Context: Revelation 21:3-4 is the apostolic vision of covenant consummation. After the final defeat of the dragon, beast, and death (19:11-20:15), John sees "a new heaven and a new earth" and the "holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (21:1-2). Then a "loud voice from the throne" proclaims the interpretive announcement: "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell (σκηνώσει) with them, and they will be his people (λαοὶ αὐτοῦ), and God himself will be with them as their God (αὐτῶν θεός). He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." The announcement is saturated with Old Testament covenant language: the tabernacle-dwelling formula (σκηνή / σκηνόω — echoing Exodus 25:8; 29:45-46; Leviticus 26:11-12), the triple covenant formula "I will be their God and they shall be my people" (the signature refrain of Jeremiah 31:33, Ezekiel 36:28, Zechariah 8:8), and the tear-wiping of Isaiah 25:8. Verse 3-4 thus functions as Scripture's doxological terminus: the covenant formula that began at Sinai, matured in the prophets, was inaugurated in Christ's blood, and is now consummated in the unmediated presence of God with His glorified people in the new creation.
Greek Key Terms:
OT-to-OT Development: The covenantal formula "I will be their God and they shall be my people" is the spine of the canon's covenant trajectory. It appears at Sinai's inauguration (Exodus 6:7; 29:45), in the Levitical covenant renewal (Leviticus 26:12), throughout the prophetic new-covenant promises (Jeremiah 7:23; 11:4; 24:7; 30:22; 31:1, 33; 32:38; Ezekiel 11:20; 14:11; 34:24; 36:28; 37:23, 27; Zechariah 8:8; 13:9), and in the post-exilic visionary texts (Ezekiel 37:26-27 combines tabernacle-dwelling with everlasting covenant almost exactly as Revelation 21 does). The tabernacle-presence motif runs from Exodus 25:8 ("let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst") through Leviticus 26:11-12 ("I will make my dwelling among you... and I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people"), through Solomon's temple (1 Kings 8), through the tabernacle's return in Ezekiel 37:26-28 and 40-48's visionary temple, through Zechariah 2:10-11 ("I will dwell in your midst... many nations shall join themselves to the LORD"). Isaiah 25:6-9 specifically promises the eschatological banquet where God "will swallow up death forever" and "wipe away tears from all faces" — the explicit source for v. 4. Isaiah 65:17-25's "new heavens and new earth" with "no more... the sound of weeping... or of a cry of distress" sits directly behind v. 1 and v. 4. Revelation 21:3-4 gathers the entire canonical covenant-presence-no-more-sorrow complex into a single consummating announcement.
Connections:
Christological Connection: The covenant formula "I will be their God and they shall be my people" is the irreducible summary of every covenant from Sinai onward, but no covenant prior to the new had been able to deliver it in its full sense. At Sinai the formula was proposed but Israel's unregenerate heart (Deuteronomy 29:4) made the promise structurally unfulfillable: the law was given, but not kept; the tabernacle was built, but the shekinah-glory departed (Ezekiel 10). The prophets re-announced the formula as future: Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah all promise the day when God will actually dwell with His people as a transformed people. Christ's incarnation inaugurates the fulfillment — John 1:14 deliberately uses the verb σκηνόω ("tabernacled") to identify Jesus as the true tabernacle, the presence of God in human flesh — and His blood inaugurates the new covenant (Hebrews 8-10) by which hearts are transformed so that the formula can in fact be delivered.
Revelation 21:3-4 consummates what Christ inaugurated. What the earthly tabernacle prefigured, what Ezekiel's visionary temple promised, what Jesus' incarnation inaugurated, and what the Spirit's indwelling of the church progressively realized, is here brought to final eschatological form: unmediated covenantal presence. There is no longer a temple (Revelation 21:22) because "its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb." The escalation from Sinai to New Jerusalem is total. At Sinai, the people must stay off the mountain, and the tabernacle has a veil; in the New Jerusalem, the Lamb is the light of the city and the servants see His face (Revelation 22:4). At Sinai, the covenant is conditioned on obedience Israel could not render; in the New Jerusalem, the covenant is permanently secured by the Lamb who was slain and the Spirit who indwells the transformed people. At Sinai, the people are one nation set apart; in the New Jerusalem, the "peoples" (λαοί, plural) are gathered from every tribe and tongue as one covenant people. The plural λαοί is deliberate: Abraham's promise that "all the families of the earth" would be blessed (Genesis 12:3) reaches its consummation.
The already/not-yet is here fully staged. Revelation 21:3-4 is the "not-yet" pole of the trajectory: the already is the new-covenant church (the tabernacling Word, the indwelling Spirit, the sprinkled blood, the covenant formula spiritually realized in believers' hearts), and the not-yet is the consummation when "the dwelling place of God is with man" without mediation, when every tear is wiped, when death is no more. Revelation 7:17 supplies an inaugurated foretaste — the Lamb shepherding those who have come through tribulation and God wiping their tears — but 21:3-4 is the total consummation. From Exodus 24:8's sprinkled blood, through Jeremiah 31:31's promised new covenant, through the Last Supper's cup, through Hebrews' declaration of the eternal covenant, the trajectory terminates here: God with man, man as God's people, death undone, sorrow abolished, covenant consummated, eschaton arrived.
Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment (primary) — the explicit covenant formula of Jeremiah 31:33, Ezekiel 36:28, Ezekiel 37:27, and Zechariah 8:8 is here fulfilled verbatim; Isaiah 25:8's tear-wiping promise is fulfilled; Isaiah 65:17's new heavens and new earth is fulfilled. This is the Greidanus Method 2 consummation of the entire canonical promise-complex. Also Longitudinal Theme — the covenant-presence motif (Eden → tabernacle → temple → Christ → church → new Jerusalem) here reaches its final term; the two-covenants trajectory's telos is not another covenant but the consummated realization of what the new covenant promised. Also Redemptive-Historical Progression — this is the telos of the narrative arc: Abraham (promise) → Sinai (law) → prophets (anticipation) → Christ (inauguration) → eschaton (consummation). NOT Typology for the core announcement — the covenant formula is not a type being fulfilled by escalation but a verbal promise being delivered in full. Typology operates adjacent to this passage (the earthly tabernacle is a type of God's eschatological dwelling) but the announcement itself is Promise-Fulfillment.
Trajectory Table: 164 - Two Covenants (Law and Promise)