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.”
We should not miss the contrast between the great tribulation of the last days and the glories and blessedness of heaven. What we read here well bears out Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 4:17, 'Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory'. We can imagine what this must have meant to John, enduring as he was then all the deprivations of his lonely exile, doubtless experiencing pangs of hunger and thirst, and aching, desolating loneliness. One can only marvel that the vision should have so completely met his present needs - no more hunger or thirst, no more of the fierce and merciless days of exposure to the elements, and especially no more loneliness, but in place of it the wonderful fellowship of the redeemed. But even this does not say the last or deepest word. The heart of the blessedness expressed in these verses lies in the prospect for him of personal fellowship with the Lord Himself. 'Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them... and the Lamb.... shall feed them, and shall lead them...' (15, 17). This is brought out even more wonderfully in later chapters (21:3; 22:4, 5). And surely this is the ul timate - and only - beatitude. For how should a man, such as Paul, who on earth could say, 'To me to live is Christ' be satisfied in heaven with less?