As on the synoptic scheme (Matthew 25:31), physical convulsions and human terrors are followed by a pause during which the saints are secured. It is impossible and irrelevant to determine whether the winds' blast and the sealing were already conjoined in the fragment or oral traditions which lay bef... [ Continue Reading ]
After a pause, in which the sealing is supposed to have taken place, the writer hears that the number of the sealed is the stereotyped 144,000, twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes of Israel (a “thousand” being the primitive subdivision of a clan or tribe, like the English shire into “hund... [ Continue Reading ]
ἔθν. κ. φ. curious and irregular change from singular to plural. ἑστῶτες = erect, confident, triumphant. For the white robes, see on Revelation 6:2 (the number of the martyrs being now completed). Certain religious processions in Asia Minor consisted of boys robed in white and bearing crowns of leaf... [ Continue Reading ]
“Salvation” (or, if ἡ be pressed, the salvation we enjoy) be ascribed “to our God and to the Lamb”. The subordinate nature of the seven spirits (Revelation 1:4; Revelation 4:5) is shown by the fact that no praise is offered to them throughout the Apocalypse, although in Iranian theology (Bund. xxx.... [ Continue Reading ]
The angels standing around once again adore God, catching up the previous praise with “Amen,” and uttering a sevenfold ascription of praise upon their own behalf, closed with another “Amen”. The article is repeated before each substitute, as in Revelation 5:13. The divine “wisdom” is shown in the me... [ Continue Reading ]
“And one of the elders addressed me, saying”; for similar openings of a dialogue, see Jeremiah 1:11; Zechariah 4:2. Perhaps, like Dante (_Parad._ iv. 10 12), John although silent showed desire painted on his face. The form of inquiry resembles Homer's τίς πόθεν εἶς ἀνδρῶν; πόθι τοι πόλις or Vergil's... [ Continue Reading ]
κύριέ μου (“Sir”) the respectful address of an inferior to his superior in age or station, the πρεσβύτεροι being conceived as angelic beings (as in Daniel 10:17; Daniel 10:19; Daniel 10:4; Ezra 4:3, etc.) “Thou knowest” (and I fain would know also). The great distress is plainly the period of persec... [ Continue Reading ]
Ritual as well as pastoral traits from the O.T. fill out the conception of this final bliss with its favoured position (ἐνώπ. θρόν.). Note the singular tenderness of the oxymoron _he that sitteth on the throne_ (the majestic almighty God) _shall overshadow them_ with a presence of brooding, intimate... [ Continue Reading ]
οὐ μή with both fut. indicative and subjunctive (= Revelation 2:11), in emphatic assertions. For the absence of scorching as a trait of the Hellenic Utopia, _cf._ Dieterich, 31 33. If καῦμα corresponds here to the sense of the Isaianic equivalent καύσων, the reference is to the scorching sirocco. So... [ Continue Reading ]
ζωῆς goes with ὑδάτων (“living waters”) though prefixed for emphasis, like σαρκὸς in 1 Peter 3:21 (_cf._ Revelation 16:3 πᾶσα ψυχὴ ζωῆς); a favourite Johannine idea. In Enoch xlii, xlviii, the fountains contain wisdom which is drunk by all the thirsty, though in the centre there is also “a fountain... [ Continue Reading ]