In his Climax of Prophecy, Richard Bauckham’s devotes a long, complicated, fascinating chapter to an analysis of the phrase “tribes, tongues, nations, peoples” (and variations) in Revelation. The arrangement of the lists varies, but the variations are not random. They reinforce substantive connections between different parts of the book.

Bauckham assigns numbers to each of the terms: 1 is tribe, 2 tongue, 3 people, and 4 nation. he then summarizes the different uses of the phrase using the numbers:

He notes the linkages between pairs of lists. 5:9 and 13:7 go together. 5:9 is 1234, and 13:7 reverses the inner numbers of this list to make 1324. 7:9 and 14:6 have the same sort of relationship. Both begin with 41, but the final two terms are inverted: 4132 and 4123. 

Bauckham argues that these parallels are meant to highlight the connections between different sections of the book and different episodes. 5:9 and 13:7 concern praise of the Lamb and the beast respectively, and the connection between the lists reinforces the connection. He summarizes the connections : 

“John sees the Lamb ‘as if slaughtered’ . . . and one of the beast’s heads ‘as if slaughtered.’ . . . The Lamb has conquered (5:5); the beast was allowed to conquer the saints (13:7). The Lamb’s conquest by his death leads to the worship of God and the Lamb by every creature (5:13); the beast’s recovery from its mortal wound leads to the worship of the dragon and the beast by the whole world (13:3-4, 8). The Lamb has ransomed people from every tribe and language and people and nation, to make them a kingdom (5:9-10); the beast is allowed to rule over every tribe and people and language and nation (13:7). The ironic parallel between the Lamb and the beast is especially sharp in 13:7, where the saints whom the beast is allowed to conquer (13:7a) are, of course, precisely those whom the Lamb’s conquest had won from every tribe and language and people and nation (5:9), and the beast’s conquest of them is closely linked to the authority is allowed to exercise over every tribe and people and tongue and nation (13:7b)” (333). 

7:9 and 14:6, with their similar lists, are also connected. 5:9 and 7:9 are connected, as Bauckham says, because these two passages show that the “Lamb’s victory is continued by his people.” But the linkage between 7:9 and 14:6 is extremely significant for the book as a whole: “The church’s faithfulness in witness even as far as death is the way in which the nations are to be won from the worship of the beast to the worship of the true God. The message of the angel to every nation and tribe and language and people (14:6-7) dramatizes the effect of the victory of the martyrs on the nations: it calls them to repudiate the beast’s rule (13:7) and worship God.” Just when the beast appears to be consolidating his rule, it is actually the saints that are being advanced to thrones (334).