Later text
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
Intertextuality Pair
Revelation 22:13 → Isaiah 41:4
Allusion
Earlier text
Isaiah 41:4BSB
Who has performed this and carried it out, calling forth the generations from the beginning? I, the LORD—the first and the last—I am He.”
Significance
At the close of the canon Jesus speaks: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End" (Rev 22:13). The speaker is fixed by the verses on either side, where He promises to come with His reward (22:12) and names Himself: "I, Jesus, have sent My angel" (22:16). In Isaiah 41:4 the LORD, arraigning the idols of the nations, claims the whole course of history as His own work: He is the One "calling forth the generations from the beginning", and He names Himself "the first and the last". In the Greek of Isaiah 41:4 that self-declaration joins ἀρχή ("beginning") with πρῶτος ("first"). The two words stand together in only six verses of the Greek Bible. Four of them are ordinary settings (the beginning of harvest, the singers of old, the first month, the former dominion: 2 Sam 21:9; Neh 12:46; Exod 12:2; Mic 4:8). Only Isaiah 41:4 and Revelation 22:13 use the pair of God. In the Hebrew, 41:4 is likewise the one verse that gathers "beginning" (רֹאשׁ), "first" (רִאשׁוֹן) and "last" (אַחֲרוֹן) into a single divine self-declaration.
- Found via
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
- Reference Type
- Allusion
- Connection Method(s)
- Promise-Fulfillment + Longitudinal Theme
The text-form is mixed, and the mixture is instructive. Revelation's "First" and "Beginning" follow the Greek of Isaiah 41:4, while its "Last" (ὁ ἔσχατος) follows the Hebrew: the Greek of Isaiah 41:4, 44:6 and 48:12 carries no ἔσχατος, and the verbatim form of the title stands at Isaiah 44:6 ("I am the first and I am the last") and 48:12 ("I am the first, and I am the last"), which are co-donors to this verse (see Revelation 1:17 to Isaiah 44:6 and Revelation 1:17 to Isaiah 48:12). The overlap with 41:4 is verbal, not referential. Isaiah's "beginning" is the beginning of the generations of history, while Revelation's "the Beginning" names the One who stood at the beginning of creation itself; that referent comes from Genesis 1:1 (see Revelation 22:13 to Genesis 1:1).
What Isaiah 41:4 contributes is the self-declaration itself. The LORD alone can say that He was there when history began and will be there when it ends, and He said it to prove that no idol shares His glory. Earlier in Revelation the Lord God, the Almighty, names Himself "the Alpha and the Omega" (Rev 1:8), and the risen Christ, who "was dead", names Himself "the First and the Last" (Rev 1:17-18). Here, at the end, Jesus gathers every one of these titles into one sentence and claims them as His own. This is Promise-Fulfillment in the form of a divine self-designation brought to its realization, not a type: the One who called forth the generations from the beginning stands at their end, and His name is Jesus. The history that seemed to belong to empires and their gods has a single Author, and He has shown His face. To behold Him as the First and the Last is to find both where our story came from and where it is going gathered into a Person worth loving, and beholding Him, to be transformed into His image.
Linked Mentions 1