Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Bride, the Lamb's Wife
Revelation 21:9-14
9 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls which were loaded with the seven last plagues came, and he spoke with me, saying, “Come here. I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” · WEB
A bowl-angel shows the bride as he showed the prostitute, and the city's gates and foundations carry both covenants by name.
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls which were loaded with the seven last plagues came, and he spoke with me, saying, "Come here. I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife."
The symmetry is exact and deliberate: one of the bowl-angels showed the prostitute with the same summons — come here, I will show you Revelation 17:1 — and now shows the bride. The book's two women are exhibited by the same office, in the same formula, so that no reader can miss the comparison: the woman on the beast and the woman from heaven, the city of the kings' lusts and the city of the Lamb's love — and the guide to both is an executor of the plagues, because seeing the two women rightly is the judgment understood.
He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain Revelation 21:10 — the fourth and last transport Revelation 1:10 Revelation 4:2 Revelation 17:3: the prostitute was viewed from a wilderness; the bride is viewed from a mountain — Ezekiel's very high mountain of the temple-vision Ezekiel 40:2 — and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.
The city's first listed feature is not architecture: the glory of God — the shekinah that filled tabernacle and temple Exodus 40:34 now filling a city; her light like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal Revelation 21:11 — jasper is the enthroned one's own appearance in the first throne-vision Revelation 4:3: the city shines with the look of its occupant.
Having a great and high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel... And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb Revelation 21:12–14.
The city's identity documents are carved into its structure: twelve tribes on the gates — Ezekiel's own city-plan Ezekiel 48:31 — and twelve apostles on the foundations: the whole people of God, both covenants, one city — the twenty-four of the elder-thrones Revelation 4:4 built into the masonry. No one enters except through a gate named for Israel; nothing stands except on a foundation named for the apostles Ephesians 2:20 — the continuity the book has assumed everywhere Revelation 7:4 Revelation 14:1 here set in stone. And the gates face all four compass points, three to a side Revelation 21:13: from wherever on earth a pilgrim comes, there is a gate on his side of the city.
settled What this mark means