And then utter stillness and silence across the globe (7:1)! Just imagine this!
Please note that HaShem is He who sits on the throne. The lamb is a servant of His will and purposes. Neither Yochanan nor his peers believed that Yeshua was an incarnation of God such as the Pagans had. As all religious Jews, they understood and embraced the Shema with its three paragraphs: Deuteronomy 6:4–9, Deuteronomy 11:13–21 and Numbers 15:37–41, and its central declaration of the absolute and indivisible Oneness of the Holy One, blessed be He.
Following the cacophonous violent rocking of the foundations of their very existence with earthquakes, tsunamis, meteors, with unheard of phenomena taking place in the heavens like the appearance that the sky is being rolled and unrolled like a scroll, with people going mad, unable to cope with the things taking place around them, suddenly and without warning dead silence and stillness everywhere! Without the winds the temperatures soar to record highs, the humidity rises suffocatingly, the pollution and pollen counts go off the charts! Then, the silent pandemonium of stillness!
The Golden One, the Rex Mundi, will use all of his charisma and lying persuasion to convince the global citizens that everything is under control! "Do not believe the angels! Do not believe the thundering Voice of HaShem! Trust me!" he urges! And terror-stricken his followers will! Many of them will curse God and His Remnant for these things.
John 5:43 I [Yeshua] come in my Father's name [as a teacher and prophet], and you reject me: but another will come in his own name, and him you will receive.
44 How can you who receive glory from one of another and believe, while the glory that comes from God you don't accept?
Revelation 7:2 And I saw another angel ascend from the sunrising, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a great voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,
3 saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we shall have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.
In the midst of this growing chaos, from the East, an angelic being of extraordinary splendor and authority will arise! This could be literal or figurative but I expect it to occur as written. This mark in the forehead is the infusion of the Torah into their consciousness'. As we contemplate with tefilin, our hands and heads/minds are to be devoted to HaShem's service. As these things are happening, He will empower His servants through the realization of His Torah. By this point the faithful will understand what is happening and will be empowered to stand and face whatever is coming.
As a direct slap in the face of the Rex Mundi, his Globalist minions, and all who claim that HaShem has abandoned His Covenant People, one hundred and forty-four thousand empowered Jews will arise onto the world stage! Each of them like the Jewish prophets of old will condemn the Global Union and its genocidal policies.
7:4 And I heard the number of them that were sealed, a hundred and forty and four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the children of Israel:
5 Of the tribe of Judah [were] sealed twelve thousand: Of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand;
6 Of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand;
7 Of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand;
8 Of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Benjamin [were] sealed twelve thousand.
One common area of debate among students of prophecy is the identity of these hundred and forty four thousand Israelites. But the text identifies them with absolute clarity. Still countless teachers and entire denominations manufacture what are frankly bizarre antisemitic replacement theology doctrines around them.
A couple of examples of such unbiblical teachings will suffice: the Jehovah's Witnesses teach that this is a select group of righteous Jews and Gentiles gathered from across time and anointed as heavenly rulers who will oversee the new earth society once the theocratic kingdom is established. The Seventh Day Adventists are even further off as usual with their belief that the number might or might not be literal, but that "the Israel" mentioned in the prophecies is "spiritual" Israel, not the Israel of the Torah! Based on this unbiblical notion they teach that the hundred and forty four thousand will all be Christians (mostly Adventists) even though the text specifically states otherwise! A good rule of thumb is: If a prophecy makes sense literally, take it literally. God's Covenant with Israel is eternal. There remains a remnant of faithful Jews even today and when HaShem calls us to rise, we will rise.
Truth is always consistent. If one's doctrines are contradictory something is amiss with one's doctrines. This is a case in point. Because of the Nicolaitan heresy (discussed in chapters two and three) and the rejection of the Jewish people as the Elect of HaShem, such clear verses must be "spiritualized."
MANY Christians wrongly believe that HaShem has abandoned His people even though He said He never would. This being true, they reason, He would not now be calling 144,000 Jews to represent Him! And yet not only do these verses directly identify this group as Jewish, the next verses makes it clear that the Gentiles, in a separate but related assignment, will also be asigned tasks. There is no question that these are/will be literal Jewish people, 12,000 from each tribe as the text says. Of course most Jews today do not know which tribe of Israel they are from, but as stated above the Six Seals are released and continue through the period. From other sources we understand that during the War of Magog, Mashiach ben Yosef will restore and recruit from the divorced Ten Houses for his army. These 144,000 may simply represent all or part of that army. Likewise, we know from the prophets that the Third Temple will be rebuilt during this period and that much lost information will be recovered. The status of Ephraim, the divorced tribes, is therefore not an issue here.
As for their Gentile co-workers:
7:9 After these things I saw, and behold, a great multitude, which no one could number, out of every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands;
10 and they cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation unto our God who sits on the throne, and unto the Lamb.
The hundred and forty four thousand Jews, along with the great multitude of Gentiles, are they whom we saw in chapter six standing before the Throne of HaShem in the "Sea of Glass." They are from all parts of the world, from all cultures and languages and ethnic groups. What they all have in common is that they have now united in the service of HaShem and willingly offer their lives and fortunes to Him. These are the faithful martyrs. They declare the praises of HaShem and are utterly committed to Him.
As the united Israelites stood before HaShem at Mount Sinai both receiving His Torah and pledging their fidelity to Him and to one another, so too these throngs will stand and receive their holy commission from HaShem as the Torah is written into their consciousness (Jeremiah 31:31-34). As we saw in verse four above, HaShem will seal them as His own even as He did the Hebrews/Jews at Sinai with His Torah.
Jeremiah 31:30 Every one will die for their own iniquity: every person that eats sour grapes, their teeth shall be set on edge.
31 Behold, the day will come, says Adonai, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which Covenant they broke, although I was like a husband to them, says Adonai.
33 Rather this is the Covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Adonai: I will instill my Law into their consciousess, upon their hearts I will write it; then I will be their God, and they will be my people:
34 and they will teach no more every person his neighbor, and every person his kin, saying, Know Adonai; for they will all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says Adonai: because I will forgive their iniquities, and their sins I will no more remember.
According to Jewish tradition every Israelite who has or will ever live was present at Har Sinai when the Written Torah was given. With the passage of time our eternal Covenant became diluted by our lack of study and observance, by diverse interpretations and applications and so on. While we affirm that the Hebrew Chumash is the same Torah we received by the hands of Moshe, most Jews do not study it and fewer still know it. At this point in the Revelation period the Torah will be refreshed and placed directly within our consciousness. The contridictory and confusing rabbinic rulings, the need for translations and commentaries, and so on will be done away. Each of us will know the Torah and its Author as it is sealed within our consciousness for ever.
The word "seal" used here is sphragizo and means to set aside as special, to protect, and also indicates proof of ownership. These people, both Jews and Gentiles, will enter into a special relationship with HaShem and they will know and obey His Word in order to perform their given service.
7:11 And all the angels were standing round about the throne, and [about] 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 honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.
To HaShem alone be the Glory and the Praise and the Thanksgiving!
7:13 And one of the elders answered me, Who are these that are dressed in white robes, and where do they came from?
14 And I replied, My lord, you know. And he told me, These are they that come of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15 Therefore are they before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple: and He that sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them.
16 They will no longer be hungery nor thirst any more; neither will the sun strike harshly upon them, nor any heat:
17 because the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to the fountains of waters of life: and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Note that Yochanan is told that they have washed their own robes, making them white in the Lamb's blood. In other words, like Yeshua they can truely say:
John 10:17 Therefore does the Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again.
18 No one takes it from me, I choose to lay it down. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This is the commandment I have received from my Father.
The Messiah has a job to, and so do you and I. He can't do ours and we can't do his:
"If you have a sapling in your hand, and you learn that the Messiah has come, stay and complete the planting, and then go to greet the Messiah”
–Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai (Avot de Rabbi Nathan, 31b).
