Revelation 1:7

¹¹ Even preterists admit that some cloud coming passages relate to the Second Coming. “Preterists such as Gentry do see some passages that have ‘cloud language’ as referring to the Second Coming (Acts Acts 1:9-11; 1Th. 1Th. 4:13-17)”—Thomas Ice, “Hermeneutics and Bible Prophecy,” in Tim LaHaye and Thomas Ice, eds., The End Times Controversy (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2003), 79. “Another hermeneutical shortcoming of preterism relates to the limiting of the promised coming of Christ in Rev. Rev. 1:7+ to Judea [the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD]. What does a localized judgment hundreds of miles away have to do with the seven churches of Asia? John uses two long chapters in addressing those churches regarding the implications of the coming of Christ for them. For instance, the promise to shield the Philadelphian church from judgment (Rev. Rev. 3:10-11+) is meaningless if that judgment occurs far beyond the borders of that city.”—Thomas, Revelation 1-7, 225.

¹² An awkward reality for preterists is the reestablishment of the Jewish state in the Promised Land. If it were to have been finally destroyed in A.D. 70 by the wrath of God as preterists maintain, evidently God did an incomplete job.

¹³ Gary DeMar, Last Days Madness (Atlanta, GA: American Vision, 1994), 162.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ “The choice of ἐκκεντέω [ekkenteō] to render the Hebrew דָּקַר [dāqar] of Zec. Zec. 12:10 in John John 19:37 and Rev. Rev. 1:7+ adds strength to the case that the two books had the same author. Both uses differ from the LXX’s obviously erroneous choice of κατορχέω [katorcheō] to render the same Hebrew word.”—Thomas, Revelation 1-7, 82.

¹⁶ Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages With Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament), Rev. 1:7.

¹⁷ Robert Laird Harris, Gleason Leonard Archer, and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1999, c1980), s.v. “449a.”

¹⁸ “In the messianic passage Isa. Isa. 53:5, ‘wounded’ (KJV margin ‘tormented’; jb ‘pierced through’) follows the divine smiting (Isa. Isa. 53:4). The Poel form used . . . is similar to that in Isa. Isa. 51:9; cf. ‘pierced by the sword’ (Pual, Eze. Eze. 32:26). The quotation in John John 19:12 (‘they shall look on him whom they have pierced’) is from Zec. Zec. 12:10 but this Isa. Isa. 53:5 uses another verb (דָקַר [ḏāqar] ) ‘pierced through fatally’ (usually in retribution). In Jer. Jer. 51:4 and Lam. Lam. 4:9 דָקַר [ḏāqar] is used as a synonym of הָלַל [hālal] .”—Ibid., s.v. “#660.”

¹⁹ A. R. Fausset, “The Revelation of St. John the Divine,” in Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997, 1877), Rev. 1:7.

²⁰ Merrill F. Unger, Unger’s Commentary on the Old Testament (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2002), 2040.

²¹ Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002), 10:609.

²² “The problem with interpreting Revelation Rev. 1:7+ to refer to the land of Israel is that all the other uses of the exact phrase ‘all the tribes of the earth’ in the original language always has a universal nuance (Gen. Gen. 12:3; Gen. 28:14; Ps. Ps. 72:17; Zec. Zec. 14:17).”—Thomas Ice, “Preterist ‘Time Texts’,” in Tim LaHaye and Thomas Ice, eds., The End Times Controversy (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2003), 99.

²³ The distinction between Abraham’s seed and all the families of the earth makes plain that the families are a superset beyond the physical seed. Where Gen. Gen. 12:3 is cited in Acts Acts 3:25, the word for “families” is πατριαὶ [patriai] .

²⁴ “ ‘all the tribes of the earth’ refers to all nations in every one of its Septuagint occurrences (πα῀σαι αἱ φυλαὶ τῆς γῆς [pasai hai phylai tēs gēs] , Gen. Gen. 12:3; Gen. 28:14; Ps. Ps. 71:17; Zec. Zec. 14:17).”—Gregory K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999), 26.

²⁵ Preterists respond to this evidence from the Septuagint by noting that where the Septuagint renders “tribes” as φυλαι [phylai] , the underlying Hebrew is מִשְׁפְּחֹת [mišp^eḥōṯ] - a different Hebrew word from the more frequently encountered word for “tribe” which describes Israel: שֵׁבֶת [šēḇeṯ] . They claim that by rendering both שֵׁבֶת [šēḇeṯ] and מִשְׁפְּחֹת [mišp^eḥōṯ] as “tribes,” the Septuagint loses the precision of the underlying Hebrew text. We agree, but what does it have to do with the evidence before us? The observation that the Septuagint renders both shebet and מִשְׁפְּחֹת [mišp^eḥōṯ] by φυλαι [phylai] (“tribes”) provides further evidence against the preterist contention that φυλαι [phylai] is a technical term which always denotes Israelite tribes. This response of the preterists is simply a smoke screen, which when considered carefully, actually supports the opposite conclusion.

The fact is that the Septuagint, translated by Hebrew rabbinical scholars familiar with the use of Greek in times much nearer to the NT than our own, renders two different Hebrew words-denoting both Jewish tribes and non-Jewish tribes or families-as φυλαι [phylai] This leads us to conclude that φυλαι [phylai] is not a technical term denoting only Jewish tribes. It can have different meanings which are dependent upon the context. This is also obvious from the numerous qualifiers which appear in conjunction with φυλαι [phylai] : “tribes of the earth,” “the twelve tribes,” “every tribe,” etc. Why would these additional qualifiers be necessary if φυλαι [phylai] always referred to Israelite tribes as preterists claim?

²⁶ [Fruchtenbaum, The Footsteps of Messiah, 638]. If one seeks evidence for how far astray interpretation can go where the meaning of a passage is entirely reversed from its intended meaning, one can do no better than the preterist interpretation of Zechariah Zec. 12:1 through 14.

²⁷ Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, 26.

²⁸ Thomas, Revelation 1-7, 79.

²⁹ See [Tony Garland, “Revelation 1:7 - Past or Future?,” (n.p. 2004) in The Conservative Theological Journal, vol. 9 no. 27 (Fort Worth, TX: Tyndale Theological Seminary, August 2005)]

³⁰ Frederick William Danker and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000).

³¹ Erich Sauer, The Dawn of World Redemption (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 1951, c1964), 118-119.

³² Having personally sat with those in their dying days who continue to reject God’s free and gracious offer of salvation when they have nothing to lose and everything to gain, we have gained a genuine appreciation regarding the fearful consequences of the continual rejection of the gospel offer.

³³ J. A. Seiss, The Apocalypse: Lectures on the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1966), 81.