Revelation 15:6

Revelation 15:6. The seven angels that have the seven plagues now issue from the temple, that is, from the innermost shrine of the heavenly sanctuary. Their clothing, according to the later and more correct reading of the Greek, has seemed to many to be absurd: they are clothed with a stone pure and lustrous. But the same idea meets us in Ezekiel 28:13 (‘every precious stone was thy covering'), and we have already seen with how much freedom the Apocalyptic Seer employs the figures of his book (comp. on the ‘white stone' of chap. Revelation 2:17). Probably, too, it is not necessary to think of a clothing with actual stones however beaten out. The conditions may be sufficiently fulfilled by the thought of a garment covered and sparkling with precious stones (comp. chap. Revelation 17:4). The girding is that of chap. Revelation 1:13, so that we can hardly be wrong in supposing that priestly garments are alluded to, and that the precious stones worn by the high priest are thought of as multiplied till they constituted a garment for the whole body. The seven angels thus issue from the temple to be priests of destruction instead of salvation (comp. chap. Revelation 14:6).