ezek. i. 10) had four faces,
"The face of a man, and the face of a lion on the right side and ;

they four had the face of an ox on the left side they four also had ;

the face of an eagle" whereas in Revelation this figure is merely


;

resolved into its components, "The first beast was like a lion, and the
second beast like a calf [the Greek includes young oxkind, at any
stage] and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth
.

beast was like a flying eagle," Rev. iv. 7. Ezekiel gives each beast
THE SYMBOLS OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION. 679

four wings. John adds two more ; Ezekiel gives "rings full of eyes
round about," to the wheels accompanying the beasts wherever they
went. Ezek. i. 6, 18; and he ends the description with the explana-
tion."This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of
the Lord," while John represents the -beasts as giving glory and
honor and thanks to him that sitteth on the throne, Rev. iv. 9 the ;

object in both being the expression of the glory of God by cherubic


figures svmbolic of celestial beings, as the twenty-four elders (twice
the number of the "elders" or heads of the tribes of Israel) of
human glorification of God by his special chosen disciples, originally
represented by the twelve, in verse 10: and both the celestial and
human representatives together in Rev. v. 8-14.
Compare with Rev. v. 1, "a book written within and on the back-
side." Ezek. ii. 9, 10, "Behold, an hand was sent unto me; and lo.
a roll of a book was therein." Comparing the woes following the
opening of the seals in Revelation, the resemblance appears strongly
in verse 10: "And he spread it before me: and it was written within

and without and there was written therein lamentations, and mourn-
;

ing, and woe." As the "book" was a roll, "without" and "on the
backside" are synonymous. Here, as in the case of the four beasts.
John resolves the general contents of Ezekiel's book into their suc-
cessive stages of opening or development of events, to seven, the
Jewish symbol of completeness or, as Daniel has it, "Shut up the
;

words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end." Dan. xii. 4,
in both representing a completed series. John's symbol indicates
that only "the Lamb" was able to "loose the seals" or reveal the
contents, or woeful events coming on the earth.
The four horses going forth successively on the opening of the
first, second, third and fourth seal, compare with Zechariah's, "In

the first chariot were red horses, and in the second chariot black
horses, and in the third chariot white horses, and in the fourth
chariot grizzled and bay horses," compare Rev. vi. 1-8 with Zech.
3.'
vi. 2.

"When he had opened the sixth seal. .. .there was a great


earthquake and the sun became black.... and the moon became
:

as blood," Rev. vi. 12; this is taken from Joel's description of "the
day of the Lord": "The earth shall quake before them. .The sun . .

shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the
great and the terrible day of the Lord come," Joel ii. 10, 31. "The
heaven departing as a scroll, the stars falling as untimely figs,"
Rev. vi. 13-14, from Is. xxxiv. 4, "And all the host of heaven shall be
dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll and ;
680 THE OPEN COURT.

all their host shall fall down, as the leaf. .. .and as a falling fig
from the fig-tree." Both of the foregoing figures are cited also in
Matt. xxiv. 29.
The hiding in dens and in rocks, Rev. vi. 15, parallels Is. ii.
19-21, "They shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves
of the earth for fear of the Lord." The calling to the mountains.
"Fall on us," repeats Hos. x. 8, "They shall say to the mountains,
Cover us ; and to the hills. Fall on us."
With the four winds in Rev. vii. 1 compare Dan. vii. 2 ; they
represent destructive agencies against the earth ; restrained in Reve-
lation, hut in action in Daniel. "Sealed," Rev. vii. 3, 4, has its

synonym in Rev. xiv. 1, "having his Father's name written in their


foreheads," explained by Ezek. ix. 4, 3, "Go through the midst of
the city. . . .Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the
men that sigh, and that cry, for all the abominations that be done
in the And to the others he said. .Go ye after him
midst thereof. . .

through the and smite. .but come not near any man upon
city, . .

whom is the mark." It is remarkable that in the sealing of "all the


tribes of the children of Israel" two of the most important, Dan and
Ephraim, are omitted this suggests that one is not to count upon
;

strict mathematical or historical exactness in the seer.

Chapters viii and ix describe symbolically in detail the destruc-

tive agencies ; the seven angels sounding, apparently having a cor-


respondence to the successive opening of the seven seals, but dwell-
ing more exclusively on terrestrial phenomena earthquake, and :

darkening of the sun and moon appear in both. A marked feature


of Revelation is the variety of plagues and forms of vengeance
inflicted on and
idolaters, sorcerers, murderers, fornicators, thieves
John (and James) who would adjudge
liars; recalling rather the
fire from heaven upon the inhospitable Samaritan village, than the

John who wrote the Epistle whose key-note is "God is Love."


No actual occurrences to correspond to the description in these
two chapters are known yet the "locusts" seem to draw a strong
;

suggestion from Joel and ii. 3-8, "The locust, the nation.
i .whose . .

teeth are the teeth of a lion the appearance of them as the ap- ;

pearance of horses and as horsemen so shall they run.


;
Like the
noise of chariots on the tops of mountains," compared with Rev.
ix. 7-9, 16-19.
"The little book," Rev. x, parallels Ezek. iii. 1-3, 14, "Eat this
roll.... Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for
sweetness. .. .and I went in bitterness." Also verse 4 corresponds
to Rev. x. 11.
THE SYMBOLS OP THE BOOK OF REVELATION. 681

The measuring of the temple in Rev. xi appears to he suggested


by Ezek. xl-xliii. With the tread of the Gentiles, Rev. xi. 2,

compare Dan. and Luke xxi. 24. The forty-two months or


vii. 25,
one thousand two hundred and sixty days (thirty-day months) of
verse 3, and of Rev. xii. 5, 6, also equal the "time, and times, and
half a time" of Rev. xii. 14. and draw from the "time, times, and
dividing of time" of Dan. vii. 25, and "time, times and a half" of
Dan. xii. 7, which have tripped numerous expounders.
The two olive trees, witnesses or candlesticks, parallel the two
olive branches or anointed ones of Zeeh. iv. 3, 14, who supply oil

to the lamps of the temple of God ; also called "two prophets" in

Rev. xi. 10, apparently calling men to amendment by mournful or


"sackcloth" judgments. "The great city, which spiritually is called
Sodom. . . .where also our Lord was crucified," is doubly identified
as Jerusalem; the first identification being Is. i. 8-10, where "the
daughter of Zion" is addressed as "Sodom." The closely related
twelfth chapter covers the same period as the eleventh ; but the
"woman clothed with the sun" seems not to parallel any Scripture
symbol, but, with the dragon waiting to devour her child, thus far
remarkably resembles the classical Greek myth as to the birth of
Apollo, god of the sun and of light, the dragon Python pursuing
his mother at the time of her travail in order to destroy the child
which was to destroy him so it is indirectly associated with the
;

serpent, and the promise, "Her seed shall bruise thy head," Gen. iii.
15. Yet, as the seed of the woman "keep the commandments of
God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ," the woman represents
Christianity, persecuted and driven into exile and obscure places by
the dragon "having' seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns
upon his heads" figured in chapter xiii as a "beast" to whom the
;

dragon transferred "his power, and his seat, and great authority."
This beast is a composite of the four beasts of Dan. vii, the leopard.
the bear, the lion and the beast of ten horns, and is explained in
Rev. xvii.
The second beast of Rev. xiii. 11-18 is usually explained as
the cult or priesthood of emperor-worship, introduced by Caligula
A. D. 39. "The number of his name" numbers in Greek as in :

Hebrew and Latin being represented by letters of the alphabet, the


number 666 was expected to spell a name but the Greek of the text ;

being the letters for ch, x, and the digamma, spells no recognizable
name but the Hebrew characters for 50 + 200 + 6 + 50 and for
;

100-60 + 200, making together 666 as the sum, spell N{e)ron Ksr:
682 THE OPEN COURT.

the Hebrew letters, being consonants only, represent the framework


of what in Latin Xero Caesar. is

The 144,000 of chapter xiv seem to correspond to the 144,000


of chapter vii. The figure of the punishment of the worshipers of
the beast indicates its source as Ps. lxxv. 8; but in Rev. xiv. 10
"the wine of the wrath of God" is without mixture, instead of
"full of mixture." The fire, brimstone, smoke and blood recall
the Lord's vengeance upon Idumea, Is. xxxiv. 6, 7, 9, 10, "And
the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof
into brimstone. . . .It shall not be quenched night nor day ; the smoke
thereof shall go up forever."
The figure of reaping the earth is from Joel iii. 13, "Put ye
in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe.... the press is full, the vats
overflow ; for the wickedness is great." The blood of the wine-
press refers again to Idumea, "The land shall be soaked with blood,"
Is. xxxiv. 7.

The from the seven goblets of wrath,


results of the pouring-out
by the messengers or agencies of wrath, are plagues of which the
descriptions are not always consistent with literalness of interpre-
tation ; though the first plague compares with that following the
sprinkling of ashes by Moses, which "became a boil breaking forth
with blains upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of
Egypt," Ex. ix. and third plagues with Dent, xxxii.
10; the second
42, 43, "I will make mine arrows drunk with blood.... he will
avenge the blood of his servants," as a fitting and just punishment;
"Eor they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou
hast given them blood to drink for they are worthy," Rev. xvi. 6. ;

Yet that all waters became blood, and that every creature in the sea
died, for this, reaches hyperbole.
The figures under the sixth plague take us
prophecy of to the
Jeremiah against "Babylon, Jer. and li the drying-up of the Euphra-1 ;

tes that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared, com-

pares with "Prepare against her the nations, with the kings of the
Medes" ; the kings of the east being the Persians and Medes, border-
ing Babylonia on the east, and who overthrew Babylon. The order
of the Greek in verse 13 is rendered into English, "And I saw
[come] out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of
the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three spirits,

unclean like frogs." "Armageddon," a rendezvous, not the battle-


ground, is the hill of Megiddo, on the edge of the plain of Jezreel
Old Testament, scene of the victory of
the great battlefield of the
Gideon and of Barak, and of the death of Saul and of Josiah in
THE SYMBOLS OF THE ROOK OF REVELATION. 683

battle, may well prefigure the decisive great struggle between Chris-
tianity and Roman paganism.
Under the seventh seal, "every island fled away, and the moun-
tains were not found," like Rev. vi. 14, echoes several suggestive
Old Testament figures, but especially Habakkuk iii. 6. "The ever-
lasting mountains were scattered." The hail, "about the weight of
a talent." that is 114 pounds, 15 pennyweights, would be as deadly
as cannon-balls of like weight, had not the conditions of hail-fall
limited the size of hailstones to a few ounces.
Rev. xvii. 9 explains the unchaste woman and the beast having
seven heads and ten horns. "The seven heads are seven mountains,
on which the woman sitteth." further identified as "that great city,
which reigneth over the kings of the earth," imperial and "seven-
hilled" Rome ; the directive power being shifted from the dragon or
Satan to that of a false or immoral religion, under a figure familiar
to the prophets, that of an impure woman. Ezek. xvi and xxiii
Hos. i-iv : Jer. iii.The symbolic name of the city, like the figure
of the beast, is drawn from Daniel, namely, Babylon, the seat of
the first and foremost of his four beasts. Primarily the heads
represent "seven kings." that is "emperors," who killed the saints
and fought against the Lamb. "Five are fallen": Augustus Ca?sar,
the first emperor of Rome; Tiberius: Caligula: Claudius, and Xero.
This much is clear ; the rest of the kings, because of the peculiarity
of the description, are not clearly understood.
Rev. with the fall of the city. With verse 2 compare
xviii deals
Is. xxi. "Babylon is fallen, is fallen" for the foul creatures
9, ;

inhabiting it. compare Is. xiii. 19-22. and xxxiv. 11-15. With verse
4 compare Jer. 1. 8, and li. 6. 45 with verse 5 compare Jer. li. 9 ;

with verse 6 compare Jer. 1. 15. 29: with verse 7 compare Is. xlvii.
7-14: "Thou saidst. I shall be a lady forever. . . .that sayest in thine
heart. . . not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss
.1 shall

of children. But these two things shall come to thee in a moment


in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood. .and desolation . .

shall come upon thee suddenly. .the astrologers. .the fire shall. . . .

burn them." Thus the quotations from Isaiah and Jeremiah are
brought over with the name from their prophecies concerning ancient
Babylon but verses 9-19 describe a merchant city, and are drawn
:

from Ezekiel's description of the fall of Tyre, Ezek. xxvi-xxviii.


With verses 9-16 compare Ezek. xxvi. 16, 17 and xxvii. 7-36 "slaves ;

and souls of men," in verse 13, compare with Ezek. xxvii. 13, "They
traded the persons of men." With verses 15-19 compare Ezek.
xxvii. 29-33.
684 THE OPEN COURT.

With verse 20 we return to the Babylon prophecy, Jer. li. 48-56.


"Then the heaven and the earth shall sing for Babylon for the ;

Lord God of recompenses shall surely requite." With verse 21


compare Jer. li. 63, 64, "When thou hast made an end of reading
this book, thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst
of Euphrates : And thou shalt say. Thus shall Babylon sink, and
shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her." Verses
22, 23 echo Jer. xxv. 10, "I will take from them the voice of mirth,
and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the
voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the
candle," but this refers to the people of Judah. With verse 24
compare Jer. li. 49. As Rome is twenty-one miles from the sea.
up the Tiber river, which below the city at low water sometimes
has only four feet of depth, the description foregoing must not be
applied too literally to its commerce. The fall is of Babylon and
Tyre, though applied to Rome, which has stood continuously since
its foundation, and after the fall of paganism had more than a
million population, and now more than half a million.
The final between the "Faithful," the "Alpha and
struggle
Omega" of Rev. i.between Christianity with "the armies
14-16, or
in Heaven," and paganism represented by the beast with the kings
of the earth and their armies, is figured in the last half of Rev. xix
and is distinct from the final conflict with Satan.
John, in Rev. xx, gives a current conception, that, after the
destruction of the beast and his worshipers, Satan is bound or re-

strained from activity for a thousand years, while the souls of the
beheaded martyrs are living and reigning with Christ. This "mil-
lennium" is from the Secrets of Enoch, composed between 30 B. C.
and 70 A. D., in which (chaps, xxxii, xxxiii) the duration of
the Messianic kingdom is first figured as a millennium, based ap-
parently on the Persian theory that the creation, occupying six days
followed by a Sabbath rest, prefigured that the world's age would

consist of 6000 years of activity, followed by 1000 years of Sab-


bath rest. There is not even intimated in any other part of the
Bible, an interval in resurrection Jesus says, "The hour is coming,
;

in which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, And shall
come forth they that have done good, unto the resurrection of
;

life and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of dam-
;

nation," John v. 28, 29 compare Dan. xii. 2.


; Nor that Christ's
reign shall cease "till he hath [already] put all enemies under his
feet," 1 Cor. xv. 24-28. Note, therefore, that the thousand years
are the measure of the reign of the souls of the beheaded martyrs,
THE SYMBOLS OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION. 685

not of Christ's reign, and that only the beheaded are mentioned,
though- those martyred by other means must have been a greater
number.
The figure of Gog and Magog is drawn from Ezek. xxxviii
and xxxix. for the peoples north of Syria, to the Black Sea. The
figure of the judgment with its books is from Dan. vii. 10. Rev.
xx. 9, 10, describes Satan himself and his dupes overthrown verses ;

12, 13, the general judgment, yet distinctly of the dead, not of the
living.

The figure of the new heaven and the new earth, and the
passing of the old. Rev. xxi. draws from Is. xiii. 13, "Therefore
I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her
place"; and lxv. 17-19, "I create new heavens, and a new earth;
and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind" and ;

for the new Jerusalem compare, "Behold I create Jerusalem a re-


joicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and
joy in my
people, and the voices of weeping shall be no more heard
in her, nor the voice of crying." The vision from the high mountain,

of the "holy Jerusalem" (Rev. xxi. 10) recalls Ezek. xl. 2 and
xlviii. 30-35, the city of twelve gates, three on each of the four sides,

north, east, south and west but the 4500 measures are enlarged to
;

12.000 stadia, or "furlongs." length of each side of the city. Also


compare the naming of the gates after the twelve tribes of Israel.
Rev. xxi. 3 might be a paraphrase of Ezekiel's name of the city,

namely, "The Lord is there,"and the gems of the foundations of


Is. liv. 11, 12. "I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy
foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates,
and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones."
The light parallel of Is. lx. 1
()
, 20, "The sun shall be no more thy
light by day ; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto
thee : but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy
God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down. ..." seems equiv-
alent to "There shall be no night there." With verse 24 compare
Is. lx. 3. "And the Gentiles shall come
to thy light, and kings to
the brightness of thy rising" and with verse 27 Is. xxxv and lx. 21
; , ;

lii. 1 : and Zech. xiv. 16 20, 21. John describes only the city,
new earth.
capital of the
With Rev. xxii. 1-5 compare Ezek. xlvii. 1-12, "Waters issued
out from under the threshold of the house" ( i. e., the temple) ". . . .

a river. . . .behold, at the bank of the river very many


on the trees
one side and on the other. .These waters. .being brought forth
. . . .

into the sea, the waters shall be healed. .. .and evervthing- shall
686 THE OPEN COURT.

live whither the river cometh. . . .And by the river upon the bank
thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat,
whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be con-
sumed ; it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months,
because their waters issued out of the sanctuary ; and the fruit
thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine." Also
especially for "throne" and "light" compare Zech. xiv. 7-9.
Thus in the book called Revelation is described a Messianic
earthly kingdom, obtained through great conflicts. "Revelation"
is a translation of the Greek apokalypsis. But this book is only one
of several apocalyptic books, and in order to understand their nature,
we indicate the contents of the Book of Enoch (five parts com-
bined )perhaps the most important of all non-canonical apocalyptic
,

sources, written (probably in Aramaic) in the second and first


centuries B. C. ; which exercised here a great influence, as it did
generally, on Palestinian literature of the first century A. D. It

deals with the fall of angels, a final judgment held on Mt. Sinai,
a general resurrection, consignment of the wicked to Gehenna, God
establishing his kingdom in Jerusalem, Gentiles converted, and the
just eating from the tree of life the Messiah, to whom God has
;

committed all dominion and all judgment, dwelling among the elect
in a new heaven and a new earth. This book is quoted in Jude
14, and apparently in Matt. xix. 28 and John v. 22, 27. It is a

characteristic of apocalypses that all are put forth under assumed



names as a rule, of some famous Hebrew character they are not ;

"prophecy" in the narrower sense of prediction, but in the sense of


general inspiration. But errors, and lack of fulfilment (the test of
true prophecy) betray their visionary nature, and they fail to be
accepted as canonical. Revelation presents, in the guise of visions,
a tissue ofOld Testament prophecies, interwoven with vivid, lurid
or dark colors of the compiler a Dantean poem, rather than an
;

addition to original prophecy.

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