REVELATION, DANIEL AND HOSEA

Having reached the end of Revelation, we’ve spent a few weeks engaging with other texts which can feel unrelated, but which are actually deeply intertwined with the language and imagery of Revelation.

Revelation and Daniel

When John of Patmos penned Revelation, he was writing in a long and vivid tradition - the tradition of apocalyptic literature.

The book of Daniel, written centuries earlier, is perhaps its most direct ancestor. Both texts are saturated with dreams, beasts, angels, and numbers; both speak into moments of oppression; and both use rich, symbolic imagery to sustain hope in God’s ultimate sovereignty.

Daniel’s visions of beasts rising from the sea (Daniel 7) find unmistakable echoes in Revelation 13, where John describes a monstrous creature emerging from the waters, with ten horns and seven heads.

The parallels are not accidental.

Daniel’s beasts represented successive empires: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, all oppressive regimes opposed to God’s people. John’s beast continues the pattern: a fusion of Daniel’s four (Revelation 13:2), symbolising the continuation of imperial power in Rome and perhaps an ultimate form of this opposition.

The “Ancient of Days” of Daniel 7:9–10, enthroned in splendour, anticipates Revelation’s vision of the heavenly throne (Revelation 4–5). The Son of Man “coming with the clouds of heaven” (Daniel 7:13) is also central to Revelation (1:7; 14:14), where the image is reinterpreted christologically.

John isn’t merely quoting Daniel; he is rereading him through the lens of the risen Christ.

Both books belong to a literary and theological movement shaped by crisis. “Apocalyptic” (from apokalypsis, meaning “revelation”) unveils divine truth hidden behind the chaos of history. It insists that history has meaning, that evil has limits, and that God reigns, even when the empires roar.

This worldview also assumes two ages: the present age of injustice and the age to come when God’s rule is fully realised.

Daniel sees “one like a son of man” receiving an everlasting kingdom (7:14); John sees “the kingdom of the world” becoming “the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah” (Revelation 11:15).

Both reveal the same conviction - that divine justice is not wishful thinking, but inevitable reality.

For Daniel’s readers under Antiochus IV and John’s under Domitian or later Roman emperors, coded imagery was more than literary flair. It was survival. Symbols concealed resistance in plain sight. Beasts, horns, and numbers carried meaning for those who knew their scriptures but looked harmless to those in power.

The connection between Daniel and Revelation is not just literary but theological.

Both books imagine history from God’s vantage point. They call readers not to calculate dates or decode every horn, but to trust that, behind every empire, there sits a greater throne.

In the end, Daniel’s promise that “the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom” (7:18) finds its fulfilment in Revelation’s cry:

“The Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings” (17:14).

The beasts fall and God’s throne remains.

Revelation and Hosea

If Daniel gives Revelation its beasts and visions, Hosea gives it its heartache.

Both books speak of divine love betrayed and renewed, though they do so in very different ways. Hosea’s marriage to Gomer, the unfaithful wife, becomes a metaphor for Israel’s idolatry; Revelation reworks the same image on a cosmic scale - the faithful bride and the faithless harlot standing side by side in symbolic tension.

Hosea opens with a shocking command: “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom” (Hosea 1:2). Through this enacted parable, Hosea embodies God’s anguish over a people who have turned to other gods. “You are not my people,” God declares — yet also promises, “I will betroth you to me forever” (2:23; 2:19).

Divine love is wounded, but persistent.

Revelation echoes this pattern, especially in its portrayal of Babylon and the New Jerusalem. The “great prostitute” of Revelation 17–18 is clothed in luxury, intoxicated with power, and “with her the kings of the earth committed fornication” (17:2). Like Hosea’s Gomer, she represents idolatrous allegiance - the seduction of empire, wealth, and false worship.

In deliberate contrast stands the “bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:7; 21:9).

Here the divine marriage metaphor reaches its consummation: the people of God, cleansed and faithful, united with their Lord. Scholars note how John’s imagery weaves together prophetic motifs from Hosea, Isaiah, and Ezekiel to portray both the tragedy of unfaithfulness and the hope of renewed covenant.

Where Hosea addresses Israel’s idolatry, Revelation expands the scope.

Babylon becomes a symbol of all nations seduced by the beast’s power. The unfaithful city is not merely ancient Israel but humanity in rebellion. Yet even here, the promise of restoration lingers. The final vision is not destruction alone but renewal: “See, the dwelling of God is with humanity” (21:3). The covenant love Hosea spoke of, faithful despite betrayal, becomes universal.

Both prophets understand sin as adultery and salvation as reconciliation.

Hosea’s “I will heal their disloyalty; I will love them freely” (14:4) resonates with Revelation’s invitation: “Come!” says the Spirit and the bride (22:17). In both, divine faithfulness triumphs over human faithlessness.

To read Revelation through Hosea is to see that the apocalypse is not merely about beasts and battles, but about love - spurned, vindicated, and ultimately fulfilled.

The story that began with an unfaithful spouse ends with a wedding feast.

The harlot becomes a bride. The covenant stands.