Revelation and Warfare

Have you ever noticed all that Revelation (Apocalypse) has to say about war, in particular, divine warfare?

Rev. 1:16, 2:20-23; 6:1-8; 12:1-17; 14:19-20; 16:13-16; 19:11-21; 20:1-10.

This element of the book has often unsettled those who opt to be pacifists. Or people wonder why this book dwells on war since Jesus taught that those who live by the sword will die by the sword (Matt. 26:52).

However, Revelation deals with divine justice or righteous warfare as the book describes history's culmination. The Bible's last book emphasizes that God will exact judgment from the wicked but he will deliver his people, the righteous (Rev. 6:-11; 11:15-18; 17:1-7). One portion of Revelation which vividly foretells the eventual fate of the wicked is Rev. 14:19-20:

"The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. 20 They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses' bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia" (NIV).

What is this account possibly foretelling? Why does John write about the final battle in this way?

The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible offers this perspective:

blood flowed out of the press. Wine was sometimes called the “blood of grapes” (Ge 49:11; Dt 32:14); here red wine evokes the gruesome image of human blood crushed out of maimed flesh. rising as high as the horses’ bridles. Ancient descriptions of wars spoke of blood flowing in streams or of rivers flowing with blood when people were slain in them. In poetic depictions the blood obstructed ships, or trees dripped with gore dropped on them when satiated birds grew weary of feasting on corpses. Apocalypses amplified further: in the pre-Christian work 1 Enoch, sinners’ blood covers chariots; horses walk up to their chests in the blood. Some later rabbis lament horses drowning in blood and blood rolling huge boulders some 40 miles (65 kilometers) out to the sea. Sometimes the more extreme descriptions were merely figurative ways of expressing the horrific bloodshed (e.g., Eze 32:5 – 6). 1,600 stadia. Revelation again rounds to a square number: 1,600 is 40 x 40 (see NIV text note). The figure especially underlines the awful grotesqueness of the image: none of the beast’s army will survive. Whereas the river of paradise flows from God's throne (22:1 – 2) to a significant height (Eze 47:4 – 5), the wicked would drown in a river of their own blood.

The 1600 stadia means the distance (figuratively speaking) is about 180 miles or 300 kilometers.

J.B. Phillips NT:

Then the angel swung his sickle upon the earth and gathered the harvest of the earth's vineyard, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. The grapes were trodden outside the city, and out of the winepress flowed blood for two hundred miles in a stream as high as the horses' bridles.

The Greek stadion was about 600 feet or 1 furlong (circa 1/8 of a mile).