24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.
The phrase "of them which are saved" is not in the best ancient manuscripts. My guess is that that phrase was added by someone used to the biblical idea that "the nations" means "people who are not part of the covenant" and therefore found this verse in need of some explanation. Yet without that phrase, there is some nice poetic parallelism in this verse:
And the nations / shall walk / in the light of it
And the kings of the earth / do bring their glory and honor / into it.
Both nations and earthly kings are usual enemies of the covenant people, but the reversal of this new city is so complete that these groups live by its light and, instead of hoarding glory to themselves, empty out their glory into the city. There is no more opposition; the usual opponents are now on the side of the righteous. I think it is more effective to take this verse as a symbolic indication of complete reversal of expected human behavior--applicable to all aspects of life--than to read it as solely political and literal.
Do we understand the kings to be actually entering into the city? Is the light of the city extending outside of the city (for the nations to walk in)? Or are the nations in the city? If the nations and/or kings are in the city, this is an even more challenging verse for the biblical worldview.
25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.
(This may impinge on our discussion of the pearl gates: they are something that can be closed, but in reality they never are.)
"By day" means "any day." In other words, the city is under no threat from the outside that would necessitate closing the gates. (Even with all of those kings and nations loitering around the place!) (This verse also pictures the fulfillment of Isaiah 60:11). And nighttime, the usual time of threat and attack, doesn't even exist! The light is so great that the night has no sway. This verse emphasizes the light without even mentioning it.
26 And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.
This is a curious verse with its echo of the end of v24. Literarily, it works quite well since the city of v25 is literally surrounded in v24 and v26 with references to entry into it. There's also a bit of a chiasm formed:
A And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it:
B and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.
C And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day:
C' for there shall be no night there.
B' And they shall bring the glory and honour
A' of the nations into it.
If we read it this way, then the repetition from v24 to v26 serves to emphasize the parallelism between the two phrases of v24 and encourages us to reconsider what "and the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day" has to do with "for there shall be no night there." Those two phrases have a nice bit of antithetic parallelism due to the references to "night" and "day." There is something about that line, however, that I can't quite get my mind around: why does the absence of night explain why the gates are not closed during the day?
27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
No unclean person enters, and yet the gates are never closed. They are not physically restrained.
The second phrase doesn't make reference to those who are clean or pure, as we might expect in an antithetical verse such as this one, but rather to those whose names are written. Having your name written is the opposite of being defiled. Perhaps this points to the idea that we do not make ourselves clean, but it is only through the mediating action of the Lamb. And what of the book? Why would writing names in a book be a good metaphor for his atoning actions?
We've had several threads of text related to the idea of writing . . . perhaps someone should weave those into a paper.
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Julie,
ReplyDeleteAs usual, I appreciate your notes here. Two points which I noted in particular.
1. Regarding verse 24 you say:
’I think it is more effective to take this verse as a symbolic indication of complete reversal of expected human behavior.’
I agree that a more expansive reading is productive here.
2. Also, you say:
’If we read it this way [i.e., as a kind of chiasm], then the repetition from v24 to v26 serves to emphasize the parallelism between the two phrases of v24 and encourages us to reconsider what "and the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day" has to do with "for there shall be no night there.’
I’ll try to address this point in my notes below. (Note: the bad translations "cited" below are my own, with reference to the NRSV.)
Verse 24
“And the ethne will walk around by the light of it, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.”
You raise a good question about whether the ethne are in the city or not.
I wonder if “peripatating” gives the impression that they are still "walking around," going about their own business for the most part, but now in light of the city.
If so, this might not be a bad description of the telestial or terrestrial kingdoms: these are places lit up by the glory of God, but people there still continue wandering around with their own business (rather than God’s) in mind.
Also, I wonder if the kings of the earth bringing their glory into the city isn’t a bit like the joke you referenced in an earlier comment where the rich man brings his suitcase of gold with him into a city whose streets are already paved with gold.
Verse 25
“And the gates of it will never be shut by day, for night will not be there.”
I wonder if the gar that begins the second phrase (rather than a simple kai) might not allow us to infer a more properly logical or causal relationship between these two phrases. (Though it looks like the KJV already has a “for” rather than the NRSV’s “and.”) If so, perhaps we should read the disappearance of “night” in the same vein as the disappearance of the sea. The absence of the night (i.e., of any opposing force of chaos) accounts for why the gates can always stay open. Otherwise, like you, I’m not sure how to connect them other than poetically.
Verse 27
“But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices any profane thing or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
It is interesting that people who do profane/common (koinon) things won’t be allowed in the city. Perhaps within the walls of the city, even the things that used to be “common” or banal have now become sacred. Making dinner? Giving the kids a bath? Taking out the trash? None of them are “profane” anymore within the walls of the city.
Interesting too that "falsehood" is contrasted with "being written in the Lamb’s book of life." Classically, writing per se is disparaged because (in the absence of the author) it opens the door to falsehood and misunderstanding. But here the Lamb’s book of life is what excludes falsehood. Here, the doubling via inscription of someone’s identity serves to seal or confirm their life rather than open the possibility of an infidelity by means of that doubling (deception necessarily involving some kind of "duplicity"). In general, though, I’m not quite sure what to do with the different references to writing that we’ve seen so far. But I agree it would be an interesting project to take up.
Julie, you mentioned:
ReplyDelete"Do we understand the kings to be actually entering into the city? Is the light of the city extending outside of the city (for the nations to walk in)? Or are the nations in the city? If the nations and/or kings are in the city, this is an even more challenging verse for the biblical worldview."
These are great possible interpretations.
I also appreciated Adam's response to your thoughts, which offered some connected, possible answers/interpretations.
There is a similar issue in 22:2 (which I'll be commenting on next week). With regards to the tree of life, it states: "and the leaves of the tree for the healing of nations." Does this mean that the nations come to the tree to be healed? Or are the leaves carried by those within the city out to the nations, where they are used to heal those nations? Or do the healing properties of the leaves extend outward from the holy city, blessing the nations without the need for anyone to carry them? This last interpretation would certainly tie in to the Rabbinic concept of sacred space, which saw the holiest place on earth as the Holy of Holies of the temple, with decreasing degrees of holiness radiating outwards from the temple in concentric circles, so that the power of the temple blessed the entire world. Either of the latter two possibilities I mention above could also coincide with Adam's comments about the terrestrial and telestial kingdoms, who are certainly healed by the power of the atonement, but do not necessarily enjoy admittance into the holy city. Or, if we decided that the nations come into the city to be healed, then I think we would need to view these as a complete reversal of previous realities, so that even the persistent symbol of the nations for worldliness is reversed and all is made clean and new in this new order of things. Certainly, according to an LDS viewpoint, those who are left on earth after the 2nd coming will be the more honorable citizens of the nations of the world and could conceivably have entrance into the holy city.
Julie, I very much enjoyed reading your notes and especially appreciated (as did Adam) your point about writing as a theme needing some special scrutiny.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed both Adam's and Shon's responses to your post.
In response to Adam regarding kinds of writing: what categories do you see so far? Sometimes writing is about recording/witnessing; at other times it seems related to the issue of inheritance and tracing relations between God and children/servants; there also seems to be plenty of exclamatory or expressive writing, meant to communicate the state of the soul when contemplating the mercy and justice of God.
Because we're mostly talking scrolls and paper-ish records for the earliest documents, my longed-for connection between Adam's comment and Shon's questions regarding carrying leaves must languish for the time being (leaves or pages on metal plates/records could do it, but not so much for Revelations . . . unless there is a metal plate copy somewhere?).
Shon's comment about being healed without being able to enter the holy city has me wondering what it means to be healed. To be mobile but restricted? To be whole but apart? What, actually, does that mean in Mormon theology?