How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

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Intertextuality Pair

Revelation 13:4 → Exodus 15:11

Allusion

Later text

Revelation 13:4BSB

They worshiped the dragon who had given authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can wage war against it?”

Earlier text

Exodus 15:11BSB

Who among the gods is like You, O LORD? Who is like You—majestic in holiness, revered with praises, performing wonders?

Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square13:53

Significance

The world's worship of the beast — "Who is like the beast, and who can wage war against it?" (tis homoios tō thēriō kai tis dynatai polemēsai met' autou) — is a demonic parody of the Song of Moses in Exodus 15:11: "Who is like you among the gods, O LORD?" (mi-khamokhah ba'elim YHWH). The structural parallel is exact: the rhetorical question asserting incomparability. In Exodus, this question celebrates YHWH's unique power demonstrated in the Red Sea deliverance; in Revelation, the same question-form is blasphemously redirected to the beast. This ironic inversion is one of Revelation's most powerful literary strategies: the beast system imitates and parodies the true God, substituting counterfeit worship for genuine doxology. The allusion signals to John's readers that the world is singing the wrong song to the wrong god — a decisive indictment of imperial cult worship as a satanic counterfeit of Exodus faith.

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Contrast + Longitudinal Theme

Linked Mentions 1

Trajectory Tables 1

Spiritual Adultery (Covenant Faithfulness and Idolatry) Trajectory Table