Revelation 1:7

Revelation 1:7. The third part of the Salutation follows, closely associated with that Redeemer to whom the doxology of the second part had been addressed. The thought of Jesus is not exhausted by the mention of what He had done. Another great truth is connected with Him, that He will come again, to complete His victory, and to be acknowledged by all in His glory and His majesty.

Behold, he cometh with the clouds. May it not be that these clouds are not the mere clouds of the sky, but those clouds of Sinai, of the Shechinah, of the Transfiguration, of the Ascension, which are the recognised signs of Deity? This is the coming prophesied of in Daniel 7:13 and Mark 14:62 (also of Matthew 26:64, though a different preposition is there used); and in both cases, it ought to be strictly observed, it is a coming to judgment.

And every eye shall see him, not the eyes only of those who shall then be alive upon the earth, as it would thus be impossible to explain the mention of those who pierced Him, but the eyes of all who, in any age and of any nation, have rejected His redemption (cp. what is said below on the meaning of the word ‘see').

Even they that pierced him. The reference is undoubtedly to John 19:34; John 19:37, and to Zechariah 12:10 (cp. note on John 19:37); and this, combined with the facts, that in the passage of the prophet the Jews are the representatives of the whole human race; that it was a Roman soldier, not a Jew, though at the instigation of the Jews, who pierced the side of Jesus as He hung upon the cross; and that the relative employed is not the simple but the compound relative whosoever is sufficient to show that the persons referred to are not the Jews only, but they who in any age have identified themselves with the spirit of the Saviour's murderers. The reader ought not to pass these words without remembering that the piercing of the Saviour's side is spoken of by St. John alone of all the Evangelists, nay, not only spoken of, but that too with an emphasis which shows how deep was the importance he attached to it (John 19:34-37). A clear trace of the importance of the fact in the writer's mind is likewise presented to us here.

And all the tribes of the earth shall wail over him. It is important to notice the word ‘tribes,' the same word as that applied to the true Israel in chaps, Revelation 5:5; Revelation 7:4-8; Revelation 21:12. The ‘tribes' of Israel are the figure by which God's believing people, whether Jew or Gentile, are represented. In like manner all unbelievers are now set before us as ‘tribes,' the mocking counterpart of the true Israel of God. They are the tribes of the ‘earth,' i.e not the earth in its merely neutral sense, but as opposed to heaven, as the scene of worldliness and evil. Thus in Matthew 24:30-31, ‘all the tribes of the earth' are distinguished from the ‘elect.' In neither of the two clauses, then, now under consideration have we any distinction between Jew and Gentile. The same persons are thought of, numerically and personally, in both. The distinction lies in this, that, according to a method of conception common in the Apocalypse, the same persons are looked at first under a Jewish, and next under a Gentile, point of view. The Yea which follows seems to be the testimony of the Lord Himself to what had just been told of Him (comp. chap. Revelation 22:20). The Amen is the answer of believers to the statement made.

We have still to ask, In what sense shall all ‘see' and ‘wail'? The latter word must determine the interpretation of the former. Is this a wailing of penitence or of dismay? or is it both, so that the wailers embrace alike the sinful world and the triumphant Church? We cannot suppose the same word used to denote wailings of a kind so entirely distinct from and opposite to one another; and the following additional reasons appear to limit the wailing spoken of to that of the impenitent and godless: (1) This is the proper meaning of the word, and it is so used in chap. Revelation 18:9. (2) Such is also its meaning in that prophecy of our Lord upon which the Apocalypse is moulded (Matthew 24). (3) It corresponds with the idea of the tribes of the earth, which do not include the godly. (4) Throughout this book the godly and ungodly are separated from each other. There is a gulf between them which cannot be passed. If this be the meaning of the second clause, that of the first must correspond to it, and the ‘seeing' must be that of shame and confusion of face. The whole sentence thus corresponds with the object of the book, and the coming of Jesus is described as that of One who comes to overthrow His adversaries and to complete His triumph.