John on Patmos (1.9–11)

English

I, John, your brother and sharer in the tribulation and kingdom and endurance in Jesus, was on the island that is called Patmos because of God’s word and the witness of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the Lord’s Day and I heard a loud voice behind me, like a trumpet, saying, ‘Write what you see in a scroll and send it to the seven assemblies: to Ephesos and to Smyrna and to Pergamon and to Thyateira and to Sardeis and to Philadelpheia and to Laodikeia.’

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Interpretation

Based on similar uses of the adjective κυριακη in early Christian texts, the ‘Lord’s day’ most likely refers to a weekly commemoration of Jesus’ resurrection on the first day of the week (i.e. Sunday). Being ‘in the spirit’ suggests meditative prayer.

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Parallels

Isaiah

58.1 Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet!

Daniel

9.21 while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen before in a vision, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice.

10.2–3 At that time I, Daniel, had been mourning for three weeks. I had eaten no rich food, no meat or wine had entered my mouth, and I had not anointed myself at all, for the full three weeks.

Didache

14.1 And on the Lord’s Day of the Lord

16.6 And then the signs of truth will appear: first, the sign of extension in heaven; next, the signal of the trumpet call

1 Thessalonians

4.16 For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in the Anointed One will rise first.

1 Corinthians

15.51–52 We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

Matthew

24.31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the earth to the other.

4 Ezra

14.22 ‘If then I have found favour with you, send the holy spirit into me, and I will write everything that has happened in the world from the beginning, the things that were written in your law, so that people may be able to find the path, and that those who want to live in the last days may do so.’

2 Baruch

13.13 And after these things it happened that I, Baruch, was standing on Mount Zion

Revelation of Ezra

1 If the first day of January comes on the Lord’s Day