SOURCE: Sweet, J. P. M. Introduction to Revelation, pp. 1-54. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1979.

In the following excerpt, Sweet examines the imagery of Revelation, discusses its probable date of origin, and supplies some social background for its text.

3. Interpretation

(a) Hebrew Imagery

If the whole book was read aloud at one sitting (which would take about an hour and a half), it would have made its impact on its first hearers as a whole, like a poetic drama or an opera; indeed one should perhaps regard it as more like music than rational discourse. In that case the repetitions, delays and changes of key can be seen to contribute to a total effect which is emotional as much as rational, and the proportions of the whole are more important than the individual scenes. We must notice, then, that the visions of destruction are bracketed by the overarching vision of...