Revelation 7:4

ἑκατὸν τεσσεράκοντα τέσσαρες χιλιάδες. As there are twelve tribes, so in each tribe there are to be twelve thousands: possibly with a reminiscence of the primitive political and military organisation, when a “thousand” was a recognised subdivision of a tribe. See Judges 6:15; Micah 5:2. Any way, we are probably to understand that each portion of Israel is a miniature likeness of the whole.

ἐκ πάσης φυλῆς υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ. It is one of the most controverted of the minor questions of interpretation of this Book, whether Israel is here to be understood in the literal or the spiritual sense. This vision of a certain number of Israelites, and the next of an innumerable multitude of all nations, are certainly correlative to each other: and the most obvious way of understanding them is, that among God’s elect there will be many faithful Israelites, and yet few comparatively to the number of faithful Gentiles. It certainly seems as if the 144,000 are to be preserved from “the great tribulation” and the great multitude converted by enduring it. Others however understand these 144,000, and the innumerable multitude of Revelation 7:9, to represent the same persons regarded in two different aspects. To God they are all His own people, all duly numbered and organised and marshalled as His army, and everyone known to Him by name: on the other hand, from a human point of view they belong to all nations, and are too many to be counted. Lastly, in Revelation 14:1 we hear of a company of 144,000 whom (not from their number only) it is natural to identify with these: and it appears that those represent, not the whole multitude of the elect, but a group specially faithful and specially favoured, even among them. It seems worth asking, whether the true solution be not a combination of the first and last, whether we are to understand that Christ’s nearest and dearest ones still come from God’s old people, who are still “beloved for the fathers’ sake,” though they attain such nearness to Him, not by virtue of their descent, but by graces of the same kind as sanctify Gentile saints also.