Which Translation for Revelation 5:9-10 Is Correct?

The question is simple on the surface: should Revelation 5:9-10 say that the Lamb bought us and made us kings and priests, or should Revelation 5:9-10 say that the Lamb bought people from the nations and made them a kingdom and priests?

The translation question matters because some readers see Revelation 5:9-10 as an important support for identifying the twenty-four elders with the church. The argument can be stated this way: the twenty-four elders symbolize the church; the twenty-four elders are already in heaven before the seals are opened; and if the song says "you bought us" and "you made us," then the twenty-four elders are singing in the first person as those redeemed by the Lamb. On the reading that the twenty-four elders are the church, the scene becomes evidence that the church is already caught up into heaven before the seal judgments begin.

John MacArthur, for example, has taught that the twenty-four elders represent the raptured church in heaven before the seals. In a Revelation overview, he says, "I believe this is the church" and then calls the elders "the rapture church, now complete." This study does not carry the belief that the twenty-four elders are the church. This study sees the twenty-four elders as distinct from the church because the text does not define the twenty-four elders in that way. Identifying the twenty-four elders as the church is an interpretive move that the text itself does not explicitly point to, though such an interpretation is not impossible. (Revelation 7:9-14 leans the other direction because the white-robed multitude from the nations is presented separately from the elders, and one of the elders explains the multitude to John. Revelation 19:1-6 also keeps the multitude in heaven, the twenty-four elders, and the four creatures distinct in the worship scene. The twenty-four elders could still be part of the larger redeemed company, but those scenes do not simply identify the twenty-four elders as the church. If Revelation 5:9-10 is read without the first-person "us" and "we," then the twenty-four elders are singing about the redeemed from the nations rather than directly identifying themselves as the redeemed from the nations.) The reading that the twenty-four elders represent the raptured church does not depend only on the disputed "us" in Revelation 5:9-10, but the first-person wording in the KJV/TR line can feel like strong support for identifying the twenty-four elders with the redeemed church.

So the first-person question has real theological weight and should not be glossed over. If the four creatures and the twenty-four elders are singing, and if the song says "you bought us" and "you made us," then the song sounds like the singers are identifying themselves with those bought by the Lamb. But the first-person question is not the only interesting point. The more interesting question may be why some streams of the text moved in a first-person direction at all. If the earlier and better reading is third-person in Revelation 5:10, then the drift toward "us" and "we" may preserve evidence of how some readers or transmission streams understood the throne-room scene. The first-person drift does not prove the theology. The first-person drift may show the theology that some readers expected to see.

The Text in Question

The URV renders the passage this way:

“And they sang a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open the seals thereof: for you were slain and bought unto God [–/us] by your blood out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation; and have made them [–/unto our God] a kingdom and priests, and they [will reign/reign] on the earth.”

— Revelation 5:9–10 (URV)

The KJV reads differently:

“And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.”

— Revelation 5:9–10 (KJV)

The difference is not small. The KJV places the singers in the first person: "us" and "we." The URV follows the critical text in Revelation 5:10: "them" and "they." In Revelation 5:9, the URV follows the omission of "us" but keeps the variant visible with the bracket [–/us].

So this study does not treat Revelation 5:9 and Revelation 5:10 as the same textual problem.

How This Study Renders Revelation 5:9-10

In Revelation 5:9, the question is whether the song says Christ bought "us" unto God. The Greek word in question is "us" (ἡμᾶς). The NA28 text omits the word. Codex Alexandrinus also omits the word. But Sinaiticus and the Received Text include it. Because Sinaiticus and the Received Text include "us," the URV keeps the variant visible:

“bought unto God [–/us] by your blood”

— Revelation 5:9 (URV)

The dash marks the reading followed by this study. The "us" after the slash keeps the alternate reading visible.

Revelation 5:10 is different. There the critical reading is "them" (αὐτοὺς), not "us" (ἡμᾶς). The editions and witnesses checked in this study — including NA28, SBL, Westcott-Hort, Robinson-Pierpont, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus — all read in the third person at the pronoun in Revelation 5:10. Stephanus and the King James Textus Receptus read "us."

The same first-person movement continues later in the verse in the TR/KJV line. The third-person readings divide between "they will reign" (βασιλεύσουσιν) and "they reign" (βασιλεύουσιν), while the TR/KJV reads "we shall reign" (βασιλεύσομεν). So the reign verb has its own present/future question, but both third-person forms still keep the song focused on them, not us.

The distinction between the Revelation 5:9 variant and the Revelation 5:10 pronoun reading is why the URV reads:

“and have made them [–/unto our God] a kingdom and priests, and they [will reign/reign] on the earth.”

— Revelation 5:10 (URV)

Why This Study Follows “Them”

For Revelation 5:10, "them" is the better reading.

The external evidence is strong. The Greek witnesses available in this project's collation show Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus reading "them" in Revelation 5:10. The major critical editions also read "them." The TR/KJV first-person wording stands apart from the wider Greek pattern that reads "them" in Revelation 5:10.

The internal evidence also points toward "them." Revelation 5:8 says that the four creatures and the twenty-four elders fall before the Lamb, each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense. Revelation 5:9 then says "they sang a new song." The most immediate singers are the four creatures and the twenty-four elders.

That matters because the four creatures are not likely to be included in the redeemed company from "every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation." A song can speak about a group without the singers being identical to the group. Heavenly choruses can praise God for what He has done for others. So a third-person reading fits the scene without forcing the four creatures into the company bought from the earth.

The first-person reading creates a harder scene: the four creatures and elders sing as if all the singers were themselves the bought company. The difficulty created by including the four creatures in the first-person song does not make the first-person reading impossible, but the difficulty does mean the first-person reading carries a heavier burden.

How the Drift Appears

The drift should be described carefully. The manuscript history is not a clean staircase where every later witness moves one step farther from the original. A later manuscript can preserve an earlier reading, and an earlier manuscript can carry a secondary reading. Textual criticism is not simply counting years.

Still, Revelation 5:9-10 does show a visible movement in parts of the tradition toward first-person language.

Among the witnesses discussed here, Codex Alexandrinus gives the cleanest third-person line for this question. In Revelation 5:9, Alexandrinus omits "us." In Revelation 5:10, Alexandrinus reads "them." The song speaks about those bought by the Lamb without making the singers themselves the direct object of the song.

Sinaiticus is mixed. In Revelation 5:9, Sinaiticus includes "us." But in Revelation 5:10, Sinaiticus still reads "them" and "they will reign." That creates a partially first-person and partially third-person line: "you bought us," but "you made them" and "they will reign."

The TR/KJV line moves the whole passage into the first person. Revelation 5:9 has "us." Revelation 5:10 has "us." The reign statement becomes "we shall reign." The result is a harmonized first-person song.

So the first-person drift does not look like one isolated spelling change. The first-person drift looks like pressure toward a coherent first-person reading:

The movement toward first-person language is important. Once "us" appears in Revelation 5:9, the third-person wording in Revelation 5:10 begins to feel uneven. A later hand or a later printed line could smooth the song by carrying "us" forward into Revelation 5:10 and then changing the reign verb to "we shall reign." A harmonizing move from "us" in Revelation 5:9 to "us" and "we" in Revelation 5:10 is not the only possible explanation, but a harmonizing move accounts for the direction of the variation.

What the Drift Might Imply

If the first-person wording drifted into the text, the drift may tell us something about theological expectation.

Someone reading Revelation 5 before the seals are opened may have understood the twenty-four elders as representing the redeemed. If a reader already expected the redeemed to be represented in heaven before the seals, then "you bought us" would feel natural. The first-person wording would not create a problem for a reader who identified the twenty-four elders with the redeemed; the first-person wording would clarify what that reader already thought the throne-room scene meant.

The possibility that the first-person drift preserves reception history is worth noticing. The first-person drift may preserve a trace of reception. Some readers or textual streams seem to have been comfortable reading the heavenly song as the song of the redeemed before the seals open.

But the claim about theological expectation has to stay modest. The first-person drift does not prove that the whole early church held a pre-seal catching up. The first-person drift does not even prove that the first-person reading was created for a pre-seal catching-up expectation. Scribes can add a direct object simply because a sentence feels incomplete. A reader can harmonize pronouns because two adjacent lines feel uneven. The theological reading may be part of the pressure, but the text itself does not tell us the motive of the scribe.

So the first-person drift can be suggestive without becoming proof.

Why Alexandrinus Carries Weight Here

For the Revelation 5:9-10 pronoun question, Codex Alexandrinus deserves special attention. Alexandrinus gives a reading that makes sense of the other pronoun readings. If the shorter line in Revelation 5:9 is original, then the bought company is supplied from the phrase "out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation." No written "us" is needed.

Then Revelation 5:10 continues naturally: the Lamb made them a kingdom and priests, and they will reign on the earth.

The Alexandrinus/third-person reading also fits the singers. The four creatures and twenty-four elders can sing about the redeemed without needing to be identical to the redeemed. The song praises the Lamb for what He has done. The song does not have to make every singer the object of redemption.

By contrast, once "us" is placed in Revelation 5:9, Revelation 5:10 becomes unstable. Should the song continue with "them," or should the song become "us" and "we"? The TR/KJV resolves that instability by making the whole passage first person. Alexandrinus avoids the instability because Alexandrinus never introduces the first-person pronoun in the first place.

The way Alexandrinus explains the rise of the other pronoun readings is why this study follows the omission in Revelation 5:9 while keeping the variant visible, and why this study follows "them" in Revelation 5:10.

Not a Linchpin for the Catching Up

The first-person reading has theological weight, but the possibility of an early catching up should not rest on Revelation 5:9-10.

If "us" were original in Revelation 5:9-10, then the song would be one more piece of evidence that the redeemed are represented in heaven before the seals open. A first-person song before the seals would matter. But if "us" is not original, the larger catching-up question does not collapse.

Revelation has a larger narrative that must be weighed: the throne scene before the seals, the Lamb taking the scroll, the multitude before the throne in Revelation 7, the male child caught up to God in Revelation 12, the 144,000 with the Lamb in Revelation 14, and the later saints who face the beast. Those narrative pieces have to be examined together. Revelation 5:9-10 is not enough to carry the entire catching-up question by itself.

So do not feel like a whole theological system has to be surrendered because the "us" in Revelation 5:9-10 is challenged. If a theological system requires one disputed pronoun with contested manuscript evidence, then the theological system was weak already. A strong claim needs multiple lines of evidence, not a single verse where the text itself shows strain.

The better reading of Revelation 5:9-10 is that the singers praise the Lamb for buying a people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, and for making them a kingdom and priests, with the reign statement also remaining in the third person. The first-person drift remains interesting. The first-person drift may show how some readers expected the heavenly scene to work. But the text of Revelation 5:9-10 itself is not the place to force the whole catching-up question.