Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Revelation 21:12

"having a wall great and high; having twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names written thereon, which are [the names] of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:" — Revelation 21:12 (ASV)

In John’s description of the city, precious stones, brilliant colors, and the effulgence of light abound. The problem of the literalness of the city has received much attention. If the city is the bride and the bride the glorified community of God’s people in their eternal life, there is little question that John’s descriptions are primarily symbolic of that glorified life. This in no way diminishes the reality behind the imagery. In the most suitable language available to John, much of it drawn from the OT, he shows us something of the reality of the eschatological kingdom of God in its glorified existence.

Its appearance is all glorious, “with the glory of God” (v.11; cf. Ezekiel 43:4).

The city has a “brilliance” (GK 5891) given it by God’s presence that appears as crystal-clear jasper (Isaiah 60:1–2, 19; Revelation 21:23). “Jasper” is mentioned three times in ch. 21 (vv.11, 18–19; cf. 4:3). This is an opaque quartz mineral and occurs in various colors, commonly red, brown, green, and yellow, rarely blue and black, and seldom white.

The wall is high, its height symbolizing the greatness of this city as well as its impregnability against those described in 21:8, 27. The twelve gates are distributed three on each of the four walls. These may be like the triple gates that can now be seen in the excavated wall of the old Jerusalem (see also v.21). What impresses John about the gates are their angel guards and the inscribed names of the twelve tribes of Israel. The presence of angels proclaims that this is God’s city, while the twelve tribes emphasize the complete election of God (cf. comment on 7:4). Here is a deliberate allusion to Ezekiel’s eschatological Jerusalem on whose gates the names of the twelve tribes appear (Ezekiel 48:30–34).

Ezekiel 48:35 says, “The name of the city from that time on will be: THE LORD IS THERE” (cf. Revelation 21:3; 22:3–4).

Like the gates, the twelve foundations of the wall have twelve names written on them—in this case, the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Foundations of ancient cities usually consisted of extensions of the rows of huge stones that made up the wall, down to the bedrock. Jerusalem’s first-century walls and foundation stones have recently been excavated. Huge stones, some of which are about five feet wide, four feet high, and thirty feet long, weighing eighty to one hundred tons each going deep into the ground, have been found.

Here John stresses the names of the twelve apostles on the foundations (see also vv.19–21). Theologically, it is significant that he brings together the twelve tribes and the twelve apostles of the Lamb and yet differentiates them. This is not unlike what Matthew and Luke tell us that Jesus said (Matthew 19:28). The earlier symbolic use of twelve , representing completeness, implies that it is unnecessary for us to know precisely which twelve apostles are there. Judas fell and was replaced by Matthias (Acts 1:21–26), but Paul also was a prominent apostle. Furthermore, the number “twelve” is sometimes used to refer to the elect group when all twelve are not in view (Jn 20:24 has ten; 1 Corinthians 15:5 has eleven; cf. Lk 9:12). The apostles represent the church, the elect community built on the foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the slain Lamb. The dual election here depicted admittedly entails some difficulty in identifying the twelve tribes in 7:4ff. with the church (see comments at 7:1ff.).