Revelation 14:13

The approaching climax of retribution upon pagan Rome affects the dead as well as the living. The latter are encouraged to hold on in hope; the former are brought nearer their reward (cf. Revelation 6:11; Revelation 11:18). Ἀπάρτι goes with μακάριοι (note here and in Clem. Rom. 47. the first application of μ. to the dead saints) rather than with ἀποθνήσκοντες, and οἱ ἐν κ. ἀποθ. (which is timeless, like προσκ. τ. θ. in Revelation 14:11) denotes all who die in the faith, loyal to their Lord, i.e., primarily martyrs and confessors (cf. Revelation 13:8; Revelation 13:15). They die “in His fellowship, as it were in His arms” (Beyschlag). Like Paul (in 1 Thessalonians 4:15), though on different grounds, the writer is controverting a fear (cf. 4 Esd. 13:24) that at the advent of messiah those who survived on earth would have some advantage over those who had already died. “Yea, saith the Spirit” ratifying what has been said “happy to rest from their labours” (i.e., their Christian activities, not the special form of their death for the faith). So far as the sense is concerned, it matters little whether ἵνα κ. τ. λ. depends on μακάριοι or ἀποθνήσκοντες. Both constructions are grammatically legitimate, though the former is perhaps closer. The point of the passage (note πνεῦμα and γράψον, as in 1 3., Revelation 22:6 f.) is that the bliss of death for a Christian consists not in mere rest from labour but in a rest which brings the reward of labour. While death brings the rest, the reward cannot be given till the final judgment. Consequently the near prospect of the latter is welcome, among other reasons, because it means the long-deferred recompense (Revelation 11:18) for the faithful dead. So far from being forgotten (Revelation 2:2 f., Revelation 2:19; Revelation 2:23, etc.), their ἔργα accompany them to judgment and it is implied receive their proper reward there (cf. Milton's fourteenth sonnet). The bliss of the departed therefore depends upon two grounds: their ἔργα are not to be overlooked, and the interval of waiting is now (ἀπάρτι) brief. The fourth degree of bliss in 4 Ezra 7 :[95] is that the departed spirits of the just understand “the rest which, gathered in their chambers [cf. Revelation 6:9-11] they can enjoy now with deep quietness, guarded by angels, as well as the glory which still awaits them in the latter days”. John does not share the current pessimistic belief (cf. Apoc. Bar. xi. xii. 4, Verg. Aen. i. 94, with Isaiah 57:1 f.) that death was preferable to life, in view of the overwhelming miseries of the age. His thought is not that death is happier than life under the circumstances, but that if death came in the line of religious duty it involved no deprivation. The language reflects Genesis 2:2 (with κόπων put for ἔργων), but while it is true enough, it is hardly apposite, to think of the dead as resting from works (Hebrews 4:9), no more being needed. The root of the passage lies not in the Iranian belief (Brandt, 423 f., Böklen, 41) that the soul was escorted by its good deeds to bliss in another world (cf. Maas, Orpheus, 217 f.), but in the closer soil of Jewish hope (cf. Bacher's Agada d. Tannaiten, 2 i. 399 f.; Volz 103) as in En. ciii. 2, 3, Apoc. Bar. xiv. 12, 13, and Pirke Aboth vi. 9 (hora discessus hominis non comitantur eum argentum aut aurum aut lapides pretiosi aut margaritae, sed lex et opera bona). In 4 Esd. 7:35 (where, at the resurrection of the dead, “the work shall follow and the reward be disclosed”) opus may be a Hebraism for “recompense” (Psalms 109:20 ἔργον, cf. 1 Timothy 5:25). Contemporary Jewish eschatology also took a despairing view of the world (cf. 4 Esd. 4:26 33). But while the dead are pronounced “blessed,” e.g., in Apoc. Bar. xi. 7, it is because they have not lived to see the ruins of Jerusalem and the downfall of Israel. Better death than that experience! Death is a blessing compared with the life which falls upon times so out of joint (Revelation 10:6 f.). The living may well envy the dead. In John's Apocalypse, on the other hand, the dead are felicitated because they miss nothing by their martyrdom. Yet life is a boon. No plaintive, weary cry of Weltschmerz rises from the pages of this Apocalypse. ἀναπαύω in the papyri means relief from public duties or the “resting” of land in agriculture (cf. U. Wilcken's Archiv f. Papyrusforschung, i. pp. 157 f.).