Calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us…”: this reflects the language of Hosea 10.8 (see also Luke 23.30). They ask the mountains and rocks to fall on them, not because they want them to hurt or kill them, but in order to protect them from God’s wrath. Fall on us and hide us may be also expressed as “Fall on us and cover (or, protect) us” or “Fall down on us and hide us.”

From the face of him who is seated on the throne: here God’s face is either a way of speaking of his presence as a whole or of his eyes in particular. Revised English Bible translates “from the One who sits on the throne”; Bible en français courant “from the sight of…”; Biblia Dios Habla Hoy “from the presence of….” Another way of expressing this phrase is “so that the one who is sitting on the throne can’t see us.” For the description of God as the one who sits on the throne, see 4.2.

The wrath of the Lamb: here wrath is used in the sense, not of an intense emotion of anger as such, but of the expression of that anger in the form of punishment. As the phrase “the great day of their wrath” in verse 17 shows, it means the Final Judgment and the punishment that will fall on sinners. So the translation may say “from the punishment (or, vengeance) of the Lamb.”

For the translation of Lamb see 5.6.

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• They called out to the mountains and to the rocks, saying, “Please fall down and hide us so that the one who is sitting on the throne can’t see us, and the Lamb won’t be able to punish us.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Revelation to John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .