LOL, while I was away (from CC) typing up the following, somebody beat me to it ^ ha! I'll go ahead a put what I had typed up, here:
Some have pointed out how the order of the names (Rev7:5-8) is unique (not found in this way anywhere else in scripture) and may perhaps form a sentence with a specific meaning or message, similarly to how some suggest this of the list of 10 names in Genesis 5 (though some tend to
apply it in ways I don't necessarily think to be quite accurate):
1) Judah G2448 - "praised" ["give thanks" / "confess"]
2) Reuben G4502 - "behold [look], a son!" / "he has looked on me"
3) Gad G1045 - "fortune" / "given good fortune"
4) Asher G768 - "happy one" / "blessed one"
5) Naphtali G3508 - "wrestling" / "my wrestling"
6) Manasseh G3128 - "causing to forget"
7) Simeon G4826 - "to hear / hearing"
8) Levi G3017 - "joined / attached / accompanying"
9) Issachar G2466 - "recompence / reward / purchased"
10) Zebulun G2194 - "to dwell / dwelling"
11) Joseph G2501 - "he increases / to add"
12) Benjamin G958 - "son of [the] right hand"
Someone has put it together as a sentence in the following way:
[quoting] "I will praise the Lord [for] he has looked on me [and] given good fortune. Happy am I. [In] my wrestling, God is making me to forget. [But] God hears me [and is] joined to me. [He has] purchased me [a] dwelling [and] will add to me [the] Son of His right hand." [end quoting]
I see this as somewhat parallel to what we see written in
Hosea 5:15-6:3 (regarding Israel [and its parallel passages I've listed before]), where it says, "15 I will go
and return to My place,
TILL they [Israel] acknowledge their offence, and seek My face:
in their affliction they will seek Me early/earnestly. [...] Then shall we know,
if we follow on to know the Lord: His going forth is prepared as the morning;
and He shall come unto us [Israel] as the rain, as the latter [spring]
and former [fall] rains
unto the earth."
[this is said, in v.2, to be "after two days" and "in the third day"]
I believe the 144,000 are among those [the "wise"] who will be (during the trib years [AFTER our Rapture]) giving out the message of "invitation" TO/FOR the promised and prophesied
earthly Millennial Kingdom, Matt24:14/26:13 [the effects of this "invitation" seen in Rev7:9-17, and Matt25:31-34 and context, and Matt22:8-14, and Lk12:36-37,38,40,42-44 and its parallels, Mt13:24,30,39,40,49-50, and Matt8:11 and its parallel, and Daniel 12:12, also about 10 total, or so, "BLESSED" passages (like Rev19:9 distinct from 19:7)]; "the least of these My brethren" being among the "invit
ers" (who are not the ones BEING judged/separated in the Matt25:31-34 Sheep & goats context)... So those in the trib who heed their [correct] message (and "bless" these bringing said message) will themselves be "blessed" to enter the MK time period (but it is my understanding that they will be doing so at great risk to themselves, to "bless" those bringing this message, at such a time of great deception [the trib years with its man of sin/that Wicked])
BTW, "Dan" means "judge"...and his name [and land-alottment] is included in the
later MK-age passages, if I recall.
I tend also to agree with the study that was out there quite a number of years ago (don't know where I'd find it now
) that showed how
Paul was a "type" of the future 144,000, with himself being "as of one born out of due time" (i.e. much
earlier than the rest [see also Gen44:2
]),
...and that they will also come to faith in a similar manner as he did, when "
SUDDENLY there shined round about him
A LIGHT FROM HEAVEN" (bearing in mind how I believe that "the day of the Lord so cometh [arrives] as a thief
IN THE NIGHT" [the
"DARK"/"DARKNESS" aspect of the [entire] Day of the Lord time period, at its INITIAL "birth PANG [
SINGULAR; 1Th5:
2-3; Matt24:
4/Mk13:
5 "G1500 -
tis - 'A CERTAIN ONE'"--the "whose coming/advent/arrival/presence/
parousia" of the man of sin, SEAL #1, at the START of the 7 years/70th Wk, Dan9:27(26), when Jesus will "
STAND to JUDGE" Isa3:13, Rev4-5, etc, with many MORE "birth PANGS [PLURAL]" that follow on from that INITIAL "birth PANG [SINGULAR]"]