Today, I am reading and commenting on Revelation 4-8.

I am going to start with things which stood out to me from the start of this passage and we will see where we go from there.  I want to start by writing about the four living creatures.  They resemble the four living creatures from Ezekiel to a casual reading.  However a closer look shows that John describes them differently than Ezekiel.  In Ezekiel, each of the living creatures has four different faces.  Whereas in Revelation, each living creature has a single face, different from that of the others.  In Ezekiel each of the living creatures has four wings, while in Revelation they each have six wings.  On the other hand, the four faces are the same: human, lion, ox, and eagle.  Reading the description here I think it is clear that we are supposed to associate the four living creatures with the four living creatures in Ezekiel.  I am not sure we are to see them as the same creatures, but I don’t necessarily think they are different.  What I think is clear is that John was influenced by Ezekiel in the way he described his vision.  The next thing I wanted to write about is the twenty-four elders John writes about.  Every time I read this I wonder about the significance of the number twenty-four.  Are there twenty-four elders because twelve for the Old Covenant and twelve for the New Covenant?  Is there some other significance to there being twenty-four elders?  I was unable to find anything where someone gave a clear indication of the meaning for there being twenty-four elders.  However, I want to make note that the twenty-four elders held “bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.”  I rarely think about the significance of the incense offering in the Law of Moses, but if we think about how important incense was in Temple worship, it gives us a greater understanding of the importance of prayer.  Our prayers are the incense which the elders offer before God for all eternity.  Prayer is our offering to God.  Which suggests that we should pray more than we do.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.