4 And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:
5 12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed,
12,000 from the tribe of Reuben,
12,000 from the tribe of Gad,
6 12,000 from the tribe of Asher,
12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali,
12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh,
7 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon,
12,000 from the tribe of Levi,
12,000 from the tribe of Issachar,
8 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun,
12,000 from the tribe of Joseph,
12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed.
A Great Multitude from Every Nation
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels were standing round the throne and round the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.”
13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;
the sun shall not strike them,
nor any scorching heat.
17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
One commentator thinks that the imagery in both the visions is drawn from the Old Tes tament, and suggests that in 4-8 there is a glimpse of the Passover story in Exodus, when God delivered His people from the judgment of death by the sprinkled blood. This is very sugges tive, although we cannot be certain. But the associations in the following verses (9-12) are too striking not to have the Feast of Tabernacles behind them. This was the Feast when God's people rejoiced in His care over them in the wilderness, and expressed their gratitude to Him at the time of harvest or ingathering - the emphasis being, 'The troubles of the wilderness are ended, and the harvest-home of the Church is come' (see Leviticus 23:33ff). One of the cere monies that took place during this festival was the ritual drawing of water from the Pool of Siloam in a golden pitcher, to be poured on the altar by the priests, to the accompaniment of the singing of the congregation, 'With joy shall ye draw water from the wells of salvation' Isa iah 12:3. This is thought to be reflected in 17 in the words, 'The Lamb...shall lead them unto living fountains of waters'. It is very wonderful to see how the elaborate rituals of the Old Tes tament are fulfilled and brought to fruition in Christ in the New, and to find ourselves saying with increasing surprise, 'Is this what that really meant?'