Eighth ear

Each of the “letters” to the churches in Revelation 2-3 ends with a Christianized “shema”: He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. A sevenfold shema exhorts the saints to endure through the end of the old creation.

The eighth shema is nestled in the middle of chapter 13, not in a letter but in the midst of a vision of a beast making war on the saints and gathering every tribe to follow him (13:9).

This echo of the letters is significant in several respects. Most obviously, it means that the threat described in chapter 13 is being linked to the threats to the seven churches described in Revelation 2-3. Further, the exhortations to “hear” in the “letters” all promise rewards for the victorious; but 13:9 comes just after John sees that the beast is going to be victorious over the saints (13:7). As Richard Bauckham has pointed out, the object of “overcome” is unspecified in the “letters,” and becomes explicit only when the dragon and beasts begin to appear in chapters 12-13. “Hear” and listen good, because the victory of the saints is going to come through the victory of the beast. Finally, the fact that this is the eighth year, the eighth “shema” of Revelation suggests that this is the great shema of the new creation.