1Then I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds so they did not blow on the earth or the sea, or even on any tree. 2And I saw another angel coming up from the east, carrying the seal of the living God. And he shouted to those four angels, who had been given power to harm land and sea, 3“Wait! Don’t harm the land or the sea or the trees until we have placed the seal of God on the foreheads of his servants.” 4And I heard how many were marked with the seal of God—144,000 were sealed from all the tribes of Israel: 5from Judah, 12,000; from Reuben, 12,000; from Gad, 12,000; 6from Asher, 12,000; from Naphtali, 12,000; from Manasseh, 12,000; 7from Simeon, 12,000; from Levi, 12,000; from Issachar, 12,000; 8from Zebulun, 12,000; from Joseph, 12,000; from Benjamin, 12,000.
Revelation 7:3-8
So why is the Revelation 7 list of tribes scrambled and some names added, while other names have been removed in a seemingly random way? Faced with Suryadi’s question and seeing there was no immediateIy obvious answer I dug into the text in every way I could but I could not see any connection that made sense. There did not seem to be any clear reason for making the substitutions of names that had been made. Furthermore there was no logical reason for the arrangement in the order of names. It just didn’t make any sense. This is the only list of the tribes of Israel ordered like this, where Joseph is paired with one son rather than substituted by both. I prayed lots and asked God for insight, a clue, for some direction as to where I should look. During that time I had an a’ha moment and thought what if it has something to do with the meanings of the names. So I started to look at the meanings of the names. What if the tribes were chosen because of the meanings of their names? Perhaps it was working in a Midrashic way like the Genesis 5 Genealogy?
- Judah = [Praise] I will praise the LORD
- Reuben = [Look] He has looked on me
- Gad = [Blessed] Granted good fortune
- Asher = [Happy] Happy am I
- Naphtali = [Wrestling] My wrestling
- Manasseh = [Forget] He made me forget
- Simeon = [Heard] God has heard
- Levi = [Attached] He will hold me close (attached)
- Issachar = [Reward] reward for giving my servant as a wife
- Zebulun = [Dwelling] God has given me good reward / dwelling
- Joseph = [Add] God will add
- Benjamin = [Son of His right hand] Son of my sorrow
That did not satisfy. There was no overall connection like there is with the meanings in the Genesis 5 genealogy. Then I had the idea: what if it related to the statements made over each boy at their birth?
- Judah – This time I will praise the LORD
- Reuben – Certainly, the LORD has seen my misery
- Gad – I’ve been lucky!
- Asher – I’ve been blessed!
- Naphtali – I have had a great struggle [with my sister] and I have won!
- Manasseh – because God helped me forget all my troubles
- Simeon – Certainly, the LORD has heard
- Levi – Now at last [my husband] will become attached [close] to me
- Issachar – God has given me my reward
- Zebulun – God has presented me with a beautiful present [dwelling place]. This time [my husband] He will honour me
- Joseph – God has taken away my disgrace. He has given me [another son]
- Benjamin – The Son of his right hand.
If all are put together, in the same way that the meanings of the words in the Genesis 5 genealogy are combined, they seem to all fit well. The resultant statement reads as follows:
This time I will praise the LORD [for] certainly the LORD has seen my misery. I’ve been lucky! I’ve been blessed! I have had a great struggle and I have won because God helped me forget all my troubles. Certainly, the LORD has heard, now at last He will become attached [close] to me. God has given me my reward God has presented me with a beautiful present [dwelling place]. This time He will honour me; God has taken away my disgrace. He has given me the Son of His right hand.
You will notice I have removed the elements listed above in red as they are case specific and don’t read in a general way. I thought that prudent and logical to remove those elements. Yes, it seems likely that the choice and order of the names of the tribes of Israel have to do with the meaning and context surrounding the birth of the chosen sons. I left in the reference to [dwelling place] because it occurred to me that it’s possibly referring to our dwelling in heaven.
So why were Dan and Ephraim not included? Some have claimed that the reason Dan and Ephraim were not chosen was because of the following verses, as I have already pointed out:
Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder [viper] in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.
Genesis 49:17
Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.
Hosea 4:17
But in the case of Dan the statement was made at the time of the final blessing. In Ephraim’s case it is a later retrospective view after the matter of apostasy arose. I think we need to be consistent and ponder why the following statements were not chosen in the context of the birth of each child.
When Rachel named him Dan, for she said, “God has vindicated me! He has heard my request and given me a son.”
Genesis 30:6
Joseph named his second son Ephraim, for he said, “God has made me fruitful in this land of my affliction.”
Genesis 41:52
I wonder if in Dan’s case the idea of vindication was not part of the idea that was being communicated in that it didn’t fit with the whole context. In Ephraim’s case the idea of fruitfulness in the land of suffering or grief was just not wanted in the combined passage. Besides which these two tribes had been excluded on the basis of their involvement with idolatry. If you read the above statement in the context in which it appears in Revelation 7, we are talking about the 144,000 redeemed from the tribes of Israel. And beyond them, this overarching statement also applies to the vast crowd, too great to count. All of them redeemed by the blood of the lamb. All of them who can chorus out together:-
This time I will praise the LORD [for] certainly the LORD has seen my misery. I’ve been lucky! I’ve been blessed! I have had a great struggle and I have won because God helped me forget all my troubles. Certainly, the LORD has heard, now at last He will become attached [close] to me. God has given me my reward God has presented me with a beautiful present [dwelling place]. This time He will honour me; God has taken away my disgrace. He has given to me the Son of His right hand.
One has to wonder when new ideas come to mind, “Am I the only one who thinks this?” Am I the only one in all the history of the Christian church who came up with this idea? If so, then one ought to question it. It is easy for us to go off on a fanciful tangent contrary to Scripture and end up creating some new doctrine or worse yet a cult. We must always submit ourselves to the scrutiny of the wider body but allow for differences in interpretation we give to a passage of Scripture. That was exactly what the Rabbis did in Beth Midrash – the House of Allusion. Explore all the options, don’t rule out the possibility of allegorical or allusory interpretations. They are present in Scripture legitimately. We just have to be careful in the way we handle them and not go overboard. Allow me some space to ponder new insights.
I looked for substantiation of these thoughts to see if other people had thought that this may be the solution before me. In fact there were a number of people who espoused this idea. Imagine my delight when I came across articles from three Rabbis on the internet on exactly this approach to a solution. [I just wish I had kept the link and the names – I normally do but in this case I didn’t think to do it in my excitement of finding someone else, and rabbis no less, who think this may be the solution.]
We also have to leave room for the fact that we know so little of the depth of the Bible. I am amazed in my quest over years when newly understanding a portion of depth in the biblical text, how frequently on gaining an insight, individuals become boastful and proud. I remember one session of Deeper Bible 701, drawing a large circle on the board to represent the complete knowledge of the Bible, and asking the participants to demonstrate how much of it they felt they understood? One person came up and shaded over a little over half of the circle. The others gasped. Several asked me to demonstrate my percentage of what I felt understood. I drew a series of dots with arrows indicating expansion in some directions. I like what Shane Willard says that our best guesstimate is perhaps 1/1000th of 1% and then we meet someone else with a different 1/1000th of 1%, which together combined yield 2/1000ths of 1%. As my Greek Professor, Dr Basil Brown, used to say, “Class there is always more, even on the passages that we think we know the best.”
I hold the above insight loosely. I am encouraged to think that three rabbis have been exploring this same line of thought, but I am not so foolish as to claim it as fact or even a strong working hypothesis. I will hold the idea to be a possible alternative angle on the reason for this enigmatic list of tribes, until I gain more insight from the One who knows all the things. I think there is validity in it. Quite frankly there is no other way in my mind of plausibly explaining the features of the missing names and the rearranged list. But I will hold it loosely and ask John when I see him, or better yet ask Jesus. But I think the line for Jesus will be longer in heaven; maybe John is the better bet. Or as I have thought before, when the perfect comes we will know as we are known; we won’t need to ask questions of anyone. We will just know.
Now all we can see of God is like a cloudy picture in a mirror. Later we will see him face to face. We don’t know everything, but then we will, just as God completely understands us.
1 Corinthians 13:12
My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9
We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.
C S Lewis
Don’t be worried about being thought childish in the light of greater wisdom – we are. Enjoy the freedom of exploring new thoughts.
Ian
Only fools think they know all they need to know. The wiser we become the more aware we are of how very little we know.
Rick Warren
Brilliant explanation I love it!