Revelationchapter 14
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Speaks with:Revelation 3×3Revelation 14×3Revelation 5×2Revelation 15×2Jeremiah 51×2Revelation 19×2
Summary
Chapter summary
Against the mark of the beast, a counter-mark: the Lamb standing on the mount Zion with a hundred and forty and four thousand 'having his name, and the name of his Father, written on their foreheads,' singing a new song no man could learn but they. Then three angels fly in mid heaven. The first has 'eternal good tidings to proclaim… unto every nation and tribe and tongue and people': 'Fear God, and give him glory; for the hour of his judgment is come.' The second announces chapters 17 and 18 in advance: 'Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great.' The third warns that whoever takes the beast's mark 'shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.' Then: 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth… that they may rest from their labors' (14:13), and the double harvest of sickle and winepress (Joel 3).
Context
Apocalyptic · John — Revelation overview
- A. 1–5 The Lamb on Mount Zion With a New Song
- B. 6–13 Three Angels: Fear God, Babylon Is Fallen, Refuse the Mark
- C. 14–20 Sickle and Winepress: The Harvest of the Earth
The outline
A.The Lamb on Mount Zion With a New Songvv. 1 to 5
Read vv. 1 to 5 →B.Three Angels: Fear God, Babylon Is Fallen, Refuse the Markvv. 6 to 13
Read vv. 6 to 13 →C.Sickle and Winepress: The Harvest of the Earthvv. 14 to 20
Read vv. 14 to 20 →
The world behind this chapter
Revelation 14The history
The chapter opens by putting a Lamb where the beast had been standing, and the 144,000 have His name and His Father's name on their foreheads — a direct counter to the mark of the previous chapter. Two marks, two owners.
Then three angels fly through mid-heaven making announcements, which is how public proclamations worked: a herald in a public place, saying it out loud so no one can claim not to have heard. The first carries an everlasting gospel to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. The second announces that Babylon is fallen. The third warns against worshiping the beast.
"Babylon" was already code. Jewish and Christian writers used the name of the empire that destroyed the first temple for the empire that destroyed the second, and 1 Peter appears to sign off from "Babylon" the same way. Nobody had to be told which city was meant.
The harvest imagery at the end came from everyday work. Grain was cut with a sickle when it was ripe; grapes were cut and thrown into a stone trough where people trod them, and the juice ran out through a channel. Winepresses cut into bedrock survive all over the region. That is why a winepress of wrath, with what flows out of it, is such a violent picture — the readers had stood in one.
What it meant to them
The middle of the chapter contains the line these churches most needed: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth… that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them."
Chapter 13 said believers might be killed. Chapter 14 says the ones who are killed are blessed, their work goes with them, and the empire that killed them is already announced as fallen. That ordering was the whole comfort.
Sources cited
- Colin Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting
- Alfred Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life (public domain)
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Revelation 14. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Connections from this chapter
v. 18 · A stop on this thread
SECOND STRAND (judgment coda). The vine of the earth harvested into 'the great winepress of the wrath of God' - the vine tradition's eschatological judgment pole, balancing John 15's life pole.
Romans 11:17→Now if some branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others to share in the nourishment of the olive root,
public-domain quotation; G288
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.