Scripture Daily

Context No. 45 of 4322 · Revelation

Context · Reflection

Revelation 7:1-8: in context

1After this, I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, so that no wind would blow on the earth, or on the sea, or on any tree. 2I saw another angel ascend from the sunrise, having the seal of the living God. He cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was given to harm the earth and the sea, 3saying, “Don’t harm the earth, the sea, or the trees, until we have sealed the bondservants of our God on their foreheads!” 4I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the children of Israel: 5of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed, of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand, of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand, 6of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand, of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand, of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand, 7of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand, of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand, of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand, 8of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand, of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand, and of the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand were sealed.

In Revelation, the Lamb has opened six of the seven seals and the disasters have begun. This passage is a pause before the seventh. Four angels hold back the four winds so no wind blows on land or sea, and another angel comes up from the east carrying the seal of the living God, calling out that nothing is to be harmed until God's servants are marked on their foreheads.

Then the number: a hundred and forty-four thousand, twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes, listed one by one. The figure is built rather than counted, twelve squared times a thousand, the number of Israel's tribes multiplied into fullness. The mark on the forehead is the counter-image to the mark of the beast later in the book. Each side stamps its own.

The tribal list itself is odd, and the oddities look deliberate. Judah comes first, not Reuben the firstborn, because the Lamb is from Judah. Dan is missing altogether, and Manasseh appears alongside Joseph to keep the count at twelve. A roll of Israel is being read for a church that by John's time was full of Gentiles. In the next verses the sealed become a crowd from every nation that no one could number. Whose name would I be surprised to find on the list, and what does that surprise say about the list I have been keeping?

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