Fr. Stephen De Young: Okay, we’ll go ahead and get started. When we get started, we’ll be picking up at the beginning of the book of Revelation, chapter seven. We made fair headway last time. By way of hopefully not too-belabored review, what we mainly went through last time was St. John went into heaven through a door or a flap or a hatch, depending on your orientation toward it, and saw this scene of the Lamb, meaning Christ, opening the seals on this document that represented sort of the deed or the claim or the authority over the earth. As he broke these seals—and he broke six of the seven in what we read last time—as he broke them, these various things happened, that sort of unfolded on earth, that represented part of that process of Christ’s sort of taking back authority over the earth from those who had it unrighteously. It took the form of— We saw the four horsemen of the apocalypse, as they are now well known as they are depicted by Albrecht Dürer and others, and those representing conquest and famine and war and death that sort of went abroad in the earth. A few years from now, when we loop around and we get to Zephaniah, we’ll see sort of matching chariots there, but we’ll come back to that then. They’re the same colors in reverse order.

And then we saw a series of other judgments, sort of culminating with the judgment of the angelic powers in heaven and humans on earth, sort of as this unfolds. We talked about how what St. John is getting at. Remember, St. John is not here predicting the future—“Here’s a bunch of stuff that’s going to happen in a few thousand years, and here’s how to keep an eye on the news and figure out when it’s going to happen”—but that he’s giving the perspective from heaven. He’s now in heaven; he’s up above, and so he’s looking down, not just what’s going on in the first century on earth, but all of human history, all of the cosmos, all of the creation, and he can see from that vantage point, from that perspective, sort of the purposes for things and the meanings behind things.

He’s writing to give that perspective to, in particular, suffering people in the first century, to say: When you see these things unfolding, when you see conquerors coming and conquering the world, when you see people being martyred—and those martyrs crying out for justice and God doesn’t seem to be answering their cries for justice, at least not right away—when you see diseases, when you see famines, when you see suffering and death—when you see all these things, you need to understand that these are not signs that Christ isn’t coming back, that Christianity isn’t true, that… all this other nonsense. But this is part of the process of Christ taking back creation and dealing with the sin and the wickedness of creation in bringing people to repentance and giving people the opportunity for repentance before the end.

But in the end, that time of judgment is going to come; there’s going to be an end for the period of repentance, because, as we talked about last time, God has this balance that’s known only to him, of where he shows mercy because he wants everyone to repent and come to the knowledge of the truth, but at the same time the wicked are creating victims, committing horrible atrocities to the innocent, and God’s not going to let that go on forever. So eventually, for each person there’s a point of God’s knowing where he puts to an end that period of repentance for them, and that’s going to happen for the whole earth. That’s going to happen for history; that’s going to happen to this age. Eventually, at a point that only God knows, we’ll reach the point where any further mercy in terms of allowing more time for repentance is going to produce an unacceptable amount of evil and suffering within the world, and so he’s going to then cut it off.

And so St. John is trying to reveal this perspective to people, again, so that these people who are suffering, these people who were facing hardships, could understand what this is about, why this is happening, what the purpose is. God isn’t unaware of it. He knows that it’s happening. He’s allowing it for now, and here’s why, and here’s the hope that lies beyond it.

So hopefully that suffices for a brief summary. Unless we have any other comments or questions or further inquiries about syllabic alphabets, we’ll go ahead and pick up in book of Revelation or the Apocalypse of St. John or however you want to label it, chapter seven, verse one.

“After these things”—as we mentioned last time, there’s a lot of “after these things.” [Laughter] That’s not… That could be… I mentioned last time I think my grandfather, with his “the other day.” Like, “the other day,” something happened: that could be yesterday, that could be 20 years ago, that could be any day other than today. So: “after these things,” likewise, we have… There’s not a clear… We don’t get the Spongebob card with the “Eight Days Later.” [Laughter] It’s just some time afterward.

“After these things, I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, on the sea or on any tree.” This is not— We had this pattern where these seals were being opened. The seventh seal has not been opened yet. And so we see this image where sort of “pause” has been pressed on the world. So there’s angels [who] have been dispatched to the ends of the earth. No, this is not saying that the earth is literally flat and shaped like a square. Everybody knows it’s flat and round in a circle, combined. [Laughter]

The angels are sort of holding back the winds and not letting the winds blow, so kind of “pause” has been pressed right here. So we were right up to the end, to the judgment of those on heaven and those on earth, and now all of a sudden we hit “pause” for a second.

Verse two: “Then I saw another angel, ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God, and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the seas, saying, ‘Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.’ ” So this seal is like a wax seal that you would imprint into wax, to seal something and put the mark usually of the person’s name. This angel has the seal of the living God, of God, meaning God’s name, Yahweh. So we have revealed here what these angels are there to do. They’re paused right now, but they’re going to be carrying forward this judgment that we were just seeing with the stars falling from the heaven and everything. So this “pause” is pressed so that this angel with the seal can come and seal the servants of our God. Those who have followed God, those who are the servants of God, are going to get the stamp on their forehead.

Now, they’re getting a stamp with the name of God on their forehead. This is going to be important in a couple of chapters when we talk about the mark of the beast. So remember this, because we’re about to see a whole bunch of people get sealed by God. So whatever you say the mark of the beast is, you’ve also got to say that God has one. So if you’re going to say the mark of the beast is a vaccine, then there’s got to be a holy Church vaccine also that’s going to be given to the faithful. [Laughter] If you’re going to say that the mark of the beast is, I don’t know, playing Dungeons & Dragons, then you’re going to have to say that there’s going to be some other role-playing game that the faithful are going to play. Yeah, they’re going to play Warhammer. [Laughter] So whatever—

There is a seal—it’s also on the forehead—with the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel, there’s also the mark of the beast, which is what? The number of the beast’s name. So there’s going to be this parody. So whatever you say about one, it’s also going to be true of the other. That ruins a lot of people’s theories just sort of right off the bat. So if it’s a bar code that people are going to get tattooed on their head or a QR code, then there’s going to have to be, like, a holy QR code that the rest of us are going to get on our forehead, that when you scan will take us to, like, antiochian.org or something. [Laughter] I’m a little dubious of the QR code thing, but your knowledge may be…

So verse four: “And I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 of all the children of Israel were sealed.” So there’s 144,000. 144 is 12 times 12. So this is 12 times 12 times 1,000. Throughout—not just in the book of Revelation: in Greek literature, “a thousand” is used to represent “a large number.” It’s sort of the way we use “millions” or “billions.” You find, all through Greek literature, it’s like: thousands—thousands of thousands! We’d say, “Millions and millions!” or “Billions and billions!” So it is not a literal number, and I know that also breaks some people’s heart who want to take— “It says a thousand; it must mean a thousand!” Do a little research and find out how many actual men a centurion commanded; you’ll be very disappointed—because it’s not a hundred, it’s roughly. [Laughter] And that was the Roman military. So numbers used in apocalyptic literature are not more precise than Roman military units, allow me to suggest.

But so the idea here is: huge amount of people from… And it’s like 12 myriads, 12 big groups of people, from each of the twelve tribes. At least that’s what we’re told here, and now we’re going to get a list, and we’re going to notice some interesting things when we look at the list of tribes.

So starting in verse five—and I’m just going to run through the list: “Of the tribe of Judah, 12,000 were sealed. Of the tribe of Reuben, 12,000 were sealed. Of the tribe of Gad, 12,000 were sealed. Of the tribe of Asher, 12,000 were sealed. Of the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000 were sealed. Of the tribe of Manasseh, 12,000 were sealed. Of the tribe of Simeon, 12,000 were sealed. Of the tribe of Levi, 12,000 were sealed. Of the tribe of Issachar, 12,000 were sealed. Of the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 were sealed. Of the tribe of Joseph, 12,000 were sealed. Of the tribe of Benjamin, 12,000 were sealed.”

Okay, that’s twelve 12,000s—but did anybody notice anything about that list?

C1: Joseph isn’t a tribe.

Fr. Joseph: Joseph isn’t a tribe! So that’s one thing. Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, and they were listed as half-tribes usually in the Old Testament. And Manasseh’s there, and then we have Joseph. So Joseph must be standing in for Ephraim, but what does that mean? If the two sons of Joseph are listed here as two separate tribes and this is a list of tribe, what does that mean?

C1: Somebody’s missing.

Fr. Joseph: Someone is missing. Did anybody notice who was missing? There’s one tribe that’s missing, who’s been replaced by Manasseh—it’s Dan! [Laughter] The tribe of—

C2: Didn’t it say that the anti-Christ would be with the tribe of Dan?

Fr. Joseph: [Laughter] Yeah, so the tribe of Dan: not here. If one reads the Old Testament closely, they will understand why Dan is not here. So the tribe of Dan… We don’t get much mention of Dan himself, like in the Joseph story, which is the last, like, third of the book of Genesis, but at the end of that there’s what’s called the Testament of Jacob in Genesis 49. It’s called the Testament of Jacob because there’s a whole genre of Jewish literature called testaments, which is basically somebody’s parting words before they die. It’s not their will; it’s sort of the last… Typically, when someone who was the head of the family knew that their time was approaching when they were going to die, they’d get all their kids and gather the whole family together and they’d impart sort of some final words to everybody. So this became sort of a genre of literature. We have that one prominently in the book of Genesis, where Jacob has his twelve sons, and he sort of says some things to each of them that become prophetic.

And he says a bunch of horrible things to Dan! That he’s like a viper at the side of the road. Yeah… [Laughter] Completely just rips into Dan, and you’re kind of going: “Well, what did Dan do?” Well, Dan himself, the guy Dan, had not done anything. This stuff is prophetic, so if you read the one about Judah, it’s all about how the king will come from him and it’s all messianic prophecy for the tribe of Judah, for example. Benjamin also gets told he’s evil and rotten, and you’re all like: “Dude! Benjamin’s a nice kid in this story! What happened?” But that’s prophesying what’s going to happen in Judges and Saul, the first king of Israel, from the tribe of Benjamin. [Laughter]

But so Dan has all this horrible stuff said about him, so that’s our first glimpse that something’s not right. Because people love when I talk about this: our next real glimpse of Dan starts in the book of Judges. So Judges—actually, Joshua records this before Judges does. Both Joshua and Judges record Dan… There was a piece of territory; there was a piece of land that was supposed to be given to the tribe of Dan, and they don’t take it. Instead, they go and attack the city of Laish and massacre everyone there and rename it Dan. [Laughter] And it’s at the far north: north is like the direction where evil is. That’s where Baal is; that’s where all the bad things are: that’s where Dan heads and goes and massacres a city and takes it instead of doing what they were supposed to do. We’re also told in the book of Judges, they set up an idol there and hire Levites to conduct sacrifices for them there, so they’re already pagans.

Then Samson is from the tribe of Dan. Samson, not a good guy. People get mad when I talk about this, but it’s like: Read some Church Fathers. [Laughter] First of all, Samson: remember that the angel comes to Samson’s parents to say, “Oh, he’s going to be like a Nazarite; he’s going to be holy.” So they name him after Shemesh, the pagan sun-god, whose temple happens to be nearby—in Dan, because they have other pagan temples in Dan already. They name him after the pagan sun-god. The story of Samson is then him breaking all his vows. Remember he takes a vow not to drink anything alcohol, not to cut his hair, not to touch any unclean thing: he’s gone and eaten out of a lion carcass, getting drunk, marries a bunch of Philistines in sequence, sleeps with another Philistine. [Laughter] Finally gives up the hair thing and loses his strength. Everything goes bad for Samson.

C2: Poor Dan.

Fr. Joseph: [Laughter] Yeah. So he sort of kind of gets revenge, like murder-suicide, okay… [Laughter] But for this reason, St. Hippolytus says that Samson is sort of a forerunner of anti-Christ, because St. Hippolytus is tracking with this whole Dan thing, up to and including the fact that it’s not here in Revelation. So based on that St. Hippolytus concludes that anti-Christ, like the final Antichrist, is going to come from the tribe of Dan, and Samson is like a forerunner of what that looks like.

C2: So he’s not going to be Roman?

Fr. Joseph: According to St. Hippolytus. St. Ephraim the Syrian also, when he lists a bunch of things that are in hell, as sort of monuments—he’s got the corpses of the giants and then he’s got Samson’s broken body there as a monument to his wickedness. So again, if you don’t like St. Ephraim the Syrian… If you don’t like me saying negative things about Samson, take it up with St. Hippolytus and St. Ephraim the Syrian.

But Dan doesn’t get any better as it goes on through the Old Testament. [Laughter] When Israel splits off, the northern tribes of Israel, Jeroboam, son of Nebat, is the first king. He sets up the golden calves at Bethel and Dan! [Laughter] So they’re still one of the main pagan shrines of that religion. So Dan all the way through, just bad; they’re apostates from the jump, worshiping pagan gods, steal their city through a massacre, nothing good to say about Dan. So it’s not really surprising that they’re left out here, that Dan is sort of the one of the twelve that’s sort of irredeemable.

Now remember when we talked about the 24 elders, how there was this parallel made between the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles, the twelve disciples. Remember the twelve disciples, that promise was that they would sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel? There was also one of the twelve disciples that went bad, right? [Laughter] And remember, Christ says, “Did I not choose all of you? Yet one of you is a serpent or a viper,” that same kind of imagery from Dan. So Dan is one of these. You’ve got Cain, you’ve got Dan, you’ve got Judas: this sort of marker of the one who just refuses: refuses to repent, refuses to be reconciled, refuses to follow God, refuses—expressing that as this possibility. And so we can see it’s missing.

Now another point, though: at the time St. John is writing this, how many of these tribes actually existed?

C1: Judah does.

Fr. Joseph: Yeah, Judah, some Benjamites—there’s some Benjamites around—there’s some Levites around… That’s it. The rest of these tribes haven’t existed at this point for more than 800 years. [Laughter] The Assyrians took them out. So the Assyrians came in, they conquered the northern kingdom, they deported those tribes to other parts of their empire, and then they brought people from other parts of their empire and settled them in what had been the northern kingdom of Israel, and then promoted everybody interbreeding together. This is part of how the Assyrians maintained peace in their empire, because if you were enslaved in your own country, you might fight for your homeland, for your family farm, for the place where generations of your people have lived, but if you’ve only been living some place for 20 years and you have no connection to it—you’re just deported there; you’re next to some river in Mesopotamia, working land you don’t own—a lot harder to get a revolution going, a resistance going. [Laughter]

So that’s why they did this, and that’s where the Samaritans whom we see in the New Testament came from, because Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom. They were— This is why the Judeans didn’t like the Samaritans, because they said, “Oh, you guys are a bunch of half-breeds. You guys are a bunch of heretics. You’re not really Jewish. You’re not really Israelites.”

I actually have an old Old Testament professor, Lawson Younger, who has spent much of his later career cataloguing where all these tribes went. You can trace them for a few generations in these Assyrian towns that they were moved to, because you find these Jewish names, or Israelite names, in various Assyrian inscriptions and in trade documents and these kind of things in certain parts of Assyria, but after a few generations, they’re gone.

So does it make sense, since the original readers of this were all too aware of that fact—does it make sense to read this literally? Not just the numbers, but does it make sense to say, “Oh, this is talking about Jewish people from the twelve tribes”? —which is contradictory, because ‘Jewish’ is ‘Judean’: Judah, that’s one tribe. But these are people ethnically from these tribes: does that make any sense? And the people who originally read this at the end of the first century knew that that made no sense. So if there are people associated with these tribes who are followers of God, where would they have to come from? They’d have to come from the Gentiles whom those tribes were dispersed into. They were dispersed out into those tribes, so they’d have to come back in.

We’ve talked about this—you can go back and listen to it online—back when we talked about Romans 9-11, especially chapter 11 of Romans. This is what St. Paul does, too. This is how St. Paul understands what’s going on with the ten tribes, is he talks about they were dispersed to the Gentiles, and so when the Gentiles come to faith in Christ, they’re sort of re-filling these other tribes. And that’s where he says, “Therefore all Israel will be saved,” because the prophecies in the Old Testament didn’t say, “Well, most of these tribes are going to get wiped out, but God’ll save, like, the remnant from Judah.” What the prophets say, even after the Assyrians have done what they did, is, over and over again in Jeremiah and Ezekiel—so Ezekiel, we’re talking after the exile of Judah—is that God’s going to take the stick of Ephraim and the stick of Judah, and he’s going to bind them back together. He’s going to restore the whole thing, and so the way to do that is from the nations into which they were dispersed, from the Gentiles.

So the image we’re getting here is not of sort of this select group of what we would today call “Jewish people” who are saved and then “oh yeah, there’s also there’s some Gentiles,” and they’re these two separate things—sorry, dispensationalists. So we’ve got a tribe; he’s mentioned first, you notice. Judah was not the firstborn son. Most of this list is in birth order; that’s why Joseph and Benjamin are last. Judah wasn’t the firstborn son of Jacob; Reuben was. You notice Reuben’s listed second. Judah here is the Judeans; Judah is the Jews. They’re one tribe, and then all the rest of these folks are Christians from the nations. They’re Christians from Judah, from Judea, Jewish Christians. They’re listed first, and then the Christians from all the other nations. So this is an image of everybody.

A lot of our Protestant friends have this basic issue when they’re reading Romans 9-11, when they’re reading passages like this, that they don’t distinguish between Judeans and Israel. It’s two different words; St. Paul uses them very carefully and differently, because Israel is the bigger category. When he’s talking about Israel, he’s talking about all twelve tribes, the full restoration of the people of God; and when he’s talking about Judeans, often translated “Jews” in our English Bibles, he’s talking about Judeans: he’s talking about this particular people in Judea, and they didn’t really have a concept of DNA and ethnicity to work from. Judeans versus people of other nations: to restore the whole people of God, you need more than just Judeans; we need the rest.

And so that’s the picture here. It is a picture that is universal in the sense that it is not just based on one ethnicity or place or country; it is not universal in the sense that Dan is left out. There are those who reject… But even Dan, even the Danites are doing what? They’re rejecting their heritage. So it’s not that they were rejected, it’s that they rejected what was given to them, what was offered to them. In the same way, Judas was not thrown out of the disciples; he chose. Cain was not thrown out of his family; he chose to murder his brother and not repent.