The Irony of Revelation’s Curse

The words of Revelation 22:18-19 are familiar. Here’s how the NIV renders them:

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.

For some reason I was not struck before by the irony of the author of Revelation writing this, because in a sense, his extensive use and reworking of earlier Scripture could be construed as just that – an adding to and a taking away from them.

Technically of course that was not the case – his words ended up sitting alongside those earlier writings, and did not tamper with the books themselves. Nevertheless, there still seems to be a certain irony in a creative transformer of Scripture pronouncing a curse on anyone who tampers with the words of his own book.