Revelation 7 Footnotes

7:1-3 The unearthly calming of winds on the earth and the half hour of silence in heaven (8:1) form a bookend effect around chap. 7. Special attention is focused on what the Lord is doing with the two groups in view (vv. 4-8 and v. 9) while judgment is being held back. The people of God are to be sealed, indicating God’s ownership and protection, before the last seal is lifted from the scroll (8:1) and God’s judgments contained in it are released.

7:4-8 The Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) teach that the 144,000 represents the total number of those who will reign with Christ. Since there is a much larger group—a “vast multitude . . . which no one could number”—mentioned immediately afterward as taken from earth to heaven (v. 9), the JW view is discredited even in its closest context in Revelation. While many believe the 144,000 is symbolic for the church, the tribal names and numbers naturally refer to ethnic Israel. The 12 tribes are numbered as a protective military deployment (e.g., Nm 2), making it plausible that Rv 7:1-8 is implying that this sealing has to do with the new covenant entry of the Holy Spirit into the Jewish remnant returned to the promised land (Ezk 36:27; 37:7-9,14), where the vision describes Israel as “a vast army” (Ezk 37:10).

7:13-14 The robes of the “vast multitude” (v. 9) being washed white in the blood of the Lamb could speak of martyrdom but probably refers to the redemptive blood of Christ (1:5; 5:9). If that is the case, the “vast multitude” being removed in relation to the great tribulation (referred to in Dn 12:1 and Mt 24:21, and what is meant by the hour of trial in Rv 3:10) could refer to the rapture of the church, even before the great tribulation, if that period does not begin until the events in the scroll are released by the lifting of the seventh seal (8:1).