Revelation 14:14

I looked Better, beheld, as Revelation 4:1, &c.

one sat More literally, [I saw] One sitting. It is scarcely possible to doubt that a vision of the Last Judgement is here interposed, to encourage "the patience of the Saints" that is to be so sorely tried. No one would have doubted that "One like unto the Son of Man" is the same Person as in Revelation 1:13, and that His coming with the clouds of heaven indicates the same as in Revelation 1:7, except from a desire to interpret the whole series of visions continuously, as fulfilled in chronological order. Now it is probably right to regard the order of the visions as always significant, and generally answering to the chronological order of fulfilment. But exceptions to the latter rule must be admitted: Revelation 11:7 plainly refers to the same events as chap. 13, while chap. 12 goes back to events earlier than, probably, any others indicated in the Book. In this chapter itself, we have in Revelation 14:8 an anticipation of chap. 18: we need not therefore hesitate to suppose that here we have an anticipation of chap. 20. Those who wish to make the order of visions strictly continuous put on the words "one like unto the [or "a" see on Revelation 1:13] Son of Man" the gloss "an Angel in the likeness of the Messiah," and suppose that one of God's typical or anticipatory judgements is described in terms suitable to the last.

a sharp sickle The image of the harvest, combined with that of the vintage, is from Joel 3:13: see however also St Matthew 13:30 &c.