Jewish literature furnishes other similar collec- tions of OT Messianic imagery (To 13, etc.); and the possibility that some earlier (Jewish) mind had already shaped the material in 21»-22', and that our author, in 21'"*, introduces and summarizes this section, and adds his own concluding sentences (22'-^'), is to be considered.
A still more striking illustration of our author's dependence on OT language, yet his freedom in the use of it, both in combination and in application, is his description of Christ in l'--". Almost all of it is taken from Daniel, but it unites in a most surprising way features from the descriptions of the one like a son of man, and of the Am lent of Days, in Dn 7, with still more from the angel
(Gabriel) in Dn 10. The seven golden candlesticks and the seven stars .are without parallel in Daniel. Something can he said, however, as to their source and use. The former was of course a familiar OT symbol (Ex 25" 37^) which Zech. (4-) uses in an unearthly sense, exjilaining that the seven lamps are the .seven eyes of J", which run to and fio through the whole earth (4""' following v.*"). He sees by the candlestick two olive-trees (4*), and evidently interprets their two branches as signify- ing Zerubbabcl and Joshua, so that the two trees are the Davidic and the Aaronic houses. These two men, Zech. would say, have the eyes of the Lord upon them in favour and blessing. But this is a free npi)lication by the prophet to the historical present and to his practical purpose of a symbol which originally, no doubt, pictured the seven planets and the w.ay in which their light was con- stantly replenished by the oil from ever-growing trees. It was a mythological .symbol (Gunkel, Schop/ung, pp. 122-131), which Zech. used as poetry, not interpreting all of the symbol (4-''), and perhaps adding a feature for the sake of the interpretation (4'-). Now in Uev 1'-" the writer chooses to identify the seven lamps with the seven churches among which Christ is and moves. But in 4°'' he sees seven lamps burning before the throne of God, which are, he explains, the seven spirits of God, altirmed in l"" to be before God's tlirone (cf. 8") ; and even in the letters (3') Christ is described as the one who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, so that this interpreta- tion of the lamps was in his mind l)y the side of the other. When, still furtlier, we read that the Lamb has 'seven ej-es, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth ' (5"), with evident allusion to Zee 4'"'', we are able to realize how far from a slavish literalness and formal con- sistency our author's >ise of OT figures is. Finally, Zech.'s figure reappears in 1 1'', where the two wit- nesses are declared to be ' the two olive-trees and the two candlesticks [what two ?] st.-mding before the Lord of the earth,' a free identification for a purpose, similar in kind to that of Zech. himself, this time certainly made not by our author, but by some source.
Our writer cares miich for OT prophetic language, and cannot easily add much to it, but he ap[dies it freely to new uses. Note esp. that we have in Rev. no such anxious ell'ort to interiuet an OT predic- tion, assuming the necessity of its literal fulfil- ment, as Dn 9 contains. The relation of 11^ to Zee 4, and of 20» to Ezk 38 f., is wholly dillbrent.
Other illustrations could readily be given, — such as the relation of ch. 4 to Is G and Ezk 1, — but enough has been presented to justify the following presupjiositions with reference to passages in our book which contain imagery not derived from the OT — (1) that such imagery, if It Is at all elaborate, is not the author's free invention, but is borrowed from some literary or oral iirophetic tra<litions; (2) that the writer docs not feci bound to leave it as it Is, but is free to combine and intcri>ret it to suit his own purpose, so that the Interiireter must distinguish sharply between the present use of the symbols and their original use. If this distinction is necessary in 21-22' and l"'", it will be no less necessary in 11'" 12. 13, etc.
(4) Jewu'ik apcinrli/pfiral tradition.i. — The line that sei)arates uncaiioiilcal from OT material In Rev. is not a sharp one. It would indeed bo natural that Jewish ajiocalyptical trailitlons should consist largely of exjiositions and elaborations of OT material. The picture of the throne of (lod (ch. 4) is unquestionably bused upon that of Ezk 1. 10 and IsC (cf. also the prohahiy older iias.sageB, Ex 24"', 1 K 22'"). The four li\ ing creatures, cheru- bim, are taken directly from Ezekiel, and, in spite
256 EEVELATION, BOOK OF
EEVELATION, BOOK OF
of difTerences, need no other explanation. It is of course not to be assumed that they have no history before and after Ezekiel (cf. the four pres- ences in Enoch 40 and Apoc. Bar 51" 21", and the four angels in Enoch a'--" 88' W). For the seven lamps which are the seven spirits of God we have already found points of connexion in the OT, hut we need to adduce such passages as To 12", Enoch 90-', in order to realize how tixed an element in apocalj'ptical imaginations these seven spirits (or angels, arcliangcls) were. The use of tlie article in Kev l* 4''' 8- is itself proof of the familiarity of the conception. Tliat foreign speculations, Persian or Babylonian, lie behind it is probable (see Clieyne, OP 2Slfr., 323 ll., 334 If. ; Gunkel, 6'rAd>- fung, 294-302, and Arc/do f. Rcllfji-unswUsensch. 1898, 294-300; Stave, Parsismus, 216-219). It is therefore a natural inference that the twenty-four elders, clotlied in white, sitting on thrones and crowned, come from tradition, and are not an invention of the author. They represent probably not the Christian Church, twelve tribes and twelve apo^t les ( though 2 1 '^ may ind icate the WTiter's desire to add the Christian to the Jewish twelve), but the glory and power, especially the reigning or judicial power of God, His heavenly court. They are associated, as are the seven spirits and the four cherubim, with God and His throne, not with the creation (see Gunkel, Schopfung, 302-308). Is 24^ gives probable evidence of the antiquity of the conception (cf. Is 63', LXX). With the general description of God's throne should be compared, e.g., Enoch 14. 71, Secrets of Enoch 29. 22.