Revelation 16:15

ἔρχομαι. א* Primas[563] read ἔρχεται.

[563] Primasius, edited by Haussleiter.

15. ἰδοὺ ἔρχομαι. St John, or another prophet, apparently hears, and writes down as he hears, the words of Christ spoken in the midst of the vision.

ὡς κλέπτης. See Revelation 3:3 and references.

μακάριος ὁ γρηγορῶν. This may refer again, as in St Matthew 24:43, to a watchful householder ready for the secret and sudden coming of the thief, or, as in St Luke 12:37, to a watchful servant, ready for the coming as sudden and as secret of his Lord.

καὶ τηρῶν. The forewarned householder, if the figure be taken from him, sits up with his clothes on, and the thief will decamp as soon as he sees him. If he were not forewarned, he might hear the thief at work and start naked out of bed, but would be too late for anything but a fruitless chase in unseemly and ridiculous guise. If this be the sense, ὁ γρηγορῶν καὶ τηρῶν must mean, who watches and does not lose: there is no more authority for this sense of τηρεῖν than for the sense of λιβανωτόν in Revelation 8:3. If the figure be taken from servants waiting for their Lord, possibly we are to understand that the garments are kept not from loss but from defilement, as in Revelation 3:4. The slothful servant is careless too, and either dares not shew himself in the raiment he has defiled, or is stripped of it. As primitive Christianity had many points of contact with Essenism it is not impossible that there may be something like an allusion to the sacred white dress the Essenes reserved for their meals, which were a daily sacrifice and sacrament. This is less irrelevant than the allusion some suggest to the curious Jewish custom that if a priest fell asleep on night duty in the Temple, his clothes were set on fire—which of course would have the effect of making him throw them off and run away naked.

βλέπωσιν. Impersonal, as Revelation 12:6.

ἀσχημοσύνην. Lit. “uncomeliness,” cf. τὰ� 1 Corinthians 12:23.