Sermon Tone Analysis

summary of Rev. 13 teaching

Revelation 13 is known as the chapter about the Beast whose number is 666.

However, the chapter actually describes two beasts.

There are several Old Testament passages from which the descriptions of these beasts may derive.

While people are familiar with the number 666, and that this number is also the name of the Beast (antichrist).

The idea of “bearing the name” has a secure Old Testament context, one that largely goes unnoticed in the theorizing about the number of the Beast.

Introduction

We are in chapter 13; let just jump right in.

I mean, this is one of those chapters where there are some obvious things.

And of course, sprinkled in there there’s going to be some not-so-obvious things.

And we’re going to stick to our trajectory: Old Testament backdrop for this sort of stuff.

I can sort of telegraph where we’re going to go here.

But as far as the beasts go, there are two of them in this chapter.

There’s plenty of Old Testament antecedent material that could factor into that.

When it comes to the number, not so much.

When we get to that point, I will mention a few sort of… I’ll call them trajectories, but they’re really just speculative.

Even though I think more highly of one than the other, at the end of the day, they’re both still speculative as far as an Old Testament connection or context.

So as we jump into this, I’m going to just read through the chapter real quickly.

It’s not that long.

And then we’ll start off with the two beasts.

So reading ESV again, verse 1:

Now again, since we’re focusing on Old Testament stuff, we’re not going to get into too many interpretive things here.

But there are some fruitful trajectories as far as how to contextualize the content here.

The most obvious is having to do with the beast.

There are really two options here (two interpretive trajectories) that are possible with respect to contextualizing the beasts (both of them) with the Old Testament.

Now one of these is going to be pretty obvious.

The other one is probably not going to be obvious.

And so I’m going to go through both of these.

I don't really feel compelled to only go with one (the more obvious one).

I think that they’re actually both in play, because the more obvious of the two is, of course, what’s going on in Daniel 7 with the sort of nondescript final beast and whatnot, so on and so forth.

But there are disconnections from that.

For instance, in Revelation 13… As we read there, there’s not just one beast; there’s two.

And one is from the sea, and the other one’s from the land.

And there is some Old Testament precedent for two beasts (sea and land) that would have importance here (or “relevance” is probably a better word), especially if we look at what’s going on in Revelation 13 as sort of Babel chaos, not reborn (because we’ve always got Babel chaos).

When I use the term “chaos,” I mean everything that is not Eden (Anti-Eden) specifically tied to the corruption of Eden, which, you have supernatural rebellion lurking behind that; you have human rebellions lurking behind that.

And they are basically symbiotically related.

Loss of Eden

So when I say “chaos,” I'm referring to the loss of Eden, everything that is not Eden, which means… It’s things associated with death, disorder, the de-creation of the order that God instituted in Genesis 1—these sorts of themes.

Death, decay, loss, estrangement from God, fragmentation of humanity—all of this stuff is chaos.

And Babel is sort of a center point—most obviously the third rebellion, what happens at Babel with the fragmentation of humanity and the sons of God being assigned to the nations.

But the other ones also have certain threads that connect them, as well, to the Babel theme.

Because geographically, if we take the geographical descriptions like Genesis 6, it’s Noah and the Flood, we’re in the Mesopotamian part of the world, and the imagery of the Flood is often a theological response or polemic to material from Mesopotamia.

So there’s that, and if you go even back to the first one, there’s a good bit of material in Genesis, in Genesis 3 (this first rebellion), that also connects in some way to Babylon or Babylonian material.

You know, it’s not that it’s isolated to Babylon.

You’ve got Canaanite material as well.

But if you loop in the Ezekiel 28 repurposing of this supernatural rebellion and the Divine Council, well, Ezekiel is obviously writing from Babylon, so there you go.

So there’s a number of things going on here that just connects all of it—the whole chaotic mess—to Babel (Babylon) both in terms of the history of the biblical story as it’s told, the geographical orientation, the textual material that’s used to tell the story, and then ultimately Babylon becomes the foil for all that is terrible—this ultimate reversal, like in the exile.

Before that you get Egypt playing the big, bad

role, and then you get Assyria, and then you get Babylon.

But it’s interesting how all three are described in chaos terms, a number of which are Babylonish, even if it’s not Babylon itself, even if it’s Egypt or Assyria or something like that.

So there are a lot of interconnections here.

Again, it would take a whole book to ferret out all of them and just go through all the material.

But I think that’s a necessary backdrop.

Because if we look at Revelation 13 sort of generally as the war against chaos, or chaos’ war against the people of God and the plans of God,that opens the door a bit to the less expected backdrop to the two beasts.

The first one is Daniel in Babylon—Daniel 7. That’s going to be easy when we go through it to see that.

But the other one is a little bit unexpected.

Lesser-Excepted of the Two

So I’m going to start with the lesser-expected of the two.

So of the two trajectories, let’s go to, for example, the beasts of Job.

Okay?

Job 40 and 41.

You have the sea beast and the land beast.

Elsewhere in Scripture they’re going to be described as Leviathan (the twisting serpent—the chaos that basically is known throughout the ancient Near East) and Rahab, the land counterpart to Leviathan.

You actually get Rahab mentioned in the same chaos contexts as Leviathan normally is in—in Psalm 89, for instance.

So there’s a land and a sea chaos monster, two of them in the Old Testament.

(And again, this isn’t unique to me.

I’m going to quote from Beale and McDonough here in a moment.)

But you’ve got scholars who have obviously noticed this and they’re well acquainted with the land and the sea chaos beast from the Old Testament.

And so this seems like a natural trajectory to follow.

So Beale and McDonough write (and this is from the Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, edited by Carson and Beale):

The depiction of the two beasts in chapter 13 is based in part [ and that’s appropriately worded: “in part”] on Job 40–41, which is the only place in the OT that portrays two satanic beasts that oppose God [ the only time when they’re together; elsewhere Leviathan and Rahab are separate].

The sea monster of the Job passage also has a companion classified as a land “beast” (thērion [ in the Septuagint in Job] [40:15–24]).

Both beasts are described with demonic attributes and are said to have been “made to be mocked by the angels”…

If you’re quickly looking back and wondering, “What’s the verse there?” (it’s Job 40:19-20 and Job 41:24-25, more importantly), you’re not going to find it because this is the Septuagint.

So I’m going to just open the Septuagint here real quickly and read some of this stuff.

Because again, since we don’t really read the Septuagint, this is a little bit surprising.

So wait till you hear this.

We’ll go to Job 41 first.

So Job 41: 18-20 This is describing Leviathan.

I’ll go up to verse 18.

18 If a flood should happen, it is not taken notice of.

It trusts that the Jordan shall rush up into its mouth.

19 Shall one take it in its eye?

That’s basically describing basically creatures of the deep and their effect on the land, and this “flood” language.

Being caught in a snare, shall one pierce its nose?

Now that’s language that’s going to be familiar from your English Bibles about Leviathan.

Verse 20:

20 And will you lead the serpent in by a fishhook and put a halter around its nose?

Obviously no, Job, you can’t control Leviathan.

It’s Leviathan.

You’re no match for it.

If you keep reading, in Job 41 in the Septuagint, here are the last two verses:

24 There is not anything upon the earth like it, being made to be mocked at by my angels.

25 It sees everything that is high,

and it itself is king of all that is in the waters.”

So it’s real interesting, in the Septuagint you’ve got the big symbol for chaos— Leviathan, the sea beast, is going to be mocked by the angels.

Now I’m going to go back to Beale and McDonough.

They keep going with this trajectory:

The two beasts of Job 40–41 (cf.

esp.