Seeing voices

When he hears the voice like a trumpet, John turns to “see” the voice. This is an odd turn of phrase, but, as David Aune points out, not unprecedented. At Sinai, Israel saw the voice that spoke (Exodus 20:18), and later in Deuteronomy, Moses says that he saw the voice (7:11; LXX). Some prophetic texts also speak of “seeing words” (Isaiah 2:1; 13:1; Jeremiah 23:18; Amos 1:1; Micah 1:1; Habakkuk 1:1).

Seeing the voice puts John in a Sinai setting, standing on the mountain before Yahweh, being commissioned to write what he sees and hears, and to take it down the mountain. Israel’s prophets who see voices are all in the line of the great prophet Moses, and John sees his own commission in the light of their commissions as well.