BibleChallenge
Explore the Bible's New Testament in a year
The bible verses shown here are from the World English Bible as it's copyright free. We've contacted the copyright owners of the N.I.V but haven't heard anything back from them...
If you click on the margin on the left, you'll see a commentary of that section by Matthew Henry. This won't be included in the final app but we've included it here to help people prepare their thought / testimony related to this passage. Sometimes the commentaries are helpful, sometimes they're really not!
Revelation 7
1After this, I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, so that no wind would blow on the earth, or on the sea, or on any tree. 2I saw another angel ascend from the sunrise, having the seal of the living God. He cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was given to harm the earth and the sea, 3saying, “Don’t harm the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, until we have sealed the bondservants of our God on their foreheads!” 4I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the children of Israel: 5of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed, of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand, of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand, 6of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand, of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand, of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand, 7of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand, of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand, of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand, 8of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand, of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand, and of the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand were sealed.
A pause between two great periods.
In the figurative language of Scripture, the blowing of the four winds together, means a dreadful and general destruction. But the destruction is delayed. Seals were used to mark for each person his own possessions. This mark is the witness of the Holy Ghost, printed in the hearts of believers. And the Lord would not suffer his people to be afflicted before they were marked, that they might be prepared against all conflicts. And, observe, of those who are thus sealed by the Spirit, the seal must be on the forehead, plainly to be seen alike by friends and foes, but not by the believer himself, except as he looks stedfastly in the glass of God's word. The number of those who were sealed, may be understood to stand for the remnant of people which God reserved. Though the church of God is but a little flock, in comparison with the wicked world, yet it is a society really large, and to be still more enlarged. Here the universal church is figured under the type of Israel.