Revelation: - Knights of Columbus, Supreme Council

in reference to the heavenly state of the Church. The twenty-four elders who
appear throughout the Apocalypse symbo lize the elect of both the old and the
new covenants. The heavenly Jerusalem has twelve gates, divided into four
series of three (21:12ff.), and the wall of the city has twelve foundations. Its
measurements (v. 15ff.) are all multiples of twelve. As John does, the Jewish
apocalypses alternate threes and fours.
What They Mean
While seven and twelve repre sent fullness and completion, indefinite
periods of time or space are symbolized in various ways. A “thousand years” is
one such symbolic number, as in 20:2 of John, and frequently in the Jewish
apo calypses. Another device is simply to use half of seven, as in 11:9, 12:14
(so too Daniel 7:25, 9:27), or “half of a week of (i.e. seven) years,” “forty-two
months” (11:2), that is, “one thousand, two hundred and sixty days” (v. 3).
If seven is the number of per fection six is the number of imper fection, and
hence the number of the beast of 13:18 is symbolic of the greatest
imperfection, since it is a threefold six.
While the non-scriptural Jewish apocalypses are not the work of inspired men,
and they have none of the exalted character of John, we must nevertheless
recognize that they belong to a common literary tradition. They consequently
have many similarities, so that knowledge of the one is a help to the interpre -
tation of the other. It is in this way that the apocalypses of Judaism are of the
most help in regard to John. Once we recognize that John was using accepted
symbols which had, in many cases at least, already fixed meanings for his
readers, we have gone half the road toward under standing the Apocalypse.
“…On Eagles’ Wings”
It remains, however, to get a better view of some of the key ideas,
symbolically expressed, which John has borrowed from the Old Testament.
In Exodus 19:4 the Lord is quoted saying to Israel: “You have seen what
I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you
to myself.” The same idea is in Deuteronomy 32:11. John in 12:14 takes up
this figure to show God’s protection of the new Israel, the Church, which he
pictures carried out into the desert, as Israel was, to be protected from its
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