“Shocked into silence” (52:15)
JudahJudah ProphetsProphets IsraelIsrael
931 BC931 BC RehoboamRehoboam JeroboamJeroboam
AbijahAbijah NadabNadab
900 BC900 BC Asa*Asa* BaashaBaasha
850 BC850 BC Jehoshaphat*Jehoshaphat* ElijahElijah Zimri, Omri, Ahab, Zimri, Omri, Ahab, Ahaziah, JoramAhaziah, Joram
800 BC800 BC Jehoram*, Ahaziah, Jehoram*, Ahaziah, Queen Athaliah, Queen Athaliah, Joash*Joash*
ElishaElisha
JonahJonah
AmosAmos
Jehoahaz, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jehoash, Jeroboam IIJeroboam II
750 BC750 BC Amaziah Amaziah
Uzziah Uzziah
AhazAhaz
HoseaHosea
MicahMicah
IsaiahIsaiah
Zechariah, Zechariah, Shallum, Shallum, Menahem, Menahem, PekahiahPekahiah
722 BC722 BC Hezekiah*Hezekiah* IsaiahIsaiah Pekah, HosheaPekah, Hoshea
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“People will hide in caves in the rocky hills or dig holes in the ground to try to escape from the LORD’s anger and to hide from his power and glory, when he comes to shake the earth. When that day comes, they will throw away the gold and silver idols they have made, and abandon them to the moles and the bats. When the LORD comes to shake the earth, people will hide in holes and caves in the rocky hills to try to escape from his anger and to hide from his power and glory.” (Isaiah 2:19-21)
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was sitting on his throne, high and exalted, and his robe filled the whole Temple. Around him flaming creatures were standing, each of which had six wings. Each creature covered its face with two wings, and its body with two, and used the other two for flying. They were calling out to each other: ‘Holy, holy, holy! The LORD Almighty is holy! His glory fills the world.’ (Isaiah 6:1-3)
“In the beginning the Word already existed; the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)
“The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us. We saw his glory, the glory which he received as the Father's only Son…No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is Himself God, is near to the Father's heart. He has revealed God to us.” (John 1:14, 18)
“And eternal life means to know you, the only true God, and to know Jesus Christ, whom you sent. I have shown your glory on earth; I have finished the work you gave me to do.” (John 17:3-4)
“I made your name known…”(John 17:6)
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was sitting on his throne, high and exalted, and his robe filled the whole Temple. Around him flaming creatures were standing, each of which had six wings. Each creature covered its face with two wings, and its body with two, and used the other two for flying. They were calling out to each other: ‘Holy, holy, holy! The LORD Almighty is holy! His glory fills the world.’ (Isaiah 6:1-3)
“At this point I had another vision and saw an open door in heaven. And the voice that sounded like a trumpet, which I had heard speaking to me before, said, ‘Come up here…’ There in heaven was a throne with someone sitting on it. His face gleamed like such precious stones as jasper and carnelian, and all around the throne there was a rainbow the color of an emerald.” (Revelation 4:2-3)
“Each one of the four living creatures had six wings, and they were covered with eyes, inside and out. Day and night they never stop singing: ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come.’” (Revelation 4:8)
“The four living creatures sing songs of glory and honor and thanks to the one who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever. When they do so, the twenty-four elders fall down before the one who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives forever and ever. They throw their crowns down in front of the throne and say, ‘Our Lord and God! You are worthy to receive glory, honor, and power. For you created all things, and by your will they were given existence and life.’” (Revelation 4:9-11)
“Then I saw a scroll in the right hand of the One who was sitting on the throne. There was writing on the inside and the outside of the scroll, and it was sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel, who shouted with a loud voice: ‘Who is worthy to break the seals on this scroll and open it?’” (Revelation 5:1-2)
“No one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll and read it. Then I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll and read it.” (Revelation 5:3-4)
“But one of the twenty-four elders said to me, ‘Stop weeping! Look, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the heir to David’s throne, has won the victory. He is worthy to open the scroll and its seven seals.’ Then I saw a Lamb that looked as if it had been slaughtered, but it was now standing between the throne and the four living beings and among the twenty-four elders…He stepped forward and took the scroll from the right hand of the One sitting on the throne.” (Revelation 5:5-7)
“They sang a new song: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to break open its seals. For you were killed, and by your sacrificial death you bought for God people from every tribe, language, nation, and race...’ Again I looked, and I heard angels, thousands and millions of them! They stood around the throne, the four living creatures, and the elders, and sang in a loud voice: ‘The Lamb who was killed is worthy to receive power, wealth, wisdom, and strength, honor, glory, and praise!’ And I heard every creature in heaven, on earth, in the world below, and in the sea---all living beings in the universe---and they were singing: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be praise and honor, glory and might, forever and ever!’” (Revelation 5:9-13)
God on the throne holds a scroll. Surrounded by: 4 living creatures 24 elders
No one is worthy to open the scroll The violently slaughtered Lamb on the throne is
worthy A “new song”: “Again I looked, and I heard
angels, thousands and millions of them! They stood around the throne, the four living creatures, and the elders, and sang in a loud voice…And I heard every creature in heaven, on earth, in the world below, and in the sea---all living beings in the universe---and they were singing…”
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was sitting on his throne, high and exalted, and his robe filled the whole Temple. Around him flaming creatures were standing, each of which had six wings. Each creature covered its face with two wings, and its body with two, and used the other two for flying. They were calling out to each other: ‘Holy, holy, holy! The LORD Almighty is holy! His glory fills the world.’ (Isaiah 6:1-3)
“This is the revelation of Jesus Christ…Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first to be raised from death and who is also the ruler of the kings of the world. He loves us, and by his sacrificial death he has freed us from our sins and made us a kingdom of priests to serve his God and Father. To Jesus Christ be the glory and power forever and ever! Amen. Look, he is coming on the clouds! Everyone will see him, including those who pierced him. All peoples on earth will mourn over him. So shall it be! ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God Almighty, who is, who was, and who is to come.” (Revelation 1:1,5-8)
A B B¹ A¹
1:8 1:17 21:6 22:13
end prologue begin. vision end vision begin. epilogue
God Christ God Christ A& Omega A& Omega A& Omega first and last first
and last begin. and end
begin. and end
“Listen!’ said Jesus…‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” (Revelation 22:12-13)
“the Alpha and the Omega,” “the beginning and the end,” “the first and the last.” - seven times
“The LORD God Almighty” - seven times “The One who sits on the throne” - seven times “Christ” (or Messiah) - seven times “God and the Lamb” – seven times Four is the number of the world (with its four
corners (7:1; 20:8) or four divisions (5:13; 14:7) “Lamb” occurs 28 times (7 x 4)
The 7 x 4 occurrences of the ‘Lamb’ therefore indicate the worldwide scope of his complete victory.
“There was a violent earthquake, and the sun became black like coarse black cloth, and the moon turned completely red like blood. The stars fell down to the earth, like unripe figs falling from the tree when a strong wind shakes it. The sky disappeared like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place. Then the kings of the earth, the rulers and the military chiefs, the rich and the powerful, and all other people, slave and free, hid themselves in caves and under rocks on the mountains. They called out to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the eyes of the one who sits on the throne and from the anger of the Lamb! The terrible day of their anger is here, and who can stand up against it?’”
(Revelation 6:12-17)
“God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:16-17)
The seventh seal ends with a scene at “the golden altar of incense” (Revelation 8:3) and with “…rumblings and peals of thunder, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.” (Revelation 8:5)
The seventh trumpet ends with a scene at “the Covenant Box” and with “flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.” (Revelation 11:19)
The seventh plague ends with “A loud voice from the throne in the temple” and with “flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder, and a terrible earthquake.”(Revelation 16:17-18)
“This is a message about Babylon…” (Isaiah 13:1)
“King of Babylon, bright morning star, you have fallen from heaven! In the past you conquered nations, but now you have been thrown to the ground.” (Isaiah 14:12)
“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations!” (Isaiah 14:12 - NKJV)
Hebrew: helel - “shining one,” “brilliant one,” commonly applied to the planet Venus as
a morning star LXX: renders helel as heōsphoros,
“morning star,” literally, “bringer of the dawn,” the common Greek designation for Venus
when it appeared in the morning sky. The name Lucifer comes from the
Latin Vulgate, and means “light bearer.”
“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ But instead, you have been brought down to the deepest part of the world of the dead. (Isaiah 14:12-15)
“Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, who fought back with his angels; but the dragon was defeated, and he and his angels were not allowed to stay in heaven any longer. The huge dragon was thrown out---that ancient serpent, named the Devil, or Satan, that deceived the whole world. He was thrown down to earth, and all his angels with him.”(Revelation 12:7-10)
“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the abyss and a heavy chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent---that is, the Devil, or Satan---and chained him up for a thousand years. The angel threw him into the abyss…” (Revelation 20:1-3)
“Everyone there will stare at you and ask, 'Can this be the one who shook the earth and made the kingdoms of the world tremble? Is this the one who destroyed the world and made it into a wasteland? Is this the king who demolished the world's greatest cities and had no mercy on his prisoners?” (Isaiah 14:16-17)
"the prince of this world." (John 12:31, 14:30)
"the god of this age", and "the ruler of the kingdom of the air" (2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2).
"the whole world is under the control of the evil one" (1 John 5:19)
“When the Lamb broke open the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” (Revelation 8:1)
“Just watch my servant blossom! Exalted, tall, head and shoulders above the crowd! But he didn’t begin that way. At first everyone was appalled. He didn’t even look human-- a ruined face, disfigured past recognition. Nations all over the world will be in awe, taken aback, kings shocked into silence when they see him. For what was unheard of they’ll see with their own eyes, what was unthinkable they’ll have right before them.” (Isaiah 52:13-15)
“kings will be speechless with amazement. They will see and understand something they had never known.”
“Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought that God’s saving power would look like this? The servant grew up before God--a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried-- our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him--our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And GOD has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him. He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn't say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off-- and did anyone really know what was happening? He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people. They buried him with the wicked, threw him in a grave with a rich man, Even though he’d never hurt a soul or said one word that wasn’t true.” (Isaiah 53:1-9)
“The scroll confronts the council with a seemingly insoluble predicament, a veritable crisis in the divine government, highlighted by the tears of the Seer (5:4) and by the silence of everyone else (5:3). The breaking of the seals signifies that this predicament has been fully worked out, and with the breaking of the seventh seal comes a sense of closure to the heavenly council…Only when the Lamb in its slaughtered state is allowed to exert a commanding influence on the entire scene will the representative biblical imagery for the silence in heaven receive its due
…[The text in Isaiah] is about silence – the silence of shock and awe in the face of an entirely unexpected manifestation. Revelation presents an analogous situation when the heavenly council confronts a disclosure that defies expectations, but the relationship between these texts consists of more than an analogy. The startling nature of what is disclosed, causing kings to ‘shut their mouths because of him’ according to Isaiah (52:15), belongs organically to the vision of the ‘lamb that is led to the slaughter’ in the original Old Testament context (Isaiah 53:7). Moreover, both texts describe the fate of the Lamb, one anticipating it, the other one after the fact…
What leads to silence in the fourth Servant Song in Isaiah is precisely that the Servant has been violently abused – ‘so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals.’ (Isaiah 52:14), and this reality lies behind the description of ‘a lamb that is led to the slaughter’ (Isaiah 53:7). In the heavenly council there is silence, too, and the silence comes about when the council is brought face to face with the slaughtered Lamb, presented and acknowledged as the victor and revealer in the cosmic conflict…All the seals are broken, signifying that the issue confronting the heavenly council has been resolved by the Lamb. Silence in this context serves as the reflective corollary of praise, and in this sense the proposed idea of ‘rapturous amaze’ is not far off the mark.” (1)
