to give them an authority greater than their own names could have given. As the New Testament scholar Adolf Jülicher put it: ‘Apocalyptic is prophecy turned senile.’
The Pattern of Apocalyptic
Apocalyptic literature has a pattern: it seeks to describe the things which will happen at the last times and the blessedness which will follow; and the same pictures occur over and over again. It always, so to speak, worked with the same materials; and these materials find their place in our Book of Revelation.
(1) In apocalyptic literature, the Messiah was a divine, pre-existent, other-worldly figure of power and glory, waiting to descend into the world to begin his all-conquering career. He existed in heaven before the creation of the world, before the sun and the stars were made; and he is preserved in the presence of the Almighty (1 Enoch 48:3, 48:6, 62:7; 4 Ezra 13:25–6). He will come to put down the mighty from their seats, to dethrone the kings of the earth and to break the teeth of sinners (1 Enoch 42:2–6, 48:2–9, 62:5–9, 69:26–9). In apocalyptic, there was nothing human or gentle about the Messiah; he was a divine figure of avenging power and glory before whom the earth trembled in terror.
(2) The coming of the Messiah was to be preceded by the return of Elijah, who would prepare the way for him (Malachi 4:5–6). Elijah was to stand upon the hills of Israel, so the Rabbis said, and announce the coming of the Messiah with a voice so great that it would sound from one end of the earth to the other.
(3) The last terrible times were known as ‘the travail of the Messiah’. The coming of the messianic age would be like the agony of birth. In the gospels, Jesus is depicted as foretelling the signs of the end and is reported as saying: ‘All this is but the beginning of the birth pangs’ (Matthew 24:8; Mark 13:8).
(4) The last days will be a time of terror. Even the mighty will cry bitterly (Zephaniah 1:14); the inhabitants of the land shall tremble (Joel 2:1); people will be terrified and will seek some place to hide and will find none (1 Enoch 102:1, 102:3).
(5) The last days will be a time when the world will be shattered, a time of cosmic upheaval when the universe, as we know it, will disintegrate. The stars will be extinguished; the sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood (Isaiah 13:10; Joel 2:30–1, 3:15). The firmament will crash in ruins; there will be a torrent of raging fire, and creation will become a molten mass (Sibylline Oracles 3:83–9). The seasons will lose their order, and there will be neither night nor dawn (Sibylline Oracles 3:796–806).
(6) The last days will be a time when human relationships will be destroyed. Hatred and enmity will reign upon the earth. People will turn against their neighbours (Zechariah 14:13). Brothers will kill each other; parents will murder their own children; from dawn to sunset they shall slay one another (1 Enoch 100:1–2). Honour will be turned into shame, strength into humiliation, and beauty into ugliness. Jealousy will arise in those who did not think much of themselves, and passion will take hold of those who were peaceful (2 Baruch 48:31–7).
(7) The last days will be a time of judgment. God will come like a refiner’s fire – and who can endure the day of his coming (Malachi 3:1–3)? It is by the fire and the sword that God will plead with people (Isaiah 66:15–16). The Son of Man will destroy sinners from the earth (1 Enoch 69:27), and the smell of brimstone will pervade all things (Sibylline Oracles 3:58–61). The sinners will be burned up as Sodom was long ago (Jubilees 36:10–11).
(8) In all these visions, the Gentiles have their place – but it is not always the same place.
(a) Sometimes the vision is that the Gentiles will be totally destroyed. Babylon will become such a desolation that there will be no place for the wandering Arabs to plant their tents among the ruins, no place for the shepherds to graze their sheep; it will be nothing more than a desert inhabited by the beasts (Isaiah 13:19–22). God will trample down the Gentiles in his anger (Isaiah 63:6). The Gentiles will come over in chains to Israel (Isaiah 45:14).
(b) Sometimes one last gathering of the Gentiles against Jerusalem is depicted, and one last battle in which they are destroyed (Ezekiel 38:14–39:16; Zechariah 14:1–11). The kings of the nations will throw themselves against Jerusalem; they will seek to ravage the shrine of the Holy One; they will place their thrones in a ring round the city, with their faithless people with them; but it will be only for their final destruction (Sibylline Oracles 3:663–72).
(c) Sometimes there is the picture of the conversion of the Gentiles through Israel. God has given Israel as a light to the Gentiles, that God’s salvation may reach to the ends of the earth (Isaiah 49:6). The coastlands wait upon God (Isaiah 51:5); the ends of the earth are invited to look to God and be saved (Isaiah 45:20–2). The Son of Man will be a light to the Gentiles (1 Enoch 48:4–5). Nations shall come from the ends of the earth to Jerusalem to see the glory of God (Psalms of Solomon 17:31).
Of all the pictures in connection with the Gentiles, the most common is that of the destruction of the Gentiles and the exaltation of Israel.
(9) In the last days, the Jews who have been scattered throughout the earth will be gathered into the holy city again. They will come back from Assyria and from Egypt and will worship the Lord in his holy mountain (Isaiah 27:12–13). The hills will be removed and the valleys will be filled in, and even the trees will gather to give them shade as they come back (Baruch 5:5–9). Even those who died as exiles in far countries will be brought back.
(10) In the last days, the New Jerusalem, which is already prepared in heaven with God (4 Ezra 10:44–59; 2 Baruch 4:2–6), will come down among men and women. It will be more beautiful than anything else, with foundations of sapphires, pinnacles of agate, and jewelled gates on walls of precious stones (Isaiah 54:11–12; Tobit 13:16). The glory of the latter house will be greater than the glory of the former (Haggai 2:9).
(11) An essential part of the apocalyptic picture of the last days was the resurrection of the dead. ‘Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt’ (Daniel 12:2–3). Sheol and the grave will give back that which has been entrusted to them (1 Enoch 51:1). The scope of the resurrection of the dead varied. Sometimes it was to apply only to the righteous in Israel; sometimes to all Israel; and sometimes to all people everywhere. Whatever form it took, it is true to say that now for the first time we see emerging a strong hope of a life beyond the grave.
(12) There were differences as to how long the messianic kingdom was to last. The most natural – and the most usual – view was to think of it as lasting forever. The kingdom of the saints is an everlasting kingdom (Daniel 7:27). Some believed that the reign of the Messiah would last for 400 years. They arrived at this figure from a comparison of Genesis 15:13 and Psalm 90:15. In Genesis, Abraham is told that the period of affliction of the children of Israel will be 400 years; the psalmist’s prayer is that God will make the nation glad for as many days as he has afflicted them and as many years as they have seen evil. In Revelation, the view is that there is to be a reign of the saints for 1,000 years; then the final battle with the assembled powers of evil; then the golden age of God.
Such were the events which the apocalyptic writers pictured in the last days; and practically all of them find their place in the pictures of Revelation. To complete the picture, we may briefly summarize the blessings of the coming age.
The Blessings of the Age to Come
(1) The divided kingdom will be united again. The house of Judah will walk again with the house of Israel (Jeremiah 3:18; Isaiah 11:13; Hosea 1:11). The old divisions will be healed, and the people of God will be one.
(2) There will be in the world an amazing fertility. The wilderness will become a field (Isaiah 32:15); it will become like the garden of Eden (Isaiah 51:3); the desert will rejoice and blossom like the crocus (Isaiah 35:1). The earth will yield its fruit ten thousandfold; on each vine will be 1,000 branches, on each branch 1,000 clusters, in each cluster 1,000 grapes, and each grape will give a cor (120 gallons) of wine (2 Baruch 29:5–8). There will be a situation of plenty, such as the world has never known, and the hungry will rejoice.
(3) A consistent part of the dream of the new age was that in it all wars would