ἄλλον, referring to Revelation 10:2, where another strong angel was mentioned, also in connexion with a book. The position of the seer is implied (since Revelation 8:2 ?) to be no longer in heaven (_cf._ Revelation 10:4; Revelation 10:8), but on earth, as the gigantic angel of light descends to him.... [ Continue Reading ]
“And in his (left? _cf._ Revelation 10:5) hand a small booklet open” (in contrast to the larger closed book of Revelation 10:1), after Ezekiel 2:9. This colossal figure, like an Arabian jin, bestrides earth and sea. His message is for the broad world.... [ Continue Reading ]
ὥσπερ λέων (of God in O.T. reff.; of the messiah 4 Esd. 11:37, 12:31) μυκᾶται Theokr. _Id._ xxvi. 21, μύκημα λεαίνης, properly of cattle =“to bellow”. ἐλάλησαν κ. τ. λ. = “uttered what they had to say” (_i.e._, spoke articulately). αἱ (the well-known or familiar) βρονταί “of the apocalyptic machiner... [ Continue Reading ]
To seal or shut up a vision is to keep it secret from mankind, _i.e._, in the present case (by a sequence of thought which is scarcely logical) to leave it unwritten. In a similar passage (Apoc. Bar. xx. 3) “seal” means to lay up fast in one's memory (because the realisation is not immediate); but t... [ Continue Reading ]
Modelling from Daniel 12:7, the writer describes the angel's oath (by the _living_ God, as usual in O.T.; _cf._ Matthew 26:63), with its native gesture (_cf._ Trumbull's _Threshold-Covenant_, 78 f.) and contents. In the ancient world oaths were usually taken in the open-air (Usener, _Götternamen_, 1... [ Continue Reading ]
Vav consec. with the Heb, pf. (LXX= καὶ and fut. indic.) here by an awkward solecism (_cf._ on Revelation 3:20) = “Then is (_i.e._, shall be) fnished the secret of God.” The final consummation (inaugurated by the advent of messiah, 12.) is to take place not later than the period of the seventh angel... [ Continue Reading ]
ἡ φωνὴ (_cf._ Revelation 10:4) left ungrammatically without a predicate, the two participles being irregularly attracted into the case of ἥν (_cf._ Revelation 1:1; Revelation 4:11).... [ Continue Reading ]
The prophet absorbs the word of God; in our phrase, he makes it his own or identifies himself with it (Jeremiah 15:16). To assimilate this revelation of the divine purpose seems to promise a delightful experience, but the bliss and security of the saints, he soon realises, involve severe trials (_cf... [ Continue Reading ]
λέγ. μοι, an oblique, reverential way of describing the divine impulse, due to Aramaic idiom and common in later Biblical Hebrew (_cf._ Dalman, i., viii. 11). The series of oracles, thus elaborately inaugurated, is concerned increasingly (“again,” in view of Revelation 4:4, Revelation 7:4; Revelatio... [ Continue Reading ]