Sunday School Notes: Revelation 10:11

And they say to me, “It is necessary for you to prophecy again against peoples and nations and tongues and many kings.”

That’s right–we didn’t get beyond the last verse of chapter 10 this week! We spent a little time recapping to make sure our heads were in the context before we began our discussion. And then I insisted on diving into some Greek grammar to explain why I disagree with a couple of the ESV’s translation choices. Hopefully it was all good information, and helped us all appreciate not only what’s going on in this verse, but some of the issues Bible translators face when confronted with a number of legitimate ways to render a verse, or even a phrase.

We encountered the first translational issue with the opening words: “And they say to me…” The ESV has, “And I was told…” but the verb in Greek (legousin) is third person plural active, not first person singular passive. One possible explanation is the apparent ambiguity over who’s speaking. In verse 8, the “voice from heaven” (we presume God) addressed John. In verse 10, the mighty angel spoke to John. So who does “they” refer toi? Some Greek manuscripts have the third person singular form of the verb here (legei), “he says,” including those followed by the King James and the New King James. The manuscripts that have the plural are, however, more than likely correct given the nature of those manuscripts (earlier and generally more reliable). It seems some copyists tried to resolve the issue by assuming the angel is still speaking to John. But all this is, I think, unnecessary evasion of the issue. Why can’t “they” be the unified voice of God and the mighty angel, speaking with one purpose. How much more confirmation would John need of both the divine authenticity, and the urgency of the message than for both the voice from heaven and the mighty angel to deliver it together? The ESV is generally a good translation, but I think the translators did their readers a disservice here.

The message John receives is more of a command, or divine mandate. Literally, he is told, “it is necessary for you to prophesy again…” He clearly isn’t being given a choice in the matter. And his prophetic calling is to “peoples and nations and tongues and many kings.” This is another place where the ESV and I disagree, though this isn’t nearly as significant a disagreement as the last one. Here, the ESV–and to be fair, many other translations–say, “many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.” So the disagreement is over where to place the “many.” The Greek could go either way. I prefer “many kings” for two reasons:

1. The combination “peoples, nations, and tongues” is used elsewhere in Revelation to include the entirety of humanity (peoples = ethnicities, nations = political boundaries, tongues = language groups). We see examples of this in Revelation 7:9 and 11:9. “Kings” is an addition to this, so it would be natural that the adjective “many” would go with “kings” and not with the established formula (“people, nations, and tongues”).
2. We are going to see judgment fall upon kings in coming chapters (16, 17, 18, and 19), so this serves as a foreshadowing of what’s to come.

However, as I said, either translation is perfectly acceptable.

What do the voices mean by “prophecy”? What is it they are calling John to do? We often think of prophecy as “foretelling,” and the prophet as someone who has some insight into future events. This is an aspect to Biblical prophecy, but there’s more to it than that. In fact, if we look at the Old Testament prophets, much of what they did was as much “forth-telling” as “foretelling.” In other words, their primary job was to proclaim whatever God had told them to proclaim. They were to be God’s spokesmen, and this may well involve speaking of things that will happen. It’s interesting to note that when the Old Testament prophets speak of what God will do, it’s often in the context of warning: “Thus says the Lord, you are like this, and do that, and if you don’t repent and mend your ways, God will do this.” Whatever the specifics of John’s prophetic proclamation might be, if the rest of Revelation is any indication, it’s definitely along the lines of a warning. The main difference with Ezekiel’s warnings, as we’ve noted before, is that there is no opportunity given to repent in Revelation. But since the unbelievers to whom he will be speaking are obstinate and hard-hearted (see the end of chapter 9), a call for repentance won’t be necessary.

Is John supposed to prophesy “about” these peoples, nations, tongues, and many kings, or “against” them? Most translations (including the ESV) favor “about,” but I think a good case can be made for “against.” The Greek phrase used here, prophêteuein epi, is used frequently in Ezekiel, and is rightly translated “to prophesy against” (e.g., 4:7; 6:2; 11:4; 13:2, 7;  20:46). However, in these instances, the Greek preposition epi is followed by a noun in the accusative case. [Greek nouns have different endings that usually designate what function that noun plays in a sentence, and that’s what is meant by its “case.” Other words, however, like prepositions can affect the case of a Greek noun.] This is one way epi can be translated when its following noun is in the accusative case, and not when the noun is in a different case. In Revelation 10:11, the epi is followed by nouns in the dative case, which can be translated “about,” but not usually “against.” So why would I even entertain the idea of translating epi “against” in Revelation 10:11? Here are my reasons:

• There are exceptions to the rule. One notable exception is Luke 12:52-53. Jesus is talking about the way households will be divided because of him: “Three against two, and two against three, father against son, and son against father.” All those “againsts” are epi followed by nouns in the dative case. The next group, “mother against daughter, and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law” are all epi followed by accusative nouns. Both Jesus and Luke knew their Greek, so this shows that “against” is at least an acceptable translation.
• As we have seen, John’s prophetic commission is one of warning, so it seems he will not just be speaking “about” these people, but “against” them.
• It’s also clear his message will be confrontational simply because the Lord anticipated hesitancy. The Lord’s words were sweet in his mouth, but bitter in his stomach. We discussed how that is probably a reference to the fact that the word of the Lord is always sweet in a believer’s mouth, but the message may not be pleasant, hence the bitter stomach. John’s feelings of uneasiness seem to be anticipated by the Lord when He tells him “it is necessary” that he prophesy.

In light of this, I think “about” is inadequate to convey the nature of John’s prophetic message. Yes, “about” could include confrontation, so I have no problem with those translations that want to render epi that way–indeed, it is the most grammatically consistent translation. But I think the force of the context means we must allow for the Luke 12 exception.

Finally, we considered the fact that John is being told to prophesy again. This is probably a reference back to 1:11, where he was told to write everything he sees in a book. What we have here, then, is either another commission, or maybe a renewal of that first commission. Why? Perhaps this is underscoring the gravity of what he’s about to see, and encouraging him to continue his work, even though the things he will have to say aren’t going to be warm and friendly.

We’ll start Chapter 11 next time, Lord willing.