Revelation contains more OT allusions than any other New Testament book

Old Testament Allusions in Revelation: An Amillennial Partial-Preterist Perspective

Introduction

The book of Revelation is saturated with Old Testament language and imagery. Scholars have noted that Revelation contains more OT allusions than any other New Testament book – on the order of hundreds of references (one analysis tallied about 348 OT allusions, roughly “ten Old Testament references for every chapter” ). John nowhere quotes the Old Testament verbatim, yet nearly one-fifth of Revelation’s wording echoes earlier scripture . In fact, Revelation “is the most Jewish of all the books of the New Testament, drawing greatly on Jewish symbols, history, concepts and nuances of language”. The author assumes his readers recognize these allusions. John’s visions translate Old Testament symbols into a New Testament prophetic context, much as the minor prophets’ own visions did for Israel.

This intensive use of OT symbolism means that Revelation’s bizarre imagery was not meant to confuse, but to reveal, provided one reads it against the backdrop of Scripture. As one commentator puts it, “People who do not understand its symbols simply do not know the Bible well… the symbols in Revelation are… plain references that were very familiar to the people to whom it was written”. An Amillennial, Partial-Preterist approach especially emphasizes this context. In this view, Revelation was composed before the fall of Jerusalem (c. AD 65) and largely prophesied events that “must soon take place” (Rev 1:1) in the first century. Accordingly, “most of the prophecy of the book of Revelation has been fulfilled” in the great tribulation unleashed by Nero’s persecution and the Jewish War (AD 66–70). The Beast in Revelation is understood to be Emperor Nero himself, and “Babylon the Great” represents apostate Jerusalem allied with Rome. Yet as partial preterists/amillennialists also affirm a future second coming and final judgment still to come, which Revelation hints at in its final chapters. In what follows, we will survey Revelation’s major Old Testament references, particularly those drawing on the minor prophets and explain their meaning through this theological lens.

Prophetic Symbolism from the Minor Prophets

Much of John’s symbolic language is lifted directly from Israel’s prophetic literature, including the so-called Minor Prophets (Hosea–Malachi). These prophets frequently depicted historical judgments in metaphorical, cosmic terms, imagery which Revelation adopts and reapplies to the first-century crisis. For example, the “Day of the Lord” language of darkness and upheaval appears in both the Minor Prophets and Revelation. In Joel, the Lord’s coming judgment was accompanied by the sun turning to darkness and the moon to blood (Joel 2:31), a description John echoes at the opening of the sixth seal (Rev 6:12). In Amos, God warned Israel, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight” (Amos 8:9); accordingly Revelation 6:12–14 portrays a great earthquake, a blackened sun and blood-red moon, stars falling, and the sky rolled up, stock imagery the prophets used for nation shaking calamities. Crucially, partial-preterists understand these cosmic signs figuratively: just as Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Joel used such language to foretell the fall of Babylon, Egypt, or Edom, John uses it for the coming fall of Jerusalem and upheaval of the Old Covenant order . These vivid signs symbolize a world ending event, not the end of the physical planet, but the end of a nation’s world. Indeed, research shows that in the OT such phenomena “were fulfilled many times, showing it is figurative of a kingdom collapsing” (e.g. the fall of Babylon, Edom, Egypt). Early Jewish Christians familiar with the prophets would recognize that Revelation’s “falling stars” and black sun signaled God’s judgment on a corrupt power, in this case first-century Jerusalem and Rome, rather than a literal astronomical catastrophe.

One of the most dramatic OT images adopted in Revelation is the locust plague from the book of Joel. Joel 1–2 describes swarms of locusts like an army devouring the land, a harbinger of the Day of the Lord. John picks up this image in the fifth trumpet (Rev 9:1–11), where he unleashes a horde of demonic “locusts” from the abyss. The allusion is explicit: “The imagery of the present chapter is adapted in part from the prophet Joel, who described successive invasions of locusts that devoured the land like fire”. But whereas Joel’s locusts ruined vegetation, John’s locusts are told “not to harm the grass” but instead to torment unbelieving people, showing this is symbolic warfare (Rev 9:4). An amillennial/preterist interpretation sees Joel’s prophecy as having a first-century fulfillment. The locust-army signifies the invading forces of heathendom specifically, the Roman army that besieged Judea under Nero. John even identifies the locusts’ king as “Apollyon” in Greek or “Abaddon” in Hebrew (Rev 9:11), meaning Destroyer. This points to Nero Caesar, whose name famously equates to 666, as the demonic “angel of the Abyss” unleashing destruction. Historically, Nero did initiate a hellish assault: in AD 66–70 Roman legions swarmed Judea, razed Jerusalem’s temple, and slaughtered the unsealed. Strikingly, Revelation notes the locusts would torment for “five months” (Rev 9:5,10), about the length of a typical locust season, and also the exact duration of Jerusalem’s final siege in 70 AD (five months). Those five months were a period when “men will seek death and not find it” (Rev 9:6), an apt description of the unbearable suffering and despair recorded by Josephus during the famine inside Jerusalem. Thus, by refracting Joel’s ancient plague through a new lens, John “signifies the imminent fulfillment” of prophecy in his own generation namely, Rome’s devastating invasion as the locust-like wrath of God against Jerusalem’s apostasy.

Many other motifs from the Twelve Prophets recur in Revelation. The four colored horses that appear when the seals are opened (Rev 6:1–8) are a clear callback to Zechariah. Zechariah saw multicolored horses – red, black, white, dappled – patrolling the earth as agents of God’s Spirit (Zech 1:8; 6:1–8). John places a matching vision at the start of the Tribulation: “I looked, and behold, a white horse… a red horse… a black horse… a pale horse” – a sequence directly “alluding to Zechariah 1 and 6”. In Zechariah the horses symbolized God’s active oversight of the nations; John uses them to symbolize the spiraling judgment about to hit Israel – conquest, war, famine, and death. From a preterist perspective, these four horsemen represent the very real calamities that befell Judea in the Jewish War (AD 66–70). The white horse (Rev 6:2) carries a crowned conqueror bent on victory not Christ here, but a symbol of imperial invaders (Roman generals like Vespasian) or militant revolt. The red horse takes peace from the land, depicting war and civil strife (fitting the internecine Jewish civil wars that Josephus describes during the revolt). The black horse brings scales and exorbitant prices for grain, a classic sign of famine, which indeed ravaged Jerusalem during the siege. Finally, the pale-green horse is Death, followed by Hades gathering the slain, a grim personification of the massive death toll from sword, famine, pestilence, and wild beasts (echoing the covenant curses of Leviticus 26:25–26). These fourfold judgments (war, strife, famine, plague) are exactly how Ezekiel and Jeremiah warned Jerusalem of God’s wrath (cf. Ezek 14:21). In short, Zechariah’s horsemen patrolled the earth to report its rest or turmoil, whereas John’s horsemen are sent to execute turmoil, the cursed destiny of a nation that rejected its Messiah. John has essentially recast Zechariah’s vision as an omen of Rome’s legions and the horrors of the Jewish War, all under God’s sovereign decree. The first readers of Revelation, many of them Jewish Christians would immediately recognize the horsemen from their Scriptures and grasp the warning that “the ride of the four horsemen” meant Jerusalem’s judgment was at hand.

Another Zecharian symbol occurs in Revelation 11: the vision of two Witnesses. John describes “two olive trees and two lampstands” who prophesy in sackcloth, work miracles, are killed by the Beast, and then resurrected and ascend to heaven (Rev 11:3–12). This scene brims with Old Testament allusions. The “two olive trees” explicitly allude to Zechariah 4, where the prophet saw a golden lampstand fed with oil by two olive trees, interpreted as “the two anointed ones” (Joshua the high priest and Zerubbabel the governor) who led post-exilic Israel. By evoking this, John indicates his two Witnesses will likewise provide God’s light and leadership to His people . The Witnesses also invoke the power of Moses and Elijah: they can “shut the sky so that no rain falls” and “turn water to blood and strike with plagues” (Rev 11:6), just as Elijah and Moses did by God’s power. From a partial-preterist stance, the two Witnesses represent the prophetic testimony of the early Church (especially in Jerusalem) during the years leading up to the war. They could even correspond to two historical figures, many suggest the apostles Peter and Paul, the foremost leaders of the 1st-century church, who were martyred under Nero. Indeed, John’s narrative closely matches the timing of their deaths: the Witnesses preach 1,260 days (the span of Nero’s persecution) and then are killed by the Beast from the abyss (Nero’s regime) in the “great city” (Rev 11:7–8). That “great city” is pointedly identified as “Sodom and Egypt – where their Lord was crucified”, a transparent clue that it symbolizes Jerusalem (cf. Luke 13:33-34) . Jerusalem is spiritually nicknamed “Sodom” (for immorality) and “Egypt” (for oppression of God’s people), just as Isaiah once nicknamed Jerusalem “Sodom” in her sin (Isa 1:10). So Revelation portrays Jerusalem as so apostate that she has become like the pagan nations of old that God destroyed. The two Witnesses’ public death in Jerusalem’s “street” symbolizes the climax of Jewish opposition to the gospel (recall Jesus said, “it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem”, Luke 13:33). According to Revelation 11, the unbelieving world rejoiced at the church’s apparent defeat (11:10). But after “3½ days” the Witnesses were raised and taken up in vindication (11:11–12). In prophetic drama, this resurrection does not refer to individual bodies so much as the Church’s collective deliverance and victory. History confirms that after 3½ years of fierce Neronic persecution (AD 64–68), the Christian church was suddenly spared: Nero died in June 68, his persecution ceased, and the focus of Roman wrath shifted entirely to Jerusalem and the Jewish rebels. It was a resurrection of fortunes, the beleaguered church was liberated and the covenant-breakers in Jerusalem bore the brunt of judgment. John’s vision then reports a great earthquake collapsing a tenth of the city and 7,000 deaths (Rev 11:13), likely symbolizing the internecine strife and collapse within Jerusalem during the war (perhaps alluding to the factional fighting that split the city). In sum, the two Witnesses narrative weaves together Zechariah’s olive trees, Mosaic and Elijah motifs, and Jesus’ own prophecies to dramatize the faithful witness of Christ’s Church and the imminent fall of Jerusalem (the city guilty of killing the prophets and apostles ). The partial-preterist reading sees their ascension as the Church’s vindication and the earthquake as Jerusalem’s internal implosion just before its fall in AD 70.

The Minor Prophets also contribute to Revelation’s grand finale. Zechariah and Malachi envisioned the coming of the Lord and the cleansing of God’s people in terms echoed by John. For instance, Zechariah prophesied that the Lord would come “with all His holy ones” (Zech 14:5) and “on that day there shall be continuous day, known to the Lord, not day or night” (Zech 14:7). Revelation reuses these ideas in its depiction of Christ’s Parousia and the New Jerusalem: when Christ the warrior rides forth with the armies of heaven (Rev 19:11-14), and in the New Jerusalem “there will be no night there” for the Lamb is its light (Rev 21:25). Zechariah 14 also foresaw “living waters shall flow out of Jerusalem” (Zech 14:8) and “the Lord will be king over all the earth” (14:9). John duly shows the river of the water of life flowing from God’s throne through the New Jerusalem (Rev 22:1), and Christ acclaimed as “King of kings” over all nations (Rev 19:16) – a picture of the gospel’s healing flow to the world and Christ’s universal reign in the Church age. In fact, the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21–22 is the capstone of all prophetic hope, drawing imagery from multiple OT prophets (Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah). John hears the echo of Haggai and Zechariah in the triumphant cry, “The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and His Christ, and He shall reign forever” (Rev 11:15), signaling that the promised Messianic Kingdom has arrived in its fullness once Jerusalem (the old covenant capital) fell. Partial-preterists often point to this as the moment in AD 70 when the Kingdom of Christ was manifestly established over all opposing powers, vindicating Jesus’ prophecy that “there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” (Matt 16:28). In other words, Christ’s reign is a present reality – amillennialism teaches that He now reigns from heaven over the earth with a “rod of iron” (Rev 19:15) fulfilling Psalm 2, and Revelation’s later chapters reflect the Church’s secure position under that reign. While final consummation still awaits, John’s vision shows the spiritual reality of the New Covenant age using Old Testament Zion imagery: New Jerusalem is portrayed as the perfected covenant community, the “bride” contrasted with the harlot (old Jerusalem) .

Major Prophetic Influences: Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah

The minor prophets were not John’s only sources. He also heavily draws from the major prophets notably Daniel, Ezekiel, and Isaiah, to craft Revelation’s symbolic universe. The genre of Revelation itself is a blend of prophecy and apocalyptic in the vein of these Old Testament books. Like Daniel and Ezekiel, John receives visionary transports to the heavenly throne room and sees bizarre beasts and angels; like Isaiah and Jeremiah, he pronounces oracles of judgment and salvation. Indeed, John’s prophetic “oracles against Babylon” in Revelation 18–19 deliberately mimic the tone and wording of the OT oracles against Babylon and Tyre by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel . For example, when John sees “Babylon the great fallen” and hears a voice call, “Come out of her, my people” (Rev 18:2–4), he is directly quoting and reenacting Jeremiah’s judgment on historical Babylon (Jer 51:6–9) . The effect is to identify the “Babylon” of John’s day with the Babylon of old, in other words, to clue readers that this Babylon will likewise fall under God’s wrath. (As we will see, the preterist view holds that John’s “Babylon” is a code name for Jerusalem, the city now behaving like ancient Babylon in persecuting God’s people .)

Daniel provides the template for much of Revelation’s beast imagery and time-frame symbols. In Daniel 7, the prophet saw a vision of four great Beasts rising from the sea (Dan 7:3–7) representing four successive empires and the fourth beast had ten horns, among which a blasphemous little horn arose to make war on the saints. John combines these elements into his single composite Beast from the sea: “a beast… having ten horns and seven heads,” with features of a leopard, bear, and lion (Rev 13:1-2). This monster is essentially Daniel’s beasts rolled into one, symbolizing the Roman Empire as the heir of all prior pagan empires (a fierce beast with the strength of Babylon, Persia, Greece combined). Like Daniel’s horn, John’s Beast utters blasphemies and makes war on the saints for a limited period (42 months in Revelation 13:5, equivalent to Daniel’s “time, times, and half a time”). The amillennial preterist interpretation is that the sea-Beast represents Rome’s imperial power, personified in the line of caesars, with Nero as its current embodiment (the “head” who was then ruling, Rev 17:10). The seven heads of the Beast are identified as seven kings in Revelation 17:9-10, which partial-preterists correlate to the early Roman emperors (e.g. Julius Caesar through Nero and beyond). The Beast’s blasphemous horn/hhead also evokes Daniel’s “abomination that causes desolation”, fulfilled when Rome (and its client Jewish leaders) desecrated Jerusalem and slaughtered the saints. Notably, John also sees a second beast from the “land” (Earth) in Revelation 13:11, a two-horned beast that works false miracles and forces worship of the first Beast’s image. This second Beast (later called the “false prophet”) echoes the deceptive miracle-workers warned of in Deuteronomy 13 and also parodies the Lamb (it has lamb-like horns). Preterists commonly interpret it as the corrupt leadership of apostate Israel or the imperial cult – basically the local authorities (like the Herodian priests or false messiahs) who promoted worship of Caesar and persecuted the church on Rome’s behalf. The famous “mark of the Beast” on forehead or hand (Rev 13:16-18) also has an Old Testament backdrop: it reverses the “seal of God” given to the faithful (Rev 7:3) and parodies the Deuteronomic law to bind God’s words on one’s hand and forehead (Deut 6:8). Thus the “mark” signifies covenantal allegiance, in this case, slavish loyalty to Caesar or the apostate priesthood, in contrast to the faithful remnant sealed by God. The required number of the Beast, 666, may allude to Solomon’s gold (666 talents, 1 Kgs 10:14) or the “number of a man” in gematria – widely recognized as the numeric value of “Nero Caesar” in Hebrew letters. Either way, John invites those “with wisdom” to discern the Beast’s human identity (Rev 13:18), which the preterist view confidently finds in Nero, the tyrant who demanded to be called Lord and God and viciously stamped out the church. In sum, by borrowing Daniel’s beast-and-horn symbolism, John identifies Rome (and its puppet Jewish authorities) as the ultimate pagan beastly power that God will soon judge. But he also shows the persecuted saints that “the Son of Man” (Christ) from Daniel 7 is on the throne and will receive the Kingdom after the Beast’s allotted time is over (cf. Rev 14:14, 11:15), a hope Daniel foresaw and Revelation confirms.

Perhaps John’s closest literary parallel is Ezekiel, so much so that commentators have called Ezekiel “the Old Testament version of Revelation.” The two books track in remarkable tandem, covering similar sequences and even specific images. A few striking Ezekiel–Revelation parallels include:

• Throne Vision: Both begin with a majestic vision of God’s throne. Ezekiel saw the Lord on a throne above the cherubim, with lightning, wheels, and a rainbow (Ezek 1:4–28); John likewise sees a throne with lightning and a rainbow, surrounded by heavenly creatures (Rev 4:2–8). Both prophets fall on their face at the vision. John’s description of Christ in Rev 1 (eyes of fire, glowing metal legs, voice like waters) also echoes Ezekiel’s vision of the Almighty. It’s clear John is presenting Christ as the divine Son of Man from Ezekiel and Daniel, thus grounding Jesus’ authority in OT imagery.

• The Scroll: In Ezek 2–3, the prophet is given a scroll written on both front and back, filled with woes, and he must eat it, it’s sweet in his mouth but brings bitterness of judgment. In Revelation 5, John sees a scroll written on both sides and sealed with seven seals, and in Rev 10 John likewise eats a little scroll which is sweet as honey then turns bitter . The correspondence is intentional. Both scrolls represent God’s prophetic message of lamentation and woe. John “eating the book” signifies him internalizing God’s judgment message (just as Ezekiel did), sweet because it’s God’s word, but bitter because it announces tribulation. This shows John consciously models his prophetic calling on Ezekiel’s.

• Sealing the Faithful: In Ezekiel 9, the prophet saw a vision of God marking a protective seal on the foreheads of the faithful in Jerusalem before judgment fell, so that the executioners would not harm those with the mark. John directly mirrors this in Revelation 7, where an angel seals 144,000 servants of God on their foreheads to preserve the faithful remnant amidst the coming wrath. This again confirms that Revelation’s judgments were understood in covenantal terms: God would spare the “marked” believers (ultimately the church, including Jewish Christians who heeded the warning to flee the city) even as the unfaithful were slain .

• Measuring the Temple: In Ezekiel 40–43, an angel measures the dimensions of a new temple, symbolizing God’s restoration of true worship. In Revelation 11:1, John too is given a measuring rod and told to measure “the temple of God and those who worship in it,” but exclude the outer court. This symbolizes God’s distinction between the true worshippers (spiritual temple) and the outward, apostate system to be cast out. The act of measuring implies ownership and protection of the true “temple” (the Church), while the “outer court” (unbelieving Israel) is left unmeasured and given over to be trampled by the Gentiles for 42 months (Rev 11:2). Thus John repurposes Ezekiel’s temple-measuring to signify the preservation of the New Covenant community even as the Old Covenant city/temple is judged.

• Jerusalem the Harlot: Both prophets depict Jerusalem as an unfaithful wife who will be punished. Ezekiel 16 and 23 famously accuse Jerusalem (and Samaria) of harlotry, worshiping idols and consorting with Gentile powers, and describe God’s judgment on her as on an adulterous woman (stripped naked, slain by her lovers). John picks up this disturbing imagery to portray “Babylon the Great, Mother of Prostitutes” riding the Beast (Rev 17). While “Babylon” is a code name, **John’s audience would recall that in prophecy it was Jerusalem who was often called the harlot for her infidelity. In fact, Revelation’s harlot Babylon is directly identified as the city “where Jesus was crucified” (Rev 11:8), i.e. earthly Jerusalem. The vision of the harlot woman in scarlet and gold (Rev 17:3–6) thus leverages Ezekiel’s and Hosea’s metaphor of Israel as the unfaithful spouse. Ken Gentry explains that John “engages in a literary contrast between the harlot and the chaste bride, suggesting he is counter-posing the Jerusalem below with the Jerusalem above”. In Revelation 17–18 the harlot city (earthly Jerusalem) is judged and destroyed, clearing the way for the pure bride (New Jerusalem, Rev 21). Every detail of Babylon’s portrayal reinforces the Jerusalem identification: “In her was found the blood of prophets and of the saints” (Rev 18:24), just as Jesus lamented that Jerusalem was the city that murdered the prophets and apostles . She is “mystically Sodom and Egypt” (Rev 11:8), just as Isaiah and Ezekiel applied those epithets to Jerusalem’s sin. She sits on seven hills (Rome’s alliance) but is not Rome herself rather, she “rides” the Roman Beast, symbolizing how the Jewish leaders leaned on Roman power to crucify Christ and persecute the church. In 70 AD that partnership collapsed: the Beast turned on the harlot and burned her with fire (Rev 17:16), exactly as Rome burned Jerusalem and the Temple. Thus, Revelation’s Babylon = Jerusalem is a hallmark of the partial-preterist interpretation, firmly rooted in these Old Testament allusions. The prophets had long warned that covenant unfaithfulness would make Jerusalem no different from pagan Babylon, and John declares that woeful fate now fulfilled in his generation .

• Laments Over the City: After Jerusalem/Babylon’s fall, Revelation 18 features dirges by kings and merchants weeping over her burning, just as Ezekiel 27 recorded a lament for fallen Tyre and Jeremiah 51 lamented Babylon. The correspondence is deliberate. Revelation even mimics specific lines: “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen” (Rev 18:2) quotes Isaiah 21:9; “Come out of her, my people” (18:4) echoes Jer 51:45; the merchants’ cry “Alas, what city was like the great city!” (18:18) echoes Ezek 27:32 . John is signaling to perceptive readers that the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 is as momentous as the ancient falls of Tyre and Babylon – a decisive act of God’s judgment in history. For the first-century church, this was both a vindication (their persecutor has fallen) and a warning (apostasy leads to destruction).

• Great Earthquake dividing the city: Revelation 16:18–19 describes the “great earthquake, such as had not been since men were on earth,” that splits the “great city” into three parts. This imagery again ties back to Ezekiel. In Ezek 5:1–12, the prophet had to cut his hair and divide it in thirds as a sign of Jerusalem’s fate – a third burned, a third cut by the sword, a third scattered. John’s three-part city split is likely alluding to that prophecy . And indeed, during the Jewish War, Jerusalem was factionalized into three warring parties within its walls (as per Josephus), fulfilling the idea of internal division and destruction. The great quake also resonates with Zechariah 14:4, “the Mount of Olives shall be split in two”, symbolizing a cataclysmic judgment on the city. All these echoes reinforce that Revelation’s plagues and quakes fell upon Jerusalem as the climax of covenant judgment.

• Gog and Magog War: In Revelation 20:7–9, after the “thousand years,” Satan deceives the nations one last time and gathers “Gog and Magog” from the four corners of the earth to attack the camp of the saints – only to be destroyed by fire from heaven. “Gog and Magog” is a direct reference to Ezekiel 38–39, where those names figure as a final enemy confederation God defeats in the latter days. John’s use of the names signals the archetypal final rebellion against God. Partial-preterists usually view this not as a literal future war in the Middle East, but as a symbolic depiction of the final judgment and defeat of Satan’s kingdom (paralleling many OT prophecies of God’s ultimate victory). It shows that even after the gospel age (“millennium”), evil will not prevail – God will consume the rebels just as He promised in Ezekiel’s vision (cf. Ezek 38:22, fire and sulfur). Thus Revelation takes Ezekiel’s Gog imagery – originally about God protecting Israel from northern invaders – and reapplies it universally to assure the Church of final deliverance and the end of Satanic deception. Notably, Ezekiel 39 described carrion birds feasting on the defeated armies of Gog (Ezek 39:17-20); Revelation mirrors this in the invitation to the birds to “eat the flesh of kings, captains, mighty men” after the Battle of Armageddon (Rev 19:17-18) . John thereby bookends his prophecy with Ezekiel’s: first-century Jerusalem falls like apostate Israel of old, and at history’s end all Gog-like foes of Christ will likewise fall, ushering in the ultimate New Jerusalem.

Finally, Isaiah and Jeremiah deeply inform Revelation’s vision of New Creation and New Covenant glory. Isaiah 65–66 promised a coming “new heavens and new earth” where God’s people would rejoice and sorrow no more – language John directly quotes in Revelation 21:1–4. The description of New Jerusalem in Rev 21 draws on Isaiah’s poetic imagery of restored Zion: “God will wipe away every tear” (Rev 21:4, cf. Isa 25:8), “no more death… or pain”(21:4, cf. Isa 65:19-20), “her light was like a jasper… the nations shall walk by its light” (21:11,24, cf. Isa 60:1–3,19). Likewise, John’s city has 12 gates named for Israel’s tribes and 12 foundations for the apostles (21:12–14), echoing Ezekiel’s ideal Jerusalem gates (Ezek 48:30-35) and signifying the completion of God’s covenant people (OT Israel + NT Church) united in one holy city. The city is a perfect cube 12,000 stadia in size (21:16), which deliberately recalls the shape of the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s temple – a cube overlaid with gold (1 Kgs 6:20) . This tells us that the entire New Jerusalem is the Holy of Holies – God’s immediate dwelling with humanity. In line with amillennial theology, this New Jerusalem is not a literal physical city but a symbol of the Church in its perfected, eternal state(the “Jerusalem above,” cf. Gal 4:26, Heb 12:22). It represents the ultimate fulfillment of all OT Zion promises. John hears the heavenly voice proclaim, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them” (Rev 21:3), fulfilling the Emmanuel principle from the law and prophets (Lev 26:11, Ezek 37:27). He also notes there is “no temple” in the city, “for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (21:22) – a startling statement for a Jewish reader, yet one foreshadowed by the prophets’ message that God Himself would be the sanctuary for His people (Ezek 11:16). The river of life and tree of life in Revelation 22 intentionally hark back to Eden (Gen 2) as well as Ezekiel’s vision of a life-giving river from the temple (Ezek 47). John describes “the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb” with *“the tree of life… on either side of the river, bearing twelve kinds of fruit… and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Rev 22:1-2). Ezekiel 47:12 had a very similar image of many fruit trees along the river, “their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.”Revelation shows this prophecy fulfilled: the single Tree of Life (ultimately Christ and His life-giving blessings) straddles the river, much as in Eden . The nations, long under the curse, can now find healing and eternal life through the Lamb. Where Genesis began with a garden lost to sin, Revelation ends with paradise restored – a new Eden where the curse is no more and God walks among His people (Rev 22:3-5). All of this culmination is conveyed in richly allusive language: John is “translating old meanings into new”, so that every promise God made through the prophets finds its “Yes” in Jesus and His Church . Isaiah’s “sun of righteousness” (Mal 4:2) and everlasting light (Isa 60:19-20) are realized in the Lamb who shines forever (Rev 21:23). Jeremiah’s “New Covenant” community (Jer 31:33) is seen as a city where all are righteous and see God’s face (Rev 22:4). And the Psalmist’s hope that “the meek shall inherit the earth” (Ps 37:11) is fulfilled as “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord” (Rev 11:15) and “they shall reign forever” with Him (22:5).

Conclusion

Far from being an opaque code, Revelation is a grand mosaic of Old Testament images. John was “in the Spirit” (Rev 1:10) like the prophets of old, and the Spirit brought to his mind the full breadth of Scripture to describe the climactic events of his day and beyond. When we read Revelation “with Old Testament eyes”, as one author put it , the meaning of its symbols becomes clearer. The beastly persecutors, the plagues, the cosmic signs, the harlot and the bride, the heavenly temple and New Jerusalem – all are drawn from known scriptural motifs that carried deeply theological significance for covenant Israel. John’s genius (under inspiration) was to weave these strands together to “show… the things that must shortly come to pass” (Rev 1:1) in the transition from the Old Covenant age to the New. The Partial-Preterist perspective finds in those OT allusions a robust confirmation that Revelation’s primary focus was the first-century redemptive drama: the apostasy of Jerusalem (a new Babylon ripe for judgment), the persecution of the Church, the triumph of Christ in the destruction of the Temple (vindicating the new Kingdom), and the establishment of the Church as the true spiritual New Jerusalem. This reading coheres with Jesus’ own prophecy that the vindication of the Son of Man and the judgment on that generation would occur within the lifetimes of his contemporaries (e.g. Matt 24:34) – and indeed it did, in AD 70. Yet Revelation does not end with smoke and rubble; it ends with hope and consummation, echoing the OT promises of a world redeemed. In theological terms, amillennialism sees Revelation 20’s “thousand years” as a symbolic description of the present Gospel age (Christ’s heavenly reign and Satan’s limited influence), which is already in effect now that Christ has conquered. Thus, most of Revelation’s visions (chapters 1–19) have been fulfilled in the past, but its final chapters open out to the eternal future awaiting God’s people. The ultimate fulfillment of all prophecy – the resurrection, the final judgment, and the glorious eternal state – still lies ahead, and is poetically depicted in Revelation’s closing pages using the language of Ezekiel’s temple, Isaiah’s new creation, and Eden restored.

In summary, Revelation is the culmination of biblical prophecy, and its meaning shines brightest when viewed in the light of the Old Testament. The symbols that perplex many modern readers – multi-headed beasts, dragons, locust armies, heavenly books, pregnant women travailing, angels with trumpets, cups of wrath, and cities as women (harlot or bride) – were all part of the symbolic vocabulary of Israel’s prophets. John re-applied those symbols to unveil “the Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev 1:1): how Jesus would vindicate His crucifixion, judge His enemies (using Rome as the instrument on Jerusalem), and inaugurate the everlasting kingdom promised by the prophets. An amillennial partial-preterist interpretation respects the original context of these biblical allusions and sees in Revelation a powerful message to the early Church: God has not forgotten His Word. Every judgment and every deliverance happened “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets.” And because those words have been fulfilled in history – Christ did come in judgment against the old temple and in salvation for His people – the Church today can have confidence that the remaining promises (Christ’s final return and the resurrection of the dead) will likewise be fulfilled. In the end, Revelation assures believers of Jesus’s victory over all evil, using the rich language of Old Testament prophecy to connect the triumph of the Lamb with God’s unchanging redemptive plan from Genesis to Malachi. It is, truly, Scripture’s grand finale, where every symbol finds its meaning in Christ’s person and work and every Old Covenant shadow yields to the dawning light of the New Covenant age .

References:

1. Mike Blume, “The Symbolism in the Book of Revelation,” mikeblume.com. (Highlights Revelation’s extensive use of OT symbols; notes 348 OT allusions, with ~235 from the Prophets and 57 from the Pentateuch . Draws many detailed parallels between Revelation and Ezekiel , identifying the harlot of Rev 17–18 as Jerusalem by comparison with Ezekiel 16 .)

2. Philip Bartelt, “Reading Revelation in Light of the Old Testament,” 1517.org (May 27, 2020). (Discusses how Revelation’s imagery “is translated from the Old Testament to the New” . Emphasizes John’s reliance on OT prophetic and apocalyptic tradition (Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel) . Notes, for example, that John’s oracle against “Babylon” echoes OT oracles against Babylon and Tyre , and that the trumpets and bowls draw on the plagues of Egypt, the fall of Jericho, Joel’s locust army, and Sinai theophany .)

3. Amillennial.org – Revelation (John Alley synopsis), Amillennial.org (Jan 13, 2022). (Summarizes an amillennial partial-preterist view of Revelation. Affirms Revelation was likely written c. AD 64–65 and that “most of the prophecy…has been fulfilled” in the tribulation under Nero . Identifies the Beast with Nero and highlights Revelation’s Jewish character: “the most Jewish of NT books,” steeped in Jewish symbols and concepts .)

4. Bob Utley, Commentary on Revelation 6–7 (Partial Preterist view), FreeBibleCommentary.org. (Provides a partial-preterist reading of Revelation’s seals. Notes that Rev 6’s four horsemen allude to Zechariah’s vision of horses/chariots (Zech 1 & 6) . Interprets the riders as portents of the Jewish War (AD 66–70), with parallels to Jesus’ Olivet Discourse . Emphasizes that John’s visions of judgment (seals, trumpets, bowls) are synchronous depictions of God’s wrath on unbelieving Israel, culminating in Jerusalem’s fall, as also prophesied by Jesus in the Gospels.)

5. “Revelation Explained – Exposition of Rev. 9–11,” PreteristCentral.com. (A partial-preterist commentary draft on Revelation. Explains the 5th and 6th trumpets and chapter 11 in detail. Connects the locust army of Rev 9 to Joel’s locusts and interprets it as the Roman army under Nero – noting the “five months” torment matches the five-month siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD . Identifies “Apollyon” as Nero (the destroyer) . Also expounds Rev 11:1–14: the measuring of the temple as marking out the true church for protection , the two witnesses as representing the church’s leaders (possibly Peter and Paul) who are martyred before Jerusalem’s fall . Confirms that the “great city” is Jerusalem (spiritually called Sodom/Egypt) and by extension the Jewish nation, held responsible for killing the prophets and apostles . Describes the resurrection of the witnesses and earthquake as symbolizing the turnaround after Nero’s death and the internal collapse of Jerusalem during the war .)

6. Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., “Babylon is Jerusalem (Part 2),” Postmillennial Worldview (Jan 31, 2014). (Argues conclusively that the Babylonian harlot in Revelation represents 1st-century Jerusalem. Highlights John’s deliberate contrast between the harlot and the bride (earthly Jerusalem versus New Jerusalem) . Points out that John calls the city “Sodom and Egypt” (Rev 11:8), just as OT prophets used those names for Jerusalem’s wickedness . Explains that the harlot riding the seven-headed Beast signifies Jerusalem’s alliance with Rome – not that she is Rome . Gentry cites the long biblical tradition of Jerusalem’s harlotry (Isa 1:21, Ezek 16, Hosea, etc.) and notes Jesus’ own indictment of Jerusalem as the killer of prophets (Matt 23:34-37), which aligns with Rev 17–18 . This source encapsulates the partial-preterist identification of Babylon with apostate Judaism’s capital.)