Freshly New
In most translations of Revelation, 3:12 talks about a ‘New Jerusalem’. Likewise, in 21:1, most mention a ‘new heaven and ‘new earth’, while in 21:5 God says he’s making everything ‘new’.
However, our main source for Revelation, the Codex Sinaiticus, doesn’t call it that. It instead uses inflections of the word ‘kenos’ (κενος) which literally means ‘empty’.
That’s right, it’s literally:
‘God’s empty JeruSalem’
And:
‘An empty heaven and an empty earth’
And:
‘I’m making everything empty‘
You can see it in our interlinear of 3:12, 21:1, and 21:5.
Some people assume these are scribal errors, that they’re supposed to be inflections of the word kainos (καινος), which literally means ‘new’.
That could be true; after all, the words do look similar:
- κενος / kenos = empty
- καινος / kainos = new
However, it’s possible that the Codex Sinaiticus is correct. After all, it’s one of the oldest copies of Revelation, and the very same verse uses the correct spelling of ‘new’ at the end of 3:12 when it talks about the ‘new name’.
Also, the Codex Sinaiticus uses the same word in 2 Peter 3:13, which famously talks about a ‘new heavens and a new earth’, instead saying (literally):
‘new heavens and an empty earth’.
So this is not a one-off, it’s a pattern.
Does this mean that the new earth and new JeruSalem are empty?
Perhaps, but a more likely explanation is that ‘empty’ here has the connotations of something being new, fresh, and unused, like in the way a newly built house is empty before the first tenants move in.
So we translate it as ‘freshly new’ to convey the idea that it’s so newly built that it’s not yet inhabited:
‘the freshly new JeruSalem’
‘the freshly new sky and the freshly new land’
‘I’m making everything freshly new’
This enriches the meaning, painting a more vivid picture of the new city and the new heaven/sky and new earth/land.