Revelation 22:5

Philo (de Joshua 24) had already described heaven as ἡμέραν αἰώνιον, νυκτὸς καὶ πάσης σκιᾶς ἀμέτοχον. Cf. En. vi. 6. Such teaching on heaven, though in a less religious form, seems to have been current among the Asiatic πρεσβύτεροι. Irenæus (5:36, 1 2) quotes them as holding (cf. above on Revelation 2:7) that some of the blessed τῆς τοῦ παραδείσου τρυφῆς ἀπολαύσουσιν, οἱ δὲ τὴν λαμπρότητα τῆς πόλεως καθέξουσιν · πανταχοῦ γὰρ ὁ Σωτὴρ ὁρασθήσεται, καθὼς ἄξιοι ἔσονται οἱ ὁρῶντες αὐτόν, κ. τ. λ.

The epilogue (Revelation 22:6-21) is a series of loose ejaculations, which it is not easy to assign to the various speakers. It is moulded on the lines of the epilogue to the astronomical section of Enoch (lxxxi. f.), where Enoch is left for one year with his children “that thou mayest testify to them all.… Let thy heart be strong, for the good will announce righteousness to the good, but the sinners will die with the sinners, and the apostates go down with the apostates”. Two characteristic motifs, however, dominate the entire passage: (a) the vital importance of this book as a valid and authentic revelation, and (b) the nearness of the end. The former is heard in the definite claim of inspiration (Revelation 22:6 f., Revelation 22:16) and prophetic origin (Revelation 22:8-9) which guarantees its contents, in the beatitude of Revelation 22:7 b (cf. Revelation 22:17), and (cf. Revelation 22:21) in the claim of canonical dignity (Revelation 22:18-19). The latter is voiced thrice in a personal (Revelation 22:7; Revelation 22:12; Revelation 22:20) and twice in an impersonal (Revelation 22:6; Revelation 22:10) form. Both are bound up together (cf. Revelation 22:20 and Revelation 1:3). It is as a crucial revelation of the near future and a testimony to the authority and advent of the messiah (cf. Revelation 22:20) that this apocalypse claims to be read, and honoured in the churches. This general standpoint is clear enough, but the details are rather intricate. It is characteristic of the Apocalyse, as of ep. Barnabas, that the writer often leaves it indefinite whether God or Christ or an angel is speaking. Sometimes the divine voice is recognised to be that of Christ (cf. Revelation 1:10 f., Revelation 4:1), or may be inferred from the context to be that of an angel (e.g., Revelation 17:15; Revelation cf.1 and Revelation 19:9), perhaps as the divine spokesman (Revelation 21:5-6, cf. Revelation 22:5; Revelation 22:7). But frequently, even when the seer is addressed (Revelation 10:4; Revelation 14:13), the voice or Bath-Qol is anonymous (e.g., Revelation 11:12; Revelation 12:10; Revelation 14:2; Revelation 16:1; Revelation cf.17). In the epilogue, as it stands, it is impossible and irrelevant to determine whether Jesus (16) begins to speak at Revelation 22:10 (so Spitta, Holtzm, Porter, Forbes) and resumes in Revelation 22:18-20 a. But, while Revelation 22:6-7, and Revelation 22:8-9 are both intended in a sense to round off the entire Apocalypse, and not merely the immediately preceding vision, 8 9 (a replica of Revelation 19:9-10) stands closer to Revelation 21:9 to Revelation 22:5 than does Revelation 22:6-7. No λόγοι in the last vision justify the reference in 6, whereas the specific δεικν. μοι ταῦτα in 8 echoes the cicerone-function of the angel in Revelation 21:9-10; Revelation 22:1.Revelation 22:6-7; Revelation 22:6-7 very probably lay originally between 9 and 10 (for the juxtaposition of εἶπεν and λέγει cf. Revelation 17:7; Revelation 17:15), where they definitely mark the beginning of the epilogue already anticipated in 8 (cf. Revelation 1:4; Revelation 1:9) and in the broadened close of 9 (contrast Revelation 19:10 above). It is not necessary (though perhaps a later scribe may have thought so) to account for John's action in 8 9 by supposing that he mistook the angelus interpres for Christ. The λόγοι of 6, when this order is adopted, acquire their natural sense (cf. Revelation 22:10), and the three successive angel-utterances (Revelation 22:8-9; Revelation 22:6-7; Revelation 22:10-11) have a proper sequence. It is needless, in view of Revelation 16:15 (cf. Revelation 3:11) to omit Revelation 22:7 a as an interpolation (Könnecke). But Revelation 22:12-13 probably have been displaced from their original order (Revelation 22:13; Revelation 22:12) and position after Revelation 22:16 (Könnecke), where Revelation 22:17 echoes Revelation 22:12 a, and Revelation 22:14-15 carries on the thought of Revelation 22:11.Revelation 22:18-19; Revelation 22:18-19 are plainly editorial, interrupting the connexion of Revelation 22:17 and Revelation 22:20. In 11 Resch (Agrapha, § 113) attempts to prove that some logion of Jesus is quoted. On the “inconsistent optimism” of Revelation 22:13; Revelation 22:15, cf. Abbott, p. 107.