What this is. A summary of the echoes of the Hebrew scriptures already marked in green in chapters 4 and 5, the vision of the throne, set side by side. It brings in nothing new and claims to be nothing more than that. Nineteen echoes are marked in these two chapters, nine in chapter 4 and ten in chapter 5, and every verse of chapter 4 that has one leans on Ezekiel 1, Isaiah 6 or Sinai. The one section in Jon’s own words is marked as his.
One room, every throne. Chapter 4 puts into one scene the times the Hebrew scriptures show God on His throne. Micaiah, standing alone against four hundred prophets who told the king what he wanted to hear: “I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside Him” (1 Kings 22:19), marked at 4:2. Isaiah, in the year King Uzziah died: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory” (Isaiah 6:3), marked at 4:8, where the four living creatures “never stop saying: Holy, holy, holy.” Ezekiel, a captive by the river Chebar, who saw living creatures full of eyes, and around the throne “the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain” (Ezekiel 1:5–10, 1:18, 1:28), marked at 4:3 and 4:6–7. Daniel, who saw the court seated, “a thousand thousands served Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him” (Daniel 7:10), marked at 5:11. And Moses at Sinai, where “there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain” (Exodus 19:16), marked at 4:5, “out of the throne came lightning and voices and thunder.” John stands where each of them stood. Each of those visions came in a crisis, and each sent someone out with a word.
Creation first. The song of chapter 4 is about creation: “You made everything. Everything exists, and was made, because you wanted it” (4:11). Its marker is the Levites’ prayer after the return: “You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens … the earth and all that is on it … and You give life to them all, and the host of heaven bows down to You” (Nehemiah 9:6). Its opening words, “what has to happen after this” (4:1), are Daniel’s to Nebuchadnezzar, “there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known … what will be in the latter days” (Daniel 2:28–29, 2:45). The one on the throne “looked like jasper and carnelian” (4:3), stones from the high priest’s breastplate (Exodus 28:17–20) and from the covering of the one in Eden, the garden of God (Ezekiel 28:13). And the one on the throne is “the one who lives into the ages,” as Daniel says of “the one who lives forever” (Daniel 12:7) and Darius of “the living God, enduring forever” (6:26).
The scroll no one could open. In the right hand of the one on the throne is “a scroll written on the inside and on the back” (5:1). That is Ezekiel’s scroll: “He spread it before me, and it was written on the front and on the back, and written on it were lamentations and mourning and woe” (Ezekiel 2:10). Ezekiel was told to eat it and go and speak. Here no one is found who deserves to open it, and John weeps (5:4). The prayers of God’s people are in the golden bowls of incense (5:8), as the psalm asks, “let my prayer be set before You as incense” (Psalm 141:2).
Announced as a lion, seen as a lamb. “Look — the Lion from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has won” (5:5). The lion is Jacob’s blessing on Judah, “Judah is a lion’s cub … he crouches like a lion, and who dares rouse him?” (Genesis 49:9), and the root is Isaiah’s, “a shoot from the stump of Jesse … the root of Jesse, who will stand as a signal for the peoples” (Isaiah 11:1, 11:10). John is told of a lion; he turns and sees “a Lamb, looking as though its throat had been cut” (5:6). The grey note there calls it the hinge of the book. The promised king wins as the sacrifice.
Sinai’s promise, kept — Jon’s reading. At Sinai the promise came with a condition: “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you will be my treasured possession among all peoples … and you will be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5–6), marked at 5:10. The people answered, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will obey” (24:7), and within weeks “they have turned aside quickly from the way I commanded them; they have made themselves a calf” (32:8). Jeremiah calls it “my covenant, which they broke” (Jeremiah 31:32). Jon reads it this way: the obedience was partial in Israel and complete in Jesus, and He made us a kingdom of priests with His obedience. Paul says the same of the one man: “as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the obedience of the one the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19); He “became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8); “Look, I have come to do Your will … and by that will we have been made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus the Anointed once for all” (Hebrews 10:9–10). So the song in chapter 5 has no “if”: “You were slaughtered, and with your blood you bought people for God out of every tribe and language and people and nation. You made them a kingdom, priests serving our God” (5:9–10). The book says it at its start too, “and made us a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father” (1:6), and Peter gives Sinai’s words to all who trust: “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9).
The new song, and the Amen. “They sang a new song” (5:9), the psalms’ word for a song for a new deliverance: “Sing to the LORD a new song” (Psalm 96:1; 98:1), “I will sing a new song to You, O God” (144:9). The praise that follows is David’s, at the offering for the temple: “Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty … riches and honour come from You” (1 Chronicles 29:11–12), given now to “the Lamb who was slaughtered” (5:12). And the chapter ends, “the four living creatures said, Amen” (5:14), as the people answered when Ezra opened the book of the law before them: “Amen, Amen,” with their hands lifted, and they bowed (Nehemiah 8:6).
How far this reaches. Every link above is a green marker already on these two chapters, and each says there how close it is. What is added is the arrangement: the throne visions set together, and the Sinai promise set beside the song. That the chapter gathers every throne vision on purpose is the note’s way of putting it; the book does not say so. And the contents of Ezekiel’s scroll are not said to be the contents of this one; the shared thing is the scroll written on both sides.