The great voice in the sky

[Sam V]

Revelation 12:10 LGV reads:

And I heard a great voice in the sky saying;
“Finally! Salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of His
Anointed has come because the accuser of our brothers, the one accusing them before our
God day and night, has been thrown down

I wonder:
Why does the voice say “our brothers? It must not be the Son, nor the Father, since they are referred to in the third person. It must not be angels – when are angels ever called brothers of humans? It must not be “departed souls”, since souls are not separate entities (that’s Greek philosophy).

So who is speaking? And why does the voice come from the sky (or heaven)? Am I missing the forest for the trees?

[Timothy]

Sam,

IMO, it is important to note what John did NOT write: “I heard a loud voice FROM the sky.” Rather, he wrote: “I heard a loud voice IN the sky” (ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ). Compare this to Rev. 10:8; 11:12; 14:13; 18:4; 21:3 where John heard a loud voice FROM the sky (ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ) which identifies the source’s location. In ch. 4:1, John was taken to heaven in his vision. Throughout the book, you will notice that his location and perspective repeatedly changes between the land and the sky. It is as though John’s perspective (location) is to observe physical manifestations from the earth, and then his perspective changes to the “sky” (heaven) to observe the spiritual realities and struggles in the spiritual realm which manifest in the physical realm. In Rev. 12:1 John described a great sign ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ “in the sky” and another in v. 3. So it seems that John’s observational perspective in this chapter is not from the surface of the earth but from above the earth.

Interestingly, the great sign of the woman about to give birth to the man-child, clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, which is Virgo on Rosh Hashanna, cannot be observed from earth on Rosh Hashanna because the sun illuminates the atmosphere making the stars that make up the constellation Virgo impossible to see in relation to the sun’s and moon’s locations. Only if one could rise above the atmosphere where the sky would become dark could this sign actually be observed. Today we can observe it using astronomy programs where you can turn off the illuminated atmosphere with the click of a mouse. In ancient times, it could only be surmised using sky charts and calculations and by observing the opposite constellations at night. So, for the short answer, John’s perspective in this chapter is in the “sky” above the atmosphere. Consequently, when he wrote in v. 12, “Then I heard a voice in the sky” IMO he was giving his own perceived location when he heard the voice not the location where the voice originated from.

[Author]

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