Revelation 7:17

ζωῆς goes with ὑδάτων (“living waters”) though prefixed for emphasis, like σαρκὸς in 1 Peter 3:21 (cf. Revelation 16:3 πᾶσα ψυχὴ ζωῆς); a favourite Johannine idea. In Enoch xlii, xlviii, the fountains contain wisdom which is drunk by all the thirsty, though in the centre there is also “a fountain of righteousness which was inexhaustible”; elsewhere in the division of Sheol assigned to the spirits of the righteous there is “a bright spring of the water of life” (Revelation 22:9) in accordance with the Pythagorean belief that the dead suffered from thirst in the underworld (Luke 16:24, cf. Dieterich, 97 f.). In the familiar vignette of ancient Egyptian eschatology, the deceased kneels before Osiris who pours out to him the water of life (the motto being that the soul may live); cf. Renouf's “Hibb. Lect.,” p. 141, and for “living” waters as divine, R. S. 127. In the ideal realm of the good Shepherd-King Yima, Iranian belief saw neither hunger nor thirst for the faithful, and found no place for death (cf. Revelation 21:4) or falsehood (Revelation 21:8) of any kind (passages and parallels in Böklen, 133 f.). ὁδηγήσει, a touch of local colour for Asiatic Christians, since sheep and shepherds were a common feature in the Lycos valley (C. B. P. i. 40 42); but the heaven of the Apocalypse is, in Semitic fashion, pastoral or civic, with touches of Babylonian splendour, unlike some later apocalypses, e.g., that of Peter (15 f.) where the Hellenic conception of Gods garden in the next world predominates (Dieterich, 19 f.). Briggs explains the variants σκηνώσει ἐπʼ αὐτούς (Revelation 7:15) and σκ. μετʼ αὐτῶν (Revelation 21:3), ἀπὸ τῶν ὀφθ. (Revelation 21:4) and ἐκ τῶν ὀφθ. (Revelation 7:17) as variant translations of בקרבם ישׁכן and מציניהם; but, like ἐπὶ τὸ μέτωπον (Revelation 13:16), ἐπὶ τῶν μετώπ. (Revelation 7:3, etc.), these are probably nothing more than rhetorical variations. Unlike the synoptic tradition (e.g., Matthew 2:6) and the fourth Gospel (John 10:1; John 10:18), the Apocalypse confines Christ's shepherding to the future life (see also Revelation 2:26-27). In Isaiah 53:6-7, the wayward roving habits of sheep express the temper of God's people, whilst the patient submissiveness of a lamb for sacrifice denotes the function of God's servant; in the Apocalypse, the latter (not the former) occurs. The saints are God's flock in heaven, not on earth (contrast 1 Peter 2:25; 1 Peter 5:2 f.).

Whatever elements have been employed in the following series (Revelation 7:8-11.) of trumpet-visions, no adequate data exist to prove that John has edited a Jewish or Jewish-Christian source here any more than in 6. The vision, which forms the result of the breaking of the seventh seal (Revelation 8:1-2), opens, after a prelude (Revelation 7:2-5), in Revelation 8:6 and does not close till Revelation 11:19 (cf. Revelation 8:5).