Revelation 2:7

He that hath an ear A repetition, with a merely verbal alteration, of one of our Lord's characteristic phrases in His teaching while on earth: St Matthew 11:15, &c.

what the Spirit saith Speaking through the Risen Christ to John who was "in the Spirit."

To him that overcometh A promise thus expressed, and an invitation to attention like that preceding it, are found at the end of each of these seven Epistles the invitation standing first in the three first, and the promise in the four last. From this change in the order, it appears that attention is invited, not to the final promise only, but to the whole Epistle to each Church, as the Spirit's message.

the tree of life Cf. Genesis 2:9, as well as Revelation 22:2; Revelation 22:14; Revelation 22:19. The Tree of Life appears, though not under that name, in Enoch xxiv., where we are told that there shall be no power to touch it until the period of the great judgement.

in the midst of the paradise Read simply in the Paradise: the insertion is no doubt from Genesis 2:9. "Paradise," a Persian word adopted in both Greek and Hebrew, means simply a park or pleasure-ground, and hence is used in the LXX. (notthe Hebrew) of the garden of Eden: in 2 Corinthians 12:4; Luke 23:43, we have it used of a region of the spiritual world, inhabited by the blessed dead. Whether the Paradise of God, where the Tree of Life is now, is identical either with the earthly Paradise where it grew of old, or with the New Jerusalem where it shall grow in the new earth under the new heaven, it would be rash to speculate.

of God So "the garden of God" in Ezekiel 28:13; Ezekiel 31:8-9, and "the garden of the Lord" in Genesis 13:10; Isaiah 51:3. Some read "of MyGod," as in Revelation 3:12, but on the whole the omission has more authority, and the exact O. T. phrase seems likelier.