Revelation 14 concludes with a son of man reaping a harvest from the earth. But there is a second angel who reaps a harvest of grapes and treads the grapes in the “great winepress of God’s wrath.” Is this a single judgment, or are there two harvests in view? Is this “harvest of the earth” in Revelation 14 for salvation or judgment?
The combination of the image of a harvest and a sickle seems to indicate this is a harvest to judgment and the extreme gore of verses 19-20 describe an epic final judgment of all the earth. However, some commentators think there are two harvests in 14:14-20. The first (verses 14-15) is a wheat harvest and includes all people, while the second is a grape harvest (verse 16-20) only falls on the unrighteous. The first harvest is for the elect and the second for the non-elect to damnation.
In the Gospels, since the crowds following him as a plentiful harvest, Jesus tells his disciples to “pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers” (Matt 9:37/Luke 10:2). In the next paragraph Jesus selects the twelve disciples, gives them authority to heal and cast out demons, and then sends them out to announce the Kingdom of God to the Jewish people in Galilee. The disciples are the workers in the harvest. But there is an eschatological edge to some of Jesus’s harvest sayings. The arable of the Wheat and Weeds, for example, looks forward to the separation of the wheat and the weeds at the harvest time (Matt 13:24-30). In Mark 4:29 he says “But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
Grain harvests can be used to describe either a gathering to salvation or a gathering to judgment. Isaiah 27:12-13 the Lord will “thresh out the grain” and Israel will be gleaned so that they can return to Jerusalem and worship God. But in Isaiah 17:4 it is Jacob that is judged at the harvest of olives. In Jeremiah 51:33 Babylon on the threshing floor and the “the time of her harvest will come.” Joel 3:13 is likely the text John alludes to in Revelation 14 since it combines a grain and grape harvest: “Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the winepress is full. The vats overflow, for their evil is great.”
The Septuagint translates the Hebrew word “scroll” (מְגִלָּה) as “sickle” (δρέπανον), the same word used here in Revelation 14. Zechariah sees “a flying sickle, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide” (LES2). This death sickle will go out over the face of the land to punish every thief and everyone who swears falsely. Both 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra describe an eschatological harvest as a judgment on the wicked:
2 Baruch 70.2 Behold, the days are coming and it will happen when the time of the world has ripened and the harvest of the seed of the evil ones and the good ones has come that the Mighty One will cause to come over the earth and its inhabitants and its rulers confusion of the spirit and amazement of the heart.
4 Ezra 4.30–32 For a grain of evil seed was sown in Adam’s heart from the beginning, and how much ungodliness it has produced until now, and will produce until the time of threshing comes! 31 Consider now for yourself how much fruit of ungodliness a grain of evil seed has produced. 32 When heads of grain without number are sown, how great a threshing floor they will fill!”
4 Ezra uses the image of a harvest for vindication of the righteous as well, in 4:35 the righteous as “when will come the harvest of our reward?”
It is possible to approach the two judgments as similar following same pattern: Another angel comes out from the temple or altar in heaven; a command by a heavenly voice (God’s voice) to proceed with the harvest. In each there is a sharp sickle; in each the harvest is ripe. There are two difference in the ripeness, the grain has dried up (aorist passive from ξηραίνω) but the grapes are at their peak (ἀκμάζω, “the best time of life,” BDAG).
If the passage is patterned on Joel 3:13, then only one judgment is in mind, although it is possible John expanded Joel’s single judgment into two. This may be an example of repetition to emphasize the severity of the judgment.