Revelation 7:12: the prayer that asks for nothing
12saying: “Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving, honor and power and strength to our God, forever and ever. Amen.”
A list of seven attributes between two amens, spoken by angels lying face down. There is no request anywhere in this prayer — a rare case of speech entirely turned toward the one being addressed.
Short answer
Revelation 7:12 is the acclamation of the angels before the throne, a list of seven attributes ascribed to God forever, framed by two amens. It follows the vision of the multitude no one could number, and it contains no request at all.
- Written by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 2 min read
This verse is easy to read straight past, because it looks like a string of solemn words. It repays reading slowly, with attention to two things: how many items there are, and what is missing from them.
Where this verse appears
Chapter 7 interrupts the sequence of seals with two visions. First a sealed group out of Israel; then an uncountable multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language, dressed in white before the throne and the Lamb. That multitude cries out that salvation belongs to God and to the Lamb, and the angels fall on their faces. Verse 12 is what they say.
What it says
The list has seven items, and the number is never accidental in this book. Revelation works throughout with seven as the mark of fullness, so a list of seven attributes reads as a claim of totality: not a selection, but the whole set.
What stands out is the absence. No petition, no intercession, no complaint. In a Bible full of prayers that ask — and ask loudly, as much of the Psalter does — this one is wholly occupied with its addressee. Worth noting that it comes directly after a scene involving people who have been through great tribulation.
The frame of amens matters too. The first confirms what the multitude has just said, and the second closes the angels’ own acclamation. In other words, the angels’ prayer begins by agreeing with a prayer made by human beings. The hierarchy of the scene is less rigid than it is often imagined.
What to do with it today
It works as a concrete exercise. Try an entire prayer with no request in it — only saying who God is. It is harder than it sounds, and the discomfort that shows up in the first few minutes tends to be informative about the relationship.
There is also an indirect comfort. This scene is presented as what is going on at another level while the difficult story of the previous chapters unfolds. It is not a promise that the hardship ends now; it is a claim that the hardship is not the only thing under way.
A prayer to carry with you
Lord, today I am not going to ask for anything. I only want to say that you are good, wise and strong, and that I acknowledge it even without understanding what is happening to me. Take this thanks with nothing attached. Amen.