Revelation 18:20

18:20 (Rejoice over her, O heaven,

and you saints and apostles and prophets,

for God has pronounced judgment against her on your behalf!)

Revelation 13:18

13:18 This calls for wisdom: Let the one who has insight calculate the beast’s number, for it is man’s number, and his number is 666.

Revelation 18:4

18:4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, so you will not take part in her sins and so you will not receive her plagues,

Revelation 21:21

21:21 And the twelve gates are twelve pearls – each one of the gates is made from just one pearl! The main street of the city is pure gold, like transparent glass.

Revelation 2:10

2:10 Do not be afraid of the things you are about to suffer. The devil is about to have some of you thrown into prison so you may be tested, 10  and you will experience suffering 11  for ten days. Remain faithful even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown that is life itself. 12 

Revelation 4:8

4:8 Each one of the four living creatures had six wings 13  and was full of eyes all around and inside. 14  They never rest day or night, saying: 15 

Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God, the All-Powerful, 16 

Who was and who is, and who is still to come!”


tn On the phrase “pronounced judgment” BDAG 567 s.v. κρίμα 4.b states, “The OT is the source of the expr. κρίνειν τὸ κρ. (cp. Zech 7:9; 8:16; Ezk 44:24) ἔκρινεν ὁ θεὸς τὸ κρίμα ὑμῶν ἐξ αὐτῆς God has pronounced judgment for you against her or God has pronounced on her the judgment she wished to impose on you (HHoltzmann, Hdb. 1893 ad loc.) Rv 18:20.”

tn Grk “God has judged a judgment of you of her.” Verse 20 is set in parentheses because in it the saints, etc. are addressed directly in the second person.

tn Grk “Here is wisdom.”

tn Grk “it is man’s number.” ExSyn 254 states “if ἀνθρώπου is generic, then the sense is, ‘It is [the] number of humankind.’ It is significant that this construction fits Apollonius’ Canon (i.e., both the head noun and the genitive are anarthrous), suggesting that if one of these nouns is definite, then the other is, too. Grammatically, those who contend that the sense is ‘it is [the] number of a man’ have the burden of proof on them (for they treat the head noun, ἀριθμός, as definite and the genitive, ἀνθρώπου, as indefinite – the rarest of all possibilities). In light of Johannine usage, we might also add Rev 16:18, where the Seer clearly uses the anarthrous ἄνθρωπος in a generic sense, meaning ‘humankind.’ The implications of this grammatical possibility, exegetically speaking, are simply that the number ‘666’ is the number that represents humankind. Of course, an individual is in view, but his number may be the number representing all of humankind. Thus the Seer might be suggesting here that the antichrist, who is the best representative of humanity without Christ (and the best counterfeit of a perfect man that his master, that old serpent, could muster), is still less than perfection (which would have been represented by the number seven).” See G. K. Beale, Revelation, [NIGTC], 723-24, who argues for the “generic” understanding of the noun; for an indefinite translation, see the ASV and ESV which both translate the clause as “it is the number of a man.”

tc A few mss (Ì115 C, along with a few mss known to Irenaeus {and two minuscule mss, 5 and 11, no longer extant}), read 616 here, and several other witnesses have other variations. Irenaeus’ mention of mss that have 616 is balanced by his rejection of such witnesses in this case. As intriguing as the reading 616 is (since the conversion of Nero Caesar’s name in Latin by way of gematria would come out to 616), it must remain suspect because such a reading seems motivated in that it conforms more neatly to Nero’s gematria.

tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.

tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

tn The Greek word πλατεῖα (plateia) refers to a major (broad) street (L&N 1.103).

tn Grk “is about to throw some of you,” but the force is causative in context.

10 tn Or “tempted.”

11 tn Or “experience persecution,” “will be in distress” (see L&N 22.2).

12 tn Grk “crown of life,” with the genitive “of life” (τῆς ζωῆς, th" zwh") functioning in apposition to “crown” (στέφανον, stefanon): “the crown that consists of life.”

11 tn Grk “six wings apiece,” but this is redundant with “each one” in English.

12 tn Some translations render ἔσωθεν (eswqen) as “under [its] wings,” but the description could also mean “filled all around on the outside and on the inside with eyes.” Since the referent is not available to the interpreter, the exact force is difficult to determine.

13 tn Or “They never stop saying day and night.”

14 tn On this word BDAG 755 s.v. παντοκράτωρ states, “the Almighty, All-Powerful, Omnipotent (One) only of God…() κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ π. …Rv 1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7; 21:22.”