November 6th, 2021

This Sunday is the second of two ‘breaks’ from the Epistle to the Hebrews. This Sunday, because of the observance of All Saints’ Day, we are again looking at the Revelation of John [7:(2-8)9-17], and this time we are looking at those ‘coming out of the great tribulation (verse 14)’.

The structure of what was said about these people is noteworthy. Sometimes in the literary structure, the negative words come up at the beginning. I have mentioned this before, and one of the places that this is easily seen is Psalm 1 (and what follows is basically a literal translation of those first three verses):

Blessedness of the man who not he walks in counsel of wicked ones, and in the way of sinners not he stands, and in the seat of ones mocking not he sits; specifically, rather, in the word of Yahweh his delight, and on his word, he meditates day and night; and he is as a tree being planted by streams of waters, which its fruit gives in its season….

In this case, the turning point, from negative to positive, comes when the word of Yahweh is brought up, and it is even brought up twice, to make sure you see it. To have such an important word brought up twice, so close to each other, that is very rare.

I have also mentioned before that the Lord’s Prayer is a good example of the negative words being AFTER the middle and not before. In this case, what is interesting is that the middle word here is the word usually translated as ‘daily’, but this meaning comes from the context of the words around it, and its actual meaning is unknown. What follows is a somewhat-literal translation of the prayer in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel according to Matthew (6:9-13), but since the middle word is unique, it is translated using a unique word as well. And this is a word that basically appears in some Latin translations of the text. You should be able to pick it out quite easily.

Father of us, the one in the heavens, let it be hallowed the name of you; let it come the kingdom of you; let it happen the will of you, as in heaven also on earth. The bread of us, the supersubstantial, give to us today; and forgive us the debts of us, as also we forgive the debtors of us, and do not bring us into temptation, but rescue us from the evil.

Do the negative things normally come at the beginning or at the end? Usually they come at the beginning. The Lord usually turns something bad around, after he gets involved in the situation. And it usually is the case that law comes first, and then comes the gospel. In the Lord’s Prayer, we are calling on the one who is in the heavens, and so the positive comes first, and our heavenly Father comes down and gets involved in our situation, in our sin, and in all the negative things that are going on in this world. But that is certainly not the end of the story.

In the description of those who went through the great tribulation, the negative words are in the middle and the positive sections surround it. It is as if the Lord surrounded the bad and did away with it. And the turning points seem to be connected to the throne of God, and that is certainly a significant place. What God says from his throne, that certainly turns things around.

The length of the negative statements do not match at all the length of the positive statements. There are five times the negative is brought up, and, in total, there are ten statements. But the number of words in the original language for the negative part is only sixteen, whereas the positive parts are more than triple that, fifty-two words. In this case, the positive certainly has outnumbers the negative. And this happens frequently.

Here is a somewhat-literal translation of that beautiful section of Revelation (7:15-17; and I cannot think of a better ending for this writing):

They are before the throne of the God, and they serve him day and night in the temple of him, and the one sitting on the throne will ‘tent’ over them. They will not hunger longer nor will they thirst longer, neither not fall on them, the sun, nor every heat; because the lamb, the one in the midst of the throne, will shepherd them, and he will lead them upon fountains of waters of life, and the God will wipe out every tear out of the eyes of them.