Revelation 22:2

Revelation 22:2. In the midst of the street of it. These words are best connected with the words immediately preceding, and they thus describe the course of the river. We are again, as in chap. Revelation 21:21, to understand the word ‘street' genetically, so that the picture presented to us is that of a clear stream flowing down the middle of each street of the city, bordered with trees on either side. Yet these trees are one tree.

And on either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve harvests of fruits, yielding her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. The idea of the ‘tree of life' is no doubt taken from Genesis 2:9. It grows on either side of the river, nourished by its waters and shading its banks. Interpreters differ as to the meaning of the second clause of the verse, some preferring the rendering given above, others that of the Authorised Version, ‘twelve manner of fruits.' A good sense may be obtained from the latter interpretation, which will point us to the variety, ever new, of the enjoyments provided for the inhabitants of the city. But the former interpretation appears to be preferable. It is almost demanded by the third clause of the verse, ‘yielding her fruit every month,' which carries our thoughts much more to the same fruit produced every month than to twelve successive varieties of fruit. Besides this, the general idea of the passage is rather that of continuous nourishment than of variety of blessings. Finally, the thought has direct reference to that upon which the believer lives, and this is always one and the same: ‘Christ' liveth in us (comp. chap. Revelation 2:7). It is unnecessary to say that the number twelve is not to be understood literally. The supply of fruit, at once for the nourishment and the delectation of the saints, never fails. In the last clause of the verse it. Is not implied that any inhabitants of the new earth stand in need of healing. For the same reason it is impossible to think that ‘the nations' here spoken of have yet to be converted. They have already entered that better world to which the old world has given place. That they are ‘healed' can signify no more than this, that they are kept in constant soundness of health by what is there administered to them. As we must persevere throughout eternity in faith, so also shall we persevere in health (comp. on John 20:31). ‘The nations' we have already seen to be full partakers of all the blessings of the city (chap. Revelation 21:24). They include Jewish as well as Gentile Christians, and the importance of both classes, not the inferiority of either, is the leading thought