Wahyu 13:7

13:7 The beast ¹  was permitted to go to war against the saints and conquer them. ²  He was given ruling authority ³  over every tribe, people, ⁴  language, and nation,

Wahyu 13:15-18

13:15 The second beast ⁵  was empowered ⁶  to give life ⁷  to the image of the first beast ⁸  so that it could speak, and could cause all those who did not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 13:16 He also caused ⁹  everyone (small and great, rich and poor, free and slave ¹⁰ ) to obtain a mark on their right hand or on their forehead. 13:17 Thus no one was allowed to buy ¹¹  or sell things ¹²  unless he bore ¹³  the mark of the beast – that is, his name or his number. ¹⁴  13:18 This calls for wisdom: ¹⁵  Let the one who has insight calculate the beast’s number, for it is man’s number, ¹⁶  and his number is 666. ¹⁷ 

[13:7]  ¹ tn Grk “and it was given to him to go to war.” Here the passive construction has been simplified, the referent (the beast) has been specified for clarity, and καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[13:7]  ² tc Many mss omit the phrase “it was given to make war with the saints and to overcome them” (Ì⁴⁷ A C 2053 Ï^A sa). It is, however, found in Ì^115vid א 051 1006 (1611) 1841 (1854) 2329 2344 2351 (Ï^K) lat sy^ph,(h) bo. Although the ms evidence is somewhat in favor of the shorter reading, the support of ̹¹⁵ (a recently-discovered ms) for the longer reading balances things out. Normally, the shorter reading should be given preference. However, in an instance in which homoioteleuton could play a role, caution must be exercised. In this passage, accidental omission is quite likely. That this could have happened seems apparent from the two occurrences of the identical phrase “and it was given to him” (καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ, kai edoqh autw) in v. 7. The scribe’s eye skipped over the first καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ and went to the second, hence creating an accidental omission of eleven words.

[13:7]  ³ tn For the translation “ruling authority” for ἐξουσία (exousia) see L&N 37.35.

[13:7]  ⁴ tn Grk “and people,” but καί (kai) has not been translated here or before the following term since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

[13:15]  ⁵ tn Grk “it”; the referent (the second beast) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[13:15]  ⁶ tn Grk “it was given [permitted] to it [the second beast].”

[13:15]  ⁷ tn Grk “breath,” but in context the point is that the image of the first beast is made to come to life and speak.

[13:15]  ⁸ tn Grk “of the beast”; the word “first” has been supplied to specify the referent.

[13:16]  ⁹ tn Or “forced”; Grk “makes” (ποιεῖ, poiei).

[13:16]  ¹⁰ tn See the note on the word “servants” in 1:1.

[13:17]  ¹¹ tn Grk “and that no one be able to buy or sell.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation. Although the ἵνα (Jina) is left untranslated, the English conjunction “thus” is used to indicate that this is a result clause.

[13:17]  ¹² tn The word “things” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context. In the context of buying and selling, food could be primarily in view, but the more general “things” was used in the translation because the context is not specific.

[13:17]  ¹³ tn Grk “except the one who had.”

[13:17]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “his name or the number of his name.”

[13:18]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “Here is wisdom.”

[13:18]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “it is man’s number.” ExSyn 254 states “if ἀνθρώπου is generic, then the sense is, ‘It is [the] number of humankind.’ It is significant that this construction fits Apollonius’ Canon (i.e., both the head noun and the genitive are anarthrous), suggesting that if one of these nouns is definite, then the other is, too. Grammatically, those who contend that the sense is ‘it is [the] number of a man’ have the burden of proof on them (for they treat the head noun, ἀριθμός, as definite and the genitive, ἀνθρώπου, as indefinite – the rarest of all possibilities). In light of Johannine usage, we might also add Rev 16:18, where the Seer clearly uses the anarthrous ἄνθρωπος in a generic sense, meaning ‘humankind.’ The implications of this grammatical possibility, exegetically speaking, are simply that the number ‘666’ is the number that represents humankind. Of course, an individual is in view, but his number may be the number representing all of humankind. Thus the Seer might be suggesting here that the antichrist, who is the best representative of humanity without Christ (and the best counterfeit of a perfect man that his master, that old serpent, could muster), is still less than perfection (which would have been represented by the number seven).” See G. K. Beale, Revelation, [NIGTC], 723-24, who argues for the “generic” understanding of the noun; for an indefinite translation, see the ASV and ESV which both translate the clause as “it is the number of a man.”

[13:18]  sn The translation man’s number suggests that the beast’s number is symbolic of humanity in general, while the translation a man’s number suggests that it represents an individual.

[13:18]  ¹⁷ tc A few mss (̹¹⁵ C, along with a few mss known to Irenaeus {and two minuscule mss, 5 and 11, no longer extant}), read 616 here, and several other witnesses have other variations. Irenaeus’ mention of mss that have 616 is balanced by his rejection of such witnesses in this case. As intriguing as the reading 616 is (since the conversion of Nero Caesar’s name in Latin by way of gematria would come out to 616), it must remain suspect because such a reading seems motivated in that it conforms more neatly to Nero’s gematria.