Revelation 22:18,19

Luther strongly objected to the extravagant threat of this editorial note. The curse is certainly not only an anti-climax like the editorial postscript in John 21:24-25 (both indicating that either when published or when admitted to the canon, these two scriptures needed special authentication) but “an unfortunate ending to a book whose value consists in the spirit that breathes in it, the bold faith and confident hope which it inspires, rather than in the literalness and finality of its disclosures” (Porter). But the words are really a stereotyped and vehement form of claiming a canonicity equal to that of the O.T. (cf. Jos. Ant. xx. 11. 2, τοσούτου γὰρ αἰῶνος ἤδη παρῳχηκότος οὔτε προσθεῖναί τις οὔτε ἀφελεῖν ἀπʼ αὐτῶν οὔτε μεταθεῖναι τετόλμηκεν). They are adapted from Enoch cvi. 10 f. where the author expects his book to be a comfort and joy to the righteous, but exposed to perversion and alteration: “Many sinners will pervert and alter the words of uprightness” instead of refusing to “change or minish aught from my words”. Similar threats to careless or wilful copyists especially in frenaeus (Eus. H. E. Revelation 22:20), and Rufin. pref. to Origen's περὶ ἀρχῶν (cf. Nestle's Einführung, 161 f.). This nervous eagerness to safeguard Christian teaching was part and parcel of the contemporary tendency to regard apostolic tradition (cf. Revelation 18:20; Revelation 21:14, etc.) as a body of authoritative doctrine, which must not be tampered with. An almost equally severe threat occurs in Slav. En. xlviii. 7 9, 56. (also Revelation 3:3), so that the writer, in this jealousy for the letter rather than for the spirit, was following a recognised precedent (R. J. 125 f.), which was bound up with a conservative view of tradition and a juristic conception of scripture (Titius, pp. 206 f., Deissm, 113 f.). Rabbinic librarii got a similar warning in that age (cf. Bacher's Agada d. Tann, i. 254), and Christian copyists, if not editors, required it in the case of the Apocalypse, although apparently they paid little heed to it, for as early as the time of Irenæus there were serious discrepancies in the copies circulated throughout the churches. John had himself omitted a contemporary piece of prophecy (cf. on Revelation 10:4). But he explains that he was inspired to do so; this verse refuses to let others deal similarly with his book.

The prayer of Revelation 22:17 is answered in Revelation 22:20, which repeats the assurance of the messiah's speedy advent. This μαρτυρία Ἰησοῦ, in the prophetic consciousness (Revelation 19:10), is specifically eschatological. The close and sudden aspect of the end loomed out before Judaism (cf. 4 Esd. 4:26, 44 50, Apoc. Bar. xxiii. 7, lxxxiii. 1) as before the Christian church at this period, bat it was held together with calculations which anticipated a certain process and progress of history. The juxtaposition of this ardent hope and an apocalyptic programme, here as in Mark 13:5-37; Mark 13:4 Esd. 14:11, 12, is one of the antinomies of the religious consciousness, which is illogical only on paper. In Sanhed. 97 a, a rabbinic cycle of seven years culminating in messiah's advent is laid down; whereupon “Rab. Yoseph saith, There have been many septennial cycles of this kind, and he has not come … Rabbi Zera saith, Three things come unexpectedly: the messiah, the finding of treasure-trove, and a scorpion” (cf. Drummond's Jewish Messiah, 220). Κύριε. The Lordship of Jesus is defined as his right to come and to judge (Revelation 22:12), which is also the point of Romans 14:9-12 (cf. Kattenbusch, ii. 609, 658 f.). Ἔρχου, κύριε is the Greek rendering of the Aramaic watchword of the primitive church (cf. on Revelation 22:17), which possibly echoed a phrase in the Jewish liturgy (cf. on 1 Corinthians 16:22, and E. Bi. 2935, 2936).