Revelation 14: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

John sees the Lamb standing on Mount Zion with 144,000 people who carry his Father's name on their foreheads, and he hears them sing a new song that only they can learn. A first angel then flies out, and two more follow with announcements: one calls the world to fear God because the hour of his judgment has come, one declares that Babylon the great has fallen, and one warns of punishment for anyone who worships the beast and takes its mark. A voice from heaven blesses those who die in the Lord from now on, and the chapter closes with two harvests of the earth, one by a figure like the Son of Man with a sickle and one by an angel who gathers grapes into the great winepress of God's anger.

Claim by Claim

1. 14:1
   • John looked and saw a Lamb standing on Mount Zion.
   • With the Lamb were one hundred forty-four thousand.
   • Those with the Lamb had the name of the Lamb's Father written on their foreheads.
2. 14:2
   • John heard a voice from heaven.
   • The voice was like the sound of many waters.
   • The voice was like the sound of a great thunder.
   • John heard the sound of harpists playing on their harps.
3. 14:3
   • They sang a new song before the throne.
   • They sang before the four living creatures and before the elders.
   • No one could learn that song except the hundred forty-four thousand.
   • The hundred forty-four thousand had been redeemed from the earth.
4. 14:4
   • These are the ones who were not defiled with women.
   • They are virgins.
   • These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.
   • These were redeemed from among men.
   • They are firstfruits to God and to the Lamb.
5. 14:5
   • No lie was found in their mouth.
   • They are without fault before the throne of God.
6. 14:6
   • John saw another angel flying in mid-heaven.
   • The angel had the everlasting gospel.
   • The angel was to preach the gospel to those who dwell on the earth.
   • The angel was to preach it to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people.
7. 14:7
   • The angel said with a loud voice, Fear God.
   • The angel said, Give glory to God.
   • The angel said the hour of God's judgment has come.
   • The angel said, Worship him who made heaven, earth, the sea, and the springs of waters.
8. 14:8
   • Another angel followed.
   • The second angel said Babylon is fallen, is fallen.
   • The second angel called Babylon that great city.
   • The second angel said Babylon made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
9. 14:9
   • A third angel followed them.
   • The third angel spoke with a loud voice.
   • The third angel said: if anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand.
10. 14:10
    • That person will drink of the wine of the wrath of God.
    • That wine is poured undiluted into the cup of God's indignation.
    • That person will be tormented with fire and brimstone.
    • The torment will take place in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
11. 14:11
    • The smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever.
    • Those who worship the beast and his image have no rest day or night.
    • Whoever receives the mark of the beast's name also has no rest.
12. 14:12
    • Here is the endurance of the saints.
    • Here are those who keep the commandments of God.
    • Here are those who keep the faith of Jesus.
13. 14:13
    • John heard a voice from heaven speaking to him.
    • The voice told John to write.
    • The voice said the dead who die in the Lord from now on are blessed.
    • The Spirit says yes.
    • The Spirit says they may rest from their labors.
    • The Spirit says their works follow them.
14. 14:14
    • John looked and saw a white cloud.
    • One sat on the cloud who was like the Son of man.
    • The one on the cloud had a golden crown on his head.
    • The one on the cloud had a sharp sickle in his hand.
15. 14:15
    • Another angel came out of the temple.
    • The angel cried with a loud voice to the one seated on the cloud.
    • The angel said, Thrust in your sickle and reap.
    • The angel said the hour to reap has come.
    • The angel said the harvest of the earth is dried ripe.
16. 14:16
    • The one seated on the cloud thrust his sickle on the earth.
    • The earth was reaped.
17. 14:17
    • Another angel came out of the temple that is in heaven.
    • That angel also had a sharp sickle.
18. 14:18
    • Another angel came out from the altar.
    • That angel had power over fire.
    • That angel cried with a loud cry to the one who had the sharp sickle.
    • That angel said, Thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth.
    • That angel said the grapes of the vine are fully ripe.
19. 14:19
    • The angel thrust his sickle into the earth.
    • The angel gathered the vine of the earth.
    • The angel cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20. 14:20
    • The winepress was trodden outside the city.
    • Blood came out of the winepress.
    • The blood rose as high as the horses' bridles.
    • The blood extended for one thousand six hundred stadia.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

14:1

"Sion" is the King James spelling of Zion, the hill in Jerusalem that the temple stood on, and by extension a name for the city itself. The number 144,000 is twelve times twelve times a thousand, built out of the twelve tribes of Israel; it was introduced back in chapter 7. A name written on the forehead was the mark of ownership, the counterpart of the beast's mark in the next chapter; ancient slaves and soldiers could be branded or tattooed to show whom they belonged to. The Greek manuscripts differ here: some read only "his Father's name," as the King James does, while others read "his name and his Father's name."

14:2

The harp meant here is not the large modern floor harp but a small hand-held lyre, the instrument used in Israel's temple music.

14:3

"Beasts" in 1611 English meant simply living creatures, with none of the menace the word now carries. These four are the winged creatures around the throne described in chapter 4, and the Greek word for them is not the word used for the "beast" of chapter 13. "Redeemed" translates a commercial word: to buy something back, or to buy a slave out of slavery by paying the price.

14:4

"Not defiled with women" and "virgins" both picture men in the Greek, and the phrasing is disputed. Some take it literally, of celibacy; others take it as the Old Testament habit of describing unfaithfulness to God as adultery, so that the "virgins" are those who refused the idolatry of chapter 13. The rendering leaves the ambiguity where the Greek leaves it. "Firstfruits" was the first portion of a crop, brought to God before the rest was used; the term carries the sense that a larger harvest follows.

14:5

"Guile" means deceit or trickery, not guilt.

14:6

"In the midst of heaven" means at the high point of the sky, where a flying thing is visible to everyone at once. "Gospel" is simply the word for good news, used in the ancient world of a public announcement, such as a victory or the accession of an emperor. "Kindred" and "tongue" are the King James words for tribe and language.

14:7

"Fear God" in biblical usage means reverence and awe before God, not being frightened of him. "Give glory to him" means to acknowledge publicly what he is worth, the way one honors a king.

14:8

Babylon was the empire that destroyed Jerusalem and its temple in 586 BC. By the first century Jewish and Christian writers used the name as a code word for Rome, which had destroyed the second temple in AD 70. The Greek word behind "wrath" here can mean either fury or passionate desire, so the phrase can be read as the wine of her raging immorality or as the wine that brings wrath because of her immorality. Prophets regularly described a nation's unfaithfulness to God as sexual unfaithfulness, which is the force of "fornication."

14:9

The beast, its image and its mark all refer back to chapter 13, where a statue of the beast is set up and people are required to carry its mark on the hand or forehead in order to buy and sell.

14:10

"Without mixture" means undiluted. Wine in the ancient world was normally cut with water before drinking, so wine served neat was a picture of full, unrestrained strength. A "cup" that someone is made to drink is a standard Old Testament image for the portion assigned to a person, usually of punishment. "Brimstone" is the old English word for sulfur, which burns with a choking smell and was associated with the destruction of Sodom.

14:12

"Patience" in 1611 English meant endurance, holding out under pressure, not calm waiting. "Saints" translates a word meaning those set apart for God, used throughout the New Testament for all believers rather than for a special class of them. "The faith of Jesus" is grammatically ambiguous in the Greek and can mean either faith in Jesus or the faithfulness Jesus himself showed.

14:13

"From henceforth" sits between two clauses in the Greek and may attach to either: blessed from now on are the dead who die in the Lord, or blessed are those who from now on die in the Lord. "Their works do follow them" pictures a person's deeds walking behind them like companions or attendants into God's presence.

14:14

"Son of man" in Hebrew and Aramaic idiom means simply a human being, but here it echoes Daniel 7, where one "like the Son of man" comes with the clouds of heaven and is given authority. The Greek word for crown here is the victor's wreath awarded at games or to a returning general, not the jeweled band of a hereditary king. A sickle is a short curved blade on a handle, swung by hand to cut standing grain.

14:15

The Greek word rendered "ripe" literally means dried out, describing grain that has stood long enough to be past its green stage; the harvest cannot wait any longer.

14:18

The altar is the one seen earlier in the vision, in chapters 6 and 8, where incense and the prayers of God's people are offered and from which burning coals are thrown to the earth. The angel's authority "over fire" ties him to that altar fire.

14:19

A winepress was a shallow basin cut in rock where grapes were trampled underfoot, the juice running through a channel into a lower vat. The image of trampled grapes standing for slaughter, with the juice red as blood, comes from the prophets, particularly Isaiah 63.

14:20

"Without the city" means outside the city walls, the place where executions and disposal of the unclean happened. A furlong here translates the Greek stadion, about 600 feet, so 1,600 of them is roughly 180 miles, about the length of the land of Israel. The figure is also four squared times a hundred, a number suggesting the four corners of the earth. "Even unto the horse bridles" gives a depth of roughly four or five feet.