Revelation 21:15-17

The measures of the city are now taken, as in Ezekiel 40:3; Ezekiel 40:48; Ezekiel 42:16 f., to elucidate the vision (otherwise in Revelation 11:1-2). It turns out to be an enormous quadrilateral cube, like Ezekiel's ideal sanctuary, a cube being symbolical of perfection to a Jew, as a circle is to ourselves. Whether 1500 miles represent the total circumference or the length of each side, the hyperbole is obvious, but John is following the patriotic rabbinic traditions which asserted that Jerusalem would extend as far as Damascus in the latter days (Zechariah 9:1) if not to the high throne of God. In Sib. Or. 5:250 f. the heaven-born Jews who inhabit Jerusalem are to run a wall as far as Joppa. Further measurements in Baba-Bathra f. 75, 2 (cf. Gfrôrer, ii. 245 f.; Bacher, Agada d. Tann. i. 194 f., 392). As in the case of the tabernacle in Jerusalem of the Hexateuch, so here: the symmetry and harmony of the divine life are naïvely represented by Oriental fantasy in terms of mathematics and architecture. A wall of about 72 yards high seems oddly unsymmetrical in view of the gigantic proportions of the city, though it might refer to the breadth (Simcox) or to the height of the city above the plain. But the whole description is built on multiples of twelve, a sacred number of completeness. The wall is a purely poetical detail, required to fill out the picture of the ancient city; like the similar touches in 24, 26, Revelation 22:2, it has no allegorical significance whatever. cf. Slav. En. lxv. 10: “and there shall be to them” (i.e., to the just in eternity) “a great wall which cannot be broken down”. μέτρον κ. τ. λ., another naive reminder (cf. Revelation 19:9-10; Revelation 22:8-9) that angels were not above men.