We’re right in the middle of a three-part look at Second Temple literature — those writings from the time between the Old and New Testaments. While they’re not part of our Bible, they matter for this series because they show how people in Jesus’ day understood the Bible. What they expected wasn’t vague global collapse, it was the same pattern we’ve seen in every section of Scripture — a regional war centered on Israel, with Jerusalem surrounded, the nations rising and the Messiah returning to win.
In this part, we zero in on one of the clearest and most unapologetic pieces of Second Temple prophecy — the War Scroll.
The War Scroll was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, buried in a cave near Qumran. It reads more like a battle manual than a vision. It maps out a final confrontation between the Sons of Light, the righteous remnant of Israel, and the Sons of Darkness, a coalition of Gentile enemies. And it’s not vague about who those enemies are — Edom, Moab, Ammon, Philistia, Amalek and Kittim. These names should sound familiar. They’re the same nations that surrounded Israel all through the Old Testament and show up again in prophetic end-time visions. They are nations listed by Ezekiel and Daniel.
The scroll outlines the battlefield — Jerusalem. It divides the army into units and assigns trumpet calls. It even gives speech instructions for the priests before battle, and it ends with victory, not by military strategy alone, but by divine intervention. God fights for His people, the city is saved and the enemies are crushed.
This is the kind of document that shaped the atmosphere leading into the Gospels. It’s not canon. However, it provides us with a glimpse into what people were already anticipating when Jesus discussed the end. They were expecting to stand firm until the King showed up to win the war.
That’s what makes the connection to Revelation so explosive. Because when John starts writing about trumpets and scrolls, though he is being given a vision from the Lord, it’s not brand new. It had traces in literature that would have been available to him. He’s steps into a tradition his audience already knew.
In Revelation, the trumpets begin in chapter 8 and move through a cycle of escalating judgment — fire, blood, poisoned water and darkened skies. Each blast marks a movement toward the final confrontation. It’s not random chaos. It’s a coordinated warning. The seventh trumpet isn’t just the loudest — it’s the moment the kingdom is handed over — “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ” (Rev. 11:15 NKJV). That’s not poetic language for personal salvation, as some who interpret Revelation to be just symbolic or spiritual. It is a regime change.
Here’s the thread that ties it back — the War Scroll used trumpets too, seven of them. Each trumpet had a purpose — to rally the troops, to start the fight and to declare victory. These weren’t decorative sounds. They were war signals. Which is exactly what they are in Revelation. The scroll at Qumran didn’t invent the idea. It echoed the pattern laid down in the Old Testament. Revelation doesn’t abandon it, but it picks it up and brings it to fulfillment.
Even the imagery of beasts, horns and multi-nation coalitions in Revelation lines up with what Daniel saw and what many Second Temple writers expanded — a Gentile ruler rises, the nations gather, Jerusalem is targeted and the Messiah returns to shatter the opposition. The War Scroll just gives us the clearest earthly version of that expectation.
And that’s the point — Revelation isn’t launching something new. It’s confirming what had already been burned into the imagination of the faithful. The end would come through judgment. It would be centered on Israel. It would involve specific, historic enemies. And it would end with God restoring what was always His.
The early church didn’t read Revelation in isolation. They read it in the shadow of the scrolls they had grown up hearing about. They saw the trumpets and thought of Jericho. They saw the armies gathering and thought of Zechariah. They saw the battle plan, and it looked familiar — because it was.
So, when John saw the heavens open, when he heard the trumpets sound, when he watched the bowls pour out and the city get surrounded, he wasn’t watching a new story unfold. He was watching the war, already drawn, finally begin. The battle had been written, the trumpets had been assigned, the map had been marked and the King was ready.
