Revelation 7:9-17 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 around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever 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 anymore;
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.”
John MacDuff wrote a devotional commentary, in 1871, on the book of Revelation, not about prophetic theories and predictions. It
is all about Jesus! He wrote this about Revelation 7:
The Apostle beheld a great multitude (defying calculation), composed of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, standing before the Throne, and before the Lamb. In connection with these, a twofold emblem or characteristic specially attracted his attention—the white robe in which they were attired, and the palms-branches they held in their hands. The white robe cannot be other than the pure white garment of Christ’s imputed righteousness, that in which He presents His ransomed people before the Throne, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. Tertullian and some of the Fathers, as well as some later writers, have taken the palm-branch as the Greek or Roman emblem of victory. This, however, is a misapplication of its significance and beauty. We have in a previous chapter noted, that the imagery of the Apocalypse, so far at least as its references to the Church are concerned, is never classical or Pagan, but exclusively Jewish; we must, therefore, discover the true meaning of the palm-bearers, not amid the victors of Corinth and Olympus, nor in the Roman processions to the Capitol, but rather in connection with some expressive Hebrew rite or custom. This is not far to seek.
However appropriate and expressive the references in Paul’s Epistles may be to the games of ancient Greece (its races and wrestlings and garlanded victors), in illustration of the Christian conflict and triumph—far more beautiful, as emblematic of Heaven, and especially of Heaven’s glorious rest, was the palm-bearing festal gathering of the Jews of old, the Feast of Tabernacles. That feast was the concluding one of the year, when the vines had surrendered their vintage, the olive-groves their berries, when the garners of Palestine were full of all manner of produce. It was the feast of ingathering—the great ‘harvest-home’ of the nation; designed, too, among other things (while celebrating the close of the agricultural season, and the storing of the land’s produce), to commemorate the tent-life of their forefathers in the desert, and specially, when these wanderings were over, their rest and settlement in the land of Canaan. It was a joyous, unrivaled holiday throughout the whole kingdom. All manual work was suspended. Even their dwellings were forsaken; and the memories of the desert were impressively revived, by constructing temporary booths, made of intertwisted palm, olive, pine, myrtle, and “willows from the brook.”
During the continuance of the feast, the jubilant crowds carried in their hands, along the streets or public ways, palm branches, accompanied with festal song. What more befitting imagery of the scenes and employments of the Heavenly Canaan, the land of everlasting rest? What more appropriate emblem, when the wilderness wanderings of all God’s redeemed Israel had ceased, the Jordan crossed, and Canaan entered, “hungering no more,” and “thirsting no more,” the fierce sun not “lighting upon them,” nor the sirocco “heat” of the desert—than to represent them, not so much as conquerors with the emblems of victory (though that would have been appropriate also), but rather as keeping, through eternal ages, their Feast of Tabernacles—waving their palm branches and singing their anthems of festive joy, crying with a loud voice, “Hosanna! salvation to our God.”
And not to anticipate the remaining portion of the vision, this antitypical similitude to the Feast of Tabernacles is still further carried out by a subsequent reference, where it is said, at the close of verse 15, “and He who sits on the Throne shall dwell among them.” God Himself—the God of the eternal feast and the eternal rest—will Himself mingle with the festive throng; and not only so, but (as the meaning of the expression in the original may rather be accurately rendered), “He shall tabernacle among,” or “spread His tent over them.” They shall each dwell in their separate booth of joy, and each wave their separate branch of triumph; but there will be a mightier Tent over-canopying all. The pillar-cloud of the desert, unlike the olden type, will follow them across the Jordan of death, and spread its brightness above the rejoicing myriads in the true Land of promise—they “shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”
The beautiful imagery of the evangelical Prophet will obtain is grandest—its everlasting fulfillment, “Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over all the glory will be a canopy. It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain.” The same magnificent simile is expanded in a future chapter of Revelation. “And I heard a voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will ‘tabernacle’ with them, and they shall His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and their God.”
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