The Project Gutenberg EBook of Studies in the Book of Revelation by Stephen Alexander Hunter

The principal thought in each quotation has been italicized for the sake of emphasis.

“To pretend to have found an answer to every question raised by the Apocalypse is the opposite of science.” Jülicher, Intr. to New Test., p. 291; also cf. Warfield, art. “Revelation,” Schaff-Herzog Enc.

That meaning for the most part, as Farrar has forcibly said concerning the portion of the book which relates to the earthly and historic future, “is irrevocably lost for us, and in point of fact has never been known to any age of the church—not even to the earliest, not even, so far as our records go, to Irenæus the hearer of Polycarp, or to Polycarp the hearer of St. John.” Early Days of Christianity, p. 528.

Moulton, Mod. Read. Bib., vol. Rev., notes, p. 192; also cf. Rev. ch. 19. 10, “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

“In interpreting symbolism, as in all the higher forms of allegory, the first critical requirement is restraint. Even with such a poet as Spenser it is only a rude exegesis which identifies a particular personage with a definite idea: in the more mystic symbolism of the present poem (Revelation) it is a violation of true literary taste to seek a meaning for every detail of complex presentation.” Moulton, Mod. Read. Bib. Rev., p. 192, notes.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 2.

Moulton, Mod. Read. Bib., Rev., Intr. p. xx.

Cf. Davidson, art. “Prophecy”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.; also see Scott, on the distinction between “Prophecy” and “Apocalyptic,” New Cent. Bib., Intr. to Rev., p. 26.

“The term apocalypse signifies in the first place the act of uncovering, and thus bringing into sight that which was before unseen, hence a revelation.... An apocalypse is thus primarily the act of revelation: in the second place it is the subject-matter revealed; and in the third place a book or literary production which gives an account of revelation whether real or alleged.... The term apocalypse is sometimes used, with an effort at greater precision, to designate the pictorial portraiture of the future as foreshadowed by the seer. (In this sense it denotes the literary style in which the writing is couched).... Thus an apocalypse becomes a form of literature precisely in the same manner as an epistle.” Zenos, art. “Apoc. Lit.,” Hastings' Dict. of Chr. and Gosp.

Chs. 1.4; 4.8; and 22.8. We may omit ch. 21.2 (following the Revisers) as without sufficient authority.

“The Divine” as a title for St. John ... is certainly as old as Eusebius: (Praep. Evan. xi 18), Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 1.

So Lücke, Bleek, Düsterdieck, Jülicher, and others.

Dods' Intr. to New Test., pp. 244-47: Salmon's Intr., p. 2O3f; Bacon's Intr. to New Test., p. 23Of; Swete, Apoc. St. John, Intr., p. clxxf; and Milligan's Discuss. on Apoc., ch's. II and IV. Also, see Simcox on Rev., Cambr. Gr. Test., “Excur. III,” for a brief analysis of the theories of composite authorship advanced by Vischer and Volter; Warfield, Presb. Review, Ap. '84, p. 228, in reply to Volter; Moffatt, Expositor, Mar. '09, “Wellhausen and Others on Apoc”; and same author, “Intr. to Rev.”, Exp. Gr. Test., vol. V. pp. 292-94:.

The theory current among modern critics of two Johns in Asia, or else of identifying the traditional John of Ephesus with the hypothetical John the Presbyter, has a very slender foundation. “The existence of this second John, the Presbyter, if he really did exist, rests upon a single line of an extract from Papias, a writer of the second century.” Sanday's Criticism of the Fourth Gospel, p. 16. “Either John (the Apostle) wrote it (the Revelation), or John was never at Ephesus.” Holtzman, quoted in “Intr. to Rev.”, New Cent. Bib., p. 36. For an interesting discussion of “the two Johns,” see “Excur. XIV” in Farrar's Early Days of Christianity; also Smith, “Intr. to Ep's of John”, Exp. Gr. Test., vol. V, pp. 158-62; and Strong, art. “John, Apostle,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

This view that the Apocalypse is pseudonymous is now, however, for the most part being given up. With the revival of prophecy under the influence of the life and teachings of Christ, “it is only what we would expect when the primitive Christian prophet, a John, or a Hermas, disdains the pseudonymity of his Jewish rivals.” Bacon's Intr. to New Test., p. 234; also see New Cent. Bib., Rev., Intr., p. 32.

Charles points out the many Hebraisms of the Apocalypse, and says of the author, “While he writes in Greek he thinks in Hebrew, and the thought has naturally affected the vehicle of expression.... He never mastered Greek idiomatically ... to him many of its particles were apparently unknown.” Studies in Apoc., p. 82.

Bp. Wescott, “Intr. to John's Gospel”, Bib. Com., pp. lxxxiv-vii; cf. Swete's discussion of this view, “Apoc. St. John”, “Authorship”, pp. clxxviii-i.

Prof. M. B. Riddle, unpublished Class-room Lects. on Rev.

Reynolds, “Intr. to Gosp. of John,” Pulp. Com., p. lxvii.

See Bacon's Intr. to New Test., pp. 136-38; Briggs' Messiah of the Apostles, p. 301; and tentatively, Swete, Apoc. St. John, “Authorship,” pp. clxxx-xxxi.

Cf. Jülicher's Intr. to New Test., chapter on the “Johannine Problem.”

“More than any other class of writings they show signs of having been edited and modified.” Zenos, art. “Apoc. Lit.,” Hastings' Dict. of Chr. and Gosp.

Holtzmann, quoted in New Cent. Bib.; “Substantially it bears the marks of composition by a single pen; the blend of original writing and editorial re-setting does not impair the impression of a literary unity.” Moffatt, Exp. Gr. Test., Rev., Intr., p. 288.

As by Vischer, Harnack, and others.

As by Volter, Spitta, Pfleiderer, Briggs, and others.

As by Weizsäcker, Jülicher, Bousset, Moffatt, and others. For a short consensus of modern theories see Exp. Gr. Test., Rev., Intr., pp. 292-94, which affords a good illustration of wide and extravagant guessing.

This objection to the modern critical view is one of evident force, and deserves thoughtful consideration, Cf. Swete's Apoc. of St. John, Intr., pp. xlix and cliii, which maintains the literary unity of the book.

As Porter, Scott, and others.

See Porter's article “Revelation,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.; and Scott's Intr. to Rev., New Cent. Bib.

Cf. Reynolds, Intr. to John's Gosp., Pulpit Com., p. lxvii; Riddle, S. S. Times, Jun. 1, 1901; and Burton, in Records and Letters of the Apost. Age, notes, p. 229.

“The common opinion has returned to the traditional date, the closing years of Domitian's reign (81-96).” Votaw, “Apoc. of John,” Biblical World, Nov. 1908.

See Weizsäcker's Apostolic Age, vol. ii. pp. 173-205; also Moffatt's Hist. New Test., p. 45f.

Cf. Farrar, Early Days of Christianity, pp. 510-13f.

“Nero's massacre was a freak of personal violence,” and “had nothing whatever to do with the imperial cultus.” Moffatt, Exp. Gr. Test., Rev., Intr., p. 310. Mommsen's view (Prov. Rom. Emp., vol. ii, pp. 214-17 note) is that the historical situation reflected in the Apocalypse indicates that it was written after Nero's fall, and the destruction of Jerusalem; and that the references to persecution imply a regular judicial procedure on account of refusal to worship the emperor's image, a feature quite different from the Neronian period in which the executions on the ground of alleged incendiarism &c., do not formally belong to the class of religious processes at all. He would not, however, date it so late as Domitian, preferring a date somewhere between A. D. 69 and 79, toward the end of the reign of Vespasian. Bartlett puts the probable date about A. D. 75-80 (see his Apost. Age, p. 404). Such views of the date are interesting but exceptional.

The book seems to mark a transition in the Roman Empire from tolerance to hostility, when it began to insist upon idolatrous worship, and that more properly belongs to a period later than the time of Nero. Cf. Mommsen's view in the preceding note.

See “Rev. and Johan. Epist.,” by A. Ramsay, Westmin. New Test., p. 8.

See map at the beginning of this volume.

Cf. Dean Stanley's “Sermons in the East,” p. 230, quoted in Bib. Com., Intr., sec. 4.

“The extreme skepticism which denies even the presence of the Apostle in Ephesus (as Keim and others), is purely modern. The tradition of the survival of ‘the beloved disciple’ in Ephesus ‘down to the times of Trajan’ is widespread, uncontradicted, circumstantial ... the counter evidence is trivial” (Bacon's Intr. to New Test., p. 231). “The proof given by Irenæus from Polycarp ... is more than tradition, it is direct documentary evidence” (Weizsäcker, Apost. Age, vol. ii, p. 168).

Cf. Reynolds, art. “John, the Gospel of”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.; also Lee Intr. to Rev., Bib. Com.

For a discussion of this literature see App'x G, also art. “Apoc. Lit.” by Charles, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.; Drummond, The Jewish Messiah, pp. 3-132; Schürer, The Jewish People in Time of Christ, Div. II, vol. iii, p. 44 sqq; Stuart Com. on Rev., Intr. pp. 20-98; Driver, “Bk. of Daniel”, in Camb. Bib., Intr., pp. lxxvi-lxxxv; Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., Intr., pp. 13-34; also art. “Apocalypse” in Jewish Encyc.

For a good statement of the present use of the term, see art. “Apocalyptic,” Jewish Encyc., vol. I; also art. “Apoc. Lit.”, Hastings' Dict. of Chr. and Gosp.

See König, art. “Symbol” in Hastings' Dict. of Bib., vol. v, p. 169f., who says, “What the metaphor is in the sphere of speech, the symbol is in the sphere of things.” Also see remarks by Milligan in Lect's. on Apoc., ch. I, under the head of “Visions and Symbols,” p. 13f. For a fine discriminative view of the place of symbols in Oriental poetry, see Moulton's Mod. Read. Bib., “Bib. Idyls,” Intr., pp. xx-xxif.

It is not meant by this to imply that symbols as a class can ordinarily be presented to the eye, or effectively depicted upon canvas. In fact no symbol in the Apocalypse can be reproduced in scenic form without doing manifest injustice to the thought and purpose of the writer.

Milligan identifies the Apocalypse of John too closely with that discourse, making it mainly a development of its principal ideas. See his Lect's. on Apoc., p. 42f.

Moulton uses the term “rhapsody” in a technical sense to describe the literary form of Hebrew dramatic prophecy, which affords a helpful and convenient nomenclature. See Mod. Read. Bib., vol. John, notes, p. 191, also vol. Isa., Intr., pp. vii-xii.

The Greek words μυστήριον and ἀποκάλυψις are commonly used in the New Testament as correlative terms, signifying the once secret or hidden in contrast with the now discovered or partially revealed. See art. “Mystery,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

Moulton's Intr. to Litr. of Bib., p. 326.

See Append. G, on Apocalyptic Literature.

It belongs to the innermost purpose of Jewish Apocalyptic “to attempt to answer the question how and when the dominion of the world possessed so long by heathen nations, will finally be delivered to the people of God.”, Hilgenfeld, quoted by Düsterdieck, Meyer's Com. on Rev., p. 34.

As Renan, and others.

Purves, art. “Rev.”, Davis' Dict. of Bib.; Milligan, Lect. on Apoc., p. 153f.; and Lee, Bib. Com., Intr. to Rev., pp. 491-2.

With correct insight, it has been well said, that “the ancient commentators beheld in the visions of the Apocalypse not a prophetic history of the Christian church, so much as a figurative representation of the contest going on in the world between the evil and the good. And the moral of the book, the end for which it was given, (according to the spirit of these interpretations), was to assure the righteous of their ultimate triumph, notwithstanding the apparent or temporary success of the powers of darkness.” Todd's “Discourses on Prophecy”, quoted in T. L. Scott's Paragraph Version of Revelation, opening page.

As Milligan, Plummer, Lee, Riddle, Purves, Warfield, and others.

Dods' Intr. to New Test., p. 244.

Harnack, art. “Rev.”, Encyc. Brit.; also McGiffert, Apos. Age, p. 624; and Porter, art. “Rev.”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

See “Analytical Conspectus” by Randell on p. xxvii of vol. on Rev. in Pulp. Com.

Moulton, vol. St. John, notes, p. 195, Mod. Read. Bib.

“Most of the prophetic books (in the Old Testament) lend themselves to a seven-fold arrangement.... All that is implied in such a feature of style is an extreme sense of orderly arrangement; and to the Hebrew mind order suggests the number seven” (the number of fulness or completeness of quality), Mod. Read. Bib., Mat., Intr. p. xi.

See also App'x F., diagram.

See Moulton, Mod. Read. Bib., vol. St. John, Intr. p. xxii.

See Foreword, p. 9.

“The influence of the Bk. of Enoch on the New Testament has been greater than that of all the other apocryphal and pseudepigraphical books taken together.” Book of Enoch (Charles). Gen. Intr., p. 41.

Or, gave unto him, to show unto his servants the things &c.

Gr. bondservants.

Or, them.

Or, who cometh.

Many authorities, some ancient, read washed. Heb. 9.14; comp. ch. 7.14.

Gr. in.

Or, God and his Father.

Gr. unto the ages of the ages. Many ancient authorities omit of the ages.

Or, he who.

Or, stedfastness.

Gr. lampstands.

Gr. became.

Gr. unto the ages of the ages.

Gr. upon.

Gr. lampstands.

Or, stedfastness.

Gr. lampstand.

Or, garden: as in Gen. 2.8.

Gr. became.

Or, reviling.

Some ancient authorities read and may have.

Gr. a tribulation of ten days.

The Greek text here is somewhat uncertain.

Or, stedfastness.

Many authorities, some ancient, read thy wife.

Gr. bondservants.

Many ancient authorities read their.

Or, pestilence. Sept., Ex. 5.3, &c.

Or, Gentiles.

Or, iron; as vessels of the potter, are they broken.

Many ancient authorities read not found thy works.

Gr. given.

The Greek word denotes an act of reverence, whether paid to a creature or to the Creator.

Or, stedfastness.

Or, temptation.

Gr. inhabited earth.

Or, tempt.

Or, sanctuary.

Or, come to pass. After these things straightway, &c.

Or, glassy sea.

Or, before. See ch. 7.17. comp. 5.6.

Or, who cometh.

Gr. unto the ages of the ages.

The Greek word denotes an act of reverence, whether paid to a creature or to the Creator.

Gr. unto the ages of the ages.

Gr. on.

Or, between the throne with the four living creatures, and the elders.

Some ancient authorities omit seven.

Gr. hath taken.

Gr. unto the ages of the ages.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Some ancient authorities add and see.

Some ancient authorities read the peace of the earth.

Or, A choenix (i. e. about a quart,) of wheat for a shilling—implying great scarcity. Comp. Ezek. 4.16 f.; 5.16.

See marginal note on Mt. 18.28.

Or, pestilence. Comp. ch. 2.23 marg.

Some ancient authorities read be fulfilled in number. II Esdr. 4.36.

Or, military tribunes. Gr. chiliarchs.

Gr. bondservants.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Gr. The blessing, and the glory, &c.

Gr. unto the ages of the ages.

Gr. have said.

Or, sanctuary.

Or, before. See ch. 4.6; comp. 5.6.

Or, at.

Gr. give.

Or, for.

Gr. hath taken.

Or, into.

Gr. one eagle.

Gr. likenesses.

That is, Destroyer.

Gr. one voice.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Gr. unto the ages of the ages.

Some ancient authorities omit and the sea and the things that are therein.

Or, time.

Gr. bondservants.

Or, concerning. Comp. Jn. 12.16.

Gr. saying.

Or, sanctuary.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Or, sanctuary.

Gr. cast without.

Or, Gentiles.

Gr. lampstands.

Gr. carcase.

Gr. names of men, seven thousand. Comp. ch. 3-4.

Gr. unto the ages of the ages.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Gr. bondservants.

Or, sanctuary.

Or, Gentiles.

Gr. inhabited earth.

Or, Now is the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom, become our God's, and the authority is become his Christ's.

Gr. tabernacle.

Some ancient authorities read I stood, &c. connecting the clause with what follows.

Gr. slain.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Or, to do his works during. See Dan. 11.28.

Gr. tabernacle.

Some ancient authorities omit And it was given ... overcome them.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Or, written in the book ... slain from the foundation of the world.

The Greek text in this verse is somewhat uncertain.

Or, leadethinto captivity.

Or, stedfastness.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Some ancient authorities read that even the image of the beast should speak; and he shall cause &c.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Some ancient authorities read Six hundred and sixteen.

Or, an eternal gospel.

Gr. sit.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Gr. mingled.

Gr. unto ages of ages.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Or, stedfastness.

Or, in the Lord. From henceforth, yea saith the Spirit.

Or, sanctuary.

Gr. become dry.

Or, sanctuary.

Gr. vine.

Or, glassy sea.

Or, upon.

Or, glassy sea.

Gr. bondservant.

Many ancient authorities read nations. Jer. 10.7.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Or, sanctuary.

Many ancient authorities read in linen, ch. 19.8.

Gr. unto the ages of the ages.

Or, sanctuary.

Or, there came.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Gr. soul of life.

Some ancient authorities read and they became.

Or, judge. Because they ... prophets, thou hast given them blood also to drink.

Or, him.

Or, upon.

Gr. inhabited earth.

Or, Ar-Magedon.

Or, sanctuary.

Some ancient authorities read there was a man.

Or, Gentiles.

Or, names full of blasphemy.

Gr. gilded.

Or, and of the unclean things.

Or, a mystery, Babylon the Great.

Or, witnesses. See ch. 2.13.

Some ancient authorities read and he goeth.

Gr. on.

Gr. shall be present.

Or, meaning.

Or, there are.

Gr. hath a kingdom.

Or, prison.

Some authorities read of the wine ... have drunk.

Some ancient authorities omit the wine of.

Or, luxury.

Or, clave together.

Or, luxurious.

Some ancient authorities omit the Lord.

Or, luxuriously.

Gr. cargo.

Gr. amomum.

Gr. bodies. Gen. 36.6 (Sept.).

Or, lives.

Gr. gilded.

Gr. work the sea.

Gr. one.

Some ancient authorities omit of whatsoever craft.

Gr. bondservants.

Gr. have said.

Gr. unto the ages of the ages.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Some ancient authorities omit called.

Some ancient authorities read dipped in.

Gr. winepress of the wine of the fierceness.

Gr. one.

Or, military tribunes Gr. chiliarchs.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Gr. upon.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Or, authority.

Some ancient authorities read the.

Some ancient authorities insert from God.

Gr. unto the ages of the ages.

Or, the holy city Jerusalem coming down new out of heaven.

Gr. tabernacle.

Some ancient authorities omit, and be their God.

Or, Write, These words are faithful and true.

Gr. luminary.

Gr. portals.

Or, lapis lazuli.

Or, sapphire.

Or, transparent as glass.

Or, sanctuary.

Or, and the Lamb, the lamp thereof.

Or, by.

Gr. common.

Or, doeth.

Or, the Lamb. In the midst of the street thereof, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, &c.

Or, a tree.

Or, crops of fruit.

Or, no more anything accursed.

Gr. bondservants.

Gr. unto the ages of the ages.

See marginal note on ch. 3.9.

Or, yet more.

Or, wages.

Or, the authority over Comp. ch. 6.8.

Gr. portals.

Or, doeth Comp. ch. 21.27.

Gr. over.

Or, Both.

Gr. upon.

Or, even from the things which are written.

Some ancient authorities add Christ.

Two ancient authorities read with all.

Bacon, Intr. to New Test., p. 235; and New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 160.

As held by Seiss and others, following Heinrich, who make the topic of the Revelation Christ in his Second Advent, contrary to the generally accepted exegesis.

Alford, Plummer, Lee, Milligan, and others, as against Düsterdieck, Stuart, and the preterists generally.

“It means the revelation which Jesus makes, not that which reveals him.... Revelation ἀποκάλυψις is a word reserved for the Gospel; no Old Testament prophecy is called a revelation.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 1; also cf. Düsterdieck, Meyer's Com. on Rev., pp. 94-95.

“The testimony of Jesus Christ, like the revelation of Jesus Christ, means that which he gave, not that which tells about him.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 2.

Simcox, Camb. Gr. Test., Rev., p. 41; Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 2; also cf. Moulton, Intr. to Litr. of Bib., p. 312, who says, “A careful reading will show that these words are to be understood, not as a part of the revelation, but as the writer's (or editor's) comment upon the book.” This view, it will be seen, does not affect the sense of the verses, but only their origin.

“Understanding can only know what is, has been, or will be. It is impossible for anything to exist for understanding otherwise than as a matter of fact it does exist in those three relations of time.” (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Watson's “Selections,” p. 186; or, in a slightly different translation, Edition of Meiklejohn, p. 307). It is important for us to note that God is thus presented as comprehending in himself all the possibilities of existence in human understanding.

For the view that the origin of this conception is to be found in the later Jewish literature rather than in the Old Testament, see Scott in New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 126. Swete interprets, “Here the spirits are seven, because the churches in which they operate are seven.” Apoc. of St. John, p. 6.

R. V. “loosed us from our sins by his blood.” “The insertion or omission of a single letter (in the Greek word) makes the difference between the A. V. ‘washed’ and the R. V. ‘loosed.’ The manuscript evidence for each is very evenly balanced; the other evidence likewise. On the whole, the old reading, ‘washed,’ seems more in harmony with the thought of the book and with Johannine diction in general.” New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 127.

“The continuous return (the coming of the Lord in the power of the Spirit) prefacing, heralding the full manifestation of his might and glory, is the grand theme of the Apocalypse.” Reynolds, Pulp. Com., John's Gospel, Intr., p. lxxxvi.

This title, Παντοκράτωρ “the Almighty,” is used nine times in Revelation, and only once elsewhere in the New Testament (II Cor. 6:18).

Tribulation is the pervading undertone of the whole book. “The moving spirit of the vision in the Apocalypse is the sufferings of the church” (Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, p. 295). “The ethical keynote is patience” (New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 129).

See notes on “The Place” in the Introduction to this volume.

“The earliest use of the name (the Lord's day) is in this passage,” Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 130; Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 5.

See Scott, art. “Rev.,” Hastings' Dict. of Chr. and Gosp.

“The vision of the Divine Christ in Rev. 1 dominates every subsequent paragraph in the Apocalypse.” Reynolds, art. “Gosp. of John,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 7; also see Thayer's Gr. Lex. of New Test.

“The association of angels with stars was a common Semitic idea.” (Moulton). Each star was conceived of by the Jews as having its angel, as also every force and phenomenon of nature had its separate angel. It is not strange, therefore, that John grouped them in his thought.

Milligan, Internat. Com., vol. iv, Rev., p. 36; also Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev. p. 8. For the other view see Faussett, J. F. & B. Com. on Rev., p. 589; Stuart, Com. on Apoc., pp. 460-1; and Trench, Ep's to Seven Ch's, p. 75f.

“This last image is not so strange as it appears at first sight, for the short Roman sword was tongue-like in shape.” Hastings' Dict. of Bib., art. “Sword.”

An indication of divine power as well as victory; for “it was part of the teaching of the Rabbinic schools that the key of death was one of four (the keys of life, the grave, food, and rain) which were in the hand of God alone.” New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 133.

“The word mystery is not used in the Bible in the modern sense of ‘something that cannot be fathomed or understood,’ but on the contrary it indicates either something which is waiting to be revealed or that which when explained conveys understanding. In the latter sense it comes near to our word ‘Symbol.’ And this is the sense in which it is to be taken here and in ch. xxii. 7.” (New Cent. Bib., Rev., pp. 133-4). In the general and broader sense, however, “The term μυστήριον in the New Testament means truths once hidden now revealed, made generally known, and in their own nature perfectly intelligible.” Bruce, Exp. Gr. Test., vol. I, p. 196.

See art. “Rev.”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.; also “New Test. Doctr. of Rev.” in the same work, vol. V. p. 334e.

Milligan, Lect. on Apoc., p. 16.

Asia in the New Testament (with the possible exception of Acts 2:9) always means the Roman province of that name, which embraced only the western part of what we now call Asia Minor, and consisted of Mysia, Lydia, Caria, and part of Phrygia, with the islands of the coast,—see the map in the beginning of this volume. “Asia was one of the most wealthy and populous and intellectually active of the Roman provinces,” Ramsay, art. “Asia.” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

Ramsay, Letters to Seven Ch's., p. 35.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 3; Swete, Apoc. of St. John, Intr., p. liv, and p. 4.

Milligan, Lect. on Apoc., p. 38; Stuart, Com. on Apoc., pp. 101-16, and Excur. II, p. 747 in same volume; also see App'x E in this volume on the “Symbolism of Numbers.”

Sayce, Hibbert Lect's on Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 82.

So Milligan, Plummer, and others—see notes in Ch. 20:2f.

“Probably the most striking feature of the Seven Letters is the tone of unhesitating and unlimited authority which inspires them from beginning to end.” Ramsay, Letters to Seven Churches, p. 75.

See Ramsay's Letters to the Seven Churches, where there will be found much accurate information concerning the seven cities that is based upon an extended residence in those cities, and careful personal investigation. A more concise account by the same author is given in Hastings' Dict. of Bib., in the separate articles upon each city.

Moulton's Mod. Read. Bib., Rev., p. 196.

The exhortation to “hear what the Spirit saith to the churches” applies not only to what is contained in the seven epistles, but to the entire Apocalypse which follows. See Ramsay's Letters to Seven Ch's, p. 38.

Paradise is the word used in the Septuagint for Eden. It occurs but three times in the New Testament. It originally signified a park or garden such as was used by Oriental monarchs for a pleasure-ground, but in Christian usage it becomes a name for the scene of rest and recompense for the righteous after death. See art. “Paradise” by Salmond, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., pp. 59-60.

Swete, Apoc. of St. John, p. 30.

Pergamus, though a rarer form, is preferable to Pergamos (A. V.), or Pergamum (R. V.) as the designation of the city, owing to its softer sound for the English ear, though the form is otherwise indifferent. See Ramsay's art. “Pergamus,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib. “Ἡ Πέργαμος is found in Xenophon, Pausanius, and Dion Cassius, but τὸ Πέργαμον in Strabo, and Polybius, and most other writers, and in the inscriptions; the termination is left uncertain in Apoc. i.11 and ii.12.” Swete, Apoc. of St. John, p. 33.

“Pergamum was the first place in Asia where as early as the reign of Augustus was erected a temple to Rome and the Emperor,” Salmon, Hist. Intr. to New Test., p. 239. “An allusion to the rampant paganism of Pergamum ... but chiefly perhaps to the new Caesar worship in which Pergamum was preeminent and which above all other pagan rites menaced the existence of the Church,” Swete, Apoc. of St. John, p. 34.

“The name Balaam does not indicate a sect, but a set of principles.” Briggs, Mess. of Gospels, p. 451; also see New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 143.

This identification is suggested by the present author as a probable one, for jade is the most notable white stone that was in use in ancient times, and it is still highly prized for seals, charms, and kindred purposes in China and the Far East. Dr. Schlieman found implements made from the coarser kinds of it in the immediate region of Pergamus among the relics of the oldest of the cities in the excavations at Hissarlik, the mound of ancient Ilium, near Troas; and a jade celt engraved with Gnostic formulæ in Greek characters is preserved in the Christy collection. See art. “Jade,” Encyc. Brit.

Trench, Ep's to Seven Churches, pp. 178-80. Trench's view, however, that the Urim and Thummim consisted of a single stone is not correct, though his interpretation of this passage is as usual very suggestive. See art. “Urim and Thummim” in Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

See Trench, Stuart, Plummer, Lee, Scott, and others. Lange says concisely, “Two meanings attached to the white stone among the Greeks, viz. acquittal in judgment, and the award of some rank or dignity.” Lange's (Com. on Rev., p. 121). Swete says “The white stone is the pledge of the divine favor which carries with it such intimate knowledge of God and Christ as only the possessor can comprehend.” (Apoc. of St. John, p. 40).

See art. “Signet,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

Hilprecht, S. S. Times, Sept. 10, 1904, art. “Babylonian Life in the Time of Ezra and Nehemiah.”

Weizsäcker thinks the new name is “the λόγος of John's Gospel” (Apost. Age, vol. II p. 171); but by “new” is more likely meant a hitherto unknown name. Stevens interprets it as “a symbol for the Messiah,” (Theol. of New Test., p. 540). On the other hand Scott says, “A new name stands for a new character.” (New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 143); and Ramsay regards it as “perhaps an allusion to the custom of taking new and secret baptismal names,” (art. “Pergamus,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.); also Düsterdieck thinks that the name applies to the Christian (Com. on Rev., p. 148); and Swete holds the same view (Apoc. of St. John, p. 40). “White” and “new” as Trench points out, are “key-words” in the Apocalypse (Ep's to Seven Ch's, p. 172).

Ramsay explains, “There had been a Jewish colony planted in Thyatira, and a hybrid sort of worship had been developed, half Jewish, half pagan, which is called in Revelation the woman Jezebel,” (Paul the Trav. and Rom. Cit., p. 215). Scott thinks it “most probable that the reference is to some well-known and influential woman within the church at Thyatira, whose influence on the Christian community was parallel to that of Jezebel upon Ahab—a self-styled prophetess, whose teaching and example were alike destructive of Christian morality,” (New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 147). Schürer also holds that Jezebel denoted a definite woman, (Hastings' Dict. of Bib., art. “Thyatira”). Plummer finds in the name a unity of symbolism with other parts of the book, thus, “Jezebel anticipates the harlot of ch. 17, as Balaam anticipates the false prophet of ch. 13” (Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 66).

Swete, Apoc. of St. John, p. 42.

“To become acquainted with ‘the depths,’ (i. e. the deep things of divinity, as they would say—called here ‘the deep things of Satan’ in irony) was an essential pretense of the Gnostics.” Düsterdieck, Meyer's Com. on Rev., p. 152.

“I will grant him to see the Morning-star”. Moffatt, New Trans. of New Test.

“The word used is κλέπτης a ‘thief,’ and not ληστὴς a ‘robber,’ showing that secrecy, not violence, is the point of the similitude.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 108.

“The word ‘white’ (λευκὸς), excepting in Mat. 5.36 and Jn. 4.35, is in the New Testament always used of heavenly purity and brightness,” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 109.

The “book of life” is mentioned seven times in the Revelation, an indication of the place it occupied in the writer's thought.

Ramsay, Letters to Seven Ch's, pp. 377-78.

Milligan, Internat. Com., Rev., p. 48.

Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 136.

Ramsay, art. “Sardis,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

Swete, Apoc. of St. John, p. 53; and Ramsay, art. “Philadelphia,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

Bousset's inference is scarcely justifiable:—“It is the tone of immediate expectation of the end; the last great struggle throughout the whole inhabited world is at hand; the storm is drawing near; already the seer beholds the lightning flash”. (New Cent. Bib., Rev., pp. 153-4). Swete also interprets similarly, as referring to “the troublous times which precede the Parousia,” and adds, “This final sifting of mankind was near at hand.” (Apoc. of St. John, p. 55).

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 113; Wordsworth, quoted in Bib. Com., Rev., p. 547.

Ramsay, art. “Philadelphia,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.; and his Letters to Seven Ch's., p. 400.

“The word ‘Amen’ is here used as a proper name of our Lord; and this is the only instance of such an application.... The ‘faithful and true witness’ is an amplification of the Amen”. Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., pp. 114-15.

“The origin of God's creation.” Moffatt, New Translation of New Testament.

“Laodicea was the one famous medical centre in Phrygia.... The description of the medicine here mentioned is obscured by a mistranslation. It was not an ointment but a kollyrium, which had the form of small cylinders compounded of various ingredients, and was used either by simple application or by reduction to a powder to be smeared on the part.” Ramsay, Letters to Seven Ch's., p. 429.

See art. “Laodicea” by Ramsay, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.; and Swete, Apoc. of St. John, pp. 61-2.

See App'x F, “The Literary Structure of the Apocalypse.”

See Hastings' Dict. of Bib., art. “Stones, Precious;” also the separate arts. in the same work on the names of precious stones which we find in the Revelation. Plummer regards the jasper, which is further described in ch. 21:11 as being “clear as crystal,” to be the modern diamond, while Cheyne thinks it the opal, and Scott identifies the sardius with our carnelian.

The A. V. reads, “there was a sea of glass”; the R. V. renders, “as it were a glassy sea”; and the Am. R. V. gives, “as it were a sea of glass.” The Revisers evidently regarded the phrase as a figurative way of describing the quiet of the sea. Alford, however, and Swete interpret literally as “a sea of glass.”

Cf. Faussett, J. F. & B. Com. on Rev., p. 625.

See New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 164.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 145; Swete, Apoc. of St. John, p. 68.

“Throughout the vision no past tense is used. The vision represents the worship of heaven (so far as it can be presented to human understanding) as it continues eternally.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 145.

Bleek, Lect. on Apoc., p. 199; Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 145.

New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 163.

For Bleek's view of the arrangement see notes on “The Lamb in the Midst of the Throne,” under ch. 5:6-8a.

“No one can authoritatively affirm that created beings of a lower order than man will not in some sense share in the future life.” A. A. Hodge, unpublished Classroom Lectures.

See in Am. R. V., I Sam. 4:4; II Sam. 6:2; II Ki. 1:9-15; I Chr. 13:6; Ps. 80:1, 99:1; Isa. 37:16; Ezek. 10:1-20.

Fairbairn regards the cherubim as typifying “Earth's living creaturehood, especially man, its rational and immortal head”. See his Typology, vol. 1, pp. 125-208. Plummer similarly interprets the living beings as symbolical of all animal life, and suggests that the human face of the cherubim represents “humanity as distinct from the church (which is represented by the four and twenty elders), and appears to indicate the power of God to use for his purposes and his glory that part of mankind which has not been received into the church.” Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 146. Also see art. “Cherubim,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.; and for an apocalyptic description of the cherubim, Bk. of Enoch (ed. Charles), 14:11, 18; 20:7; 61:10; 76:7.

Stuart, Com. on Apoc., p. 515; also cf. Düsterdieck, and Plummer. Other definitions, though differing in statement, have a general similarity. For example, “The Book of Destiny” (Bacon, Intr. to New Test., p. 284); “The Book of Doom” (Moffatt, Exp. Gr. Test., Rev. p. 382); “The Book of History” (Temple Bib., Intr. to Rev., p. xxxvii); or, better still, “The Book of God's Counsels” (Lee, Bib. Com., Rev., p. 563). Faussett, following De Burgh, makes the book “The Title-deed of Man's Inheritance Redeemed by Christ” (J. F. & B. Com. on Rev., p. 602). Seiss accepts this interpretation and explains further by reference to Jewish customs of land tenure (Lects. on Apoc., vol. i, p. 266f.). The definition preferred in the present volume is “The Book of God's Plan for the Ages.”

“A Roman will, when written, had to be sealed seven times in order to authenticate it, and some have argued that this explains the symbolism here” (Exp. Gr. Test., Rev. p. 383); but this suggestion is of doubtful value when the Hebrew use of seven was so well established.

See Düsterdieck, Meyer's Com. on Rev., p. 207.

“The ability to open was a consequence of a former act of victory, viz. the redemption.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 164.

“The kingship of Christ is more clearly set forth in the Revelation than in any other part of the New Testament, though not in any single text, but by the representations of the book throughout,” Riddle, unpublished Classroom Lectures on Revelation. Also see Pfleiderer, Influence of Paul on Christianity (Hibbert Lect., 1885), p. 130.

“John looked to see a lion and beheld a Lamb,” the change of symbol seeming to indicate that “the might of Christ is the power of love.” See Stevens, New Test. Theol., p. 542. “The name which most expresses what Christ is to the Christian is the ‘Lamb.’ ” “This is used twenty-nine times in the book.” Porter, art. Rev., Hastings' Dict. of Bib. “This is a dramatic way of expressing the truth that the efficient factor of history is gentleness.” Dean, Book of Revelation, p. 103.

See Bleek's Lect. on Apoc., p. 200f.

Cf. Bisping, quoted by Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 167.

“This description of the glorified Lord, sublime as a purely mental conception, becomes intolerable if we give it outward form and expression.” (Trench, Ep's to Seven Ch's, p. 64). In fact, “No scene in the great Christian Apocalypse can be successfully reproduced upon canvas; the imagery ... is symbolic and not pictorial,” (Swete, Apoc. of St. John, Intr., p. cxxxiv.) “Symbolism does not appeal to the pictorial sense at all, but rather to some analytic faculty, or conventional association of ideas.” (Moulton, Bib. Idyls, Intr. p. xx). The incongruity of many of their symbols from the aesthetic point of view does not seem to have occurred to the Hebrew mind, for with them the religious idea was predominant. Many of the events recorded in the Revelation are manifestly impossible except in a vision.

“Here we have the ideas of ch. 1. 5 repeated (i. e. of the love and redemption of Christ) with the further thought that love like that displayed in Christ's death for man's redemption is worthy not only of all praise, but of having all the future committed to its care. It is really a pictorial way of saying that redeeming love is the last reality in the universe which all praise must exalt and to which everything else must be subordinate.” Denney, Death of Christ, p. 246.

Moulton's Mod. Read. Bib., Psa. vol. i, Intr., p. xxxiif.

The call is most naturally understood as a call for the vision to appear. Simcox so interprets: “Each of the living creatures by turns summons one of the horsemen.” (Cambr. Gr. Test., Rev., p. 85); Scott, also, holds the same view (New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 176); and Moffatt, prefers it (New Trans. New Test., footnote). Plummer, however, says the call is addressed to John,—perhaps a more common view; on the other hand Alford, Milligan, and Swete, say the call is to Christ to come. The view that the call is addressed to the rider is more likely correct, though the interpretation of the seals is not materially affected by the view we may take of this part of the symbolism. In any case, “Each living being invites attention to the revelation of the future of that creation of which they are all representatives.” Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 185.

“Conquering, and that he may conquer. This is the key to the whole vision. Only of Christ and his kingdom can it be said that it is to conquer ... only of Christ's kingdom shall there be no end.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 184.

New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 179; also see Mommsen's Provinces of Rom. Emp., vol. ii, p. 1 (note), Swete regards the first seal as “a picture of triumphant militarism.” Apoc. St. John, p. 84.

“White is always typical in the Revelation of heavenly things,” Plummer, (Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 183). “If any other than our Lord is he that goes forth conquering and to conquer, then, though the subsequent interpretation may have occasional points of contact with truth ... the true key of the book is lost.” (Alford, Gr. Test., vol. iv, p. 249).

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 185. For a different interpretation see Milligan, Expos. Bib., Rev., p. 91.

“A choenix of wheat for a denarius &c. The choenix appears to have been the food allotted to one man for a day; while the denarius was the pay of a soldier or of a common laborer for one day.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 185.

The oil and the wine are interpreted by some (as Wordsworth, and Milligan) to mean spiritual food which will not be lacking in time of famine; but this opinion is not sustained by anything in the text. Swete understands the vision to forbid famine prices, and to refer only to relative hardships—an unusual view.

It is doubtless true, as pointed out by Ramsay, that according to the usual custom in celebrating a triumph “the Roman generals were borne in a four-horse car” (Letters to Seven Churches, p. 58). This, however, does not seem to have been necessarily or always the case, and even when so, the horses were white. Cf. Swete, Apoc. of St. John, p. 84; and Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 177.

It is interesting to note that God is here described (v. 10) as ὁ δεσπότης an absolute ruler, a word implying the divine might and authority, which occurs but once in the Apocalypse, and which is translated “Lord” in the A. V., and “Master” in the R. V. This term, it should be understood, is “strictly the correlative of slave, δοῦλος, and hence denotes absolute ownership and uncontrolled power.” (Thayer's Gr.-Eng. Lex. New Test.) In its present use “it would seem to convey the idea of personal relationship, as Paul speaks of himself as the slave of Christ (δοῦλος).” (Strong, art. “John, Apostle,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.)

For an interesting parallel passage in Apocalyptic literature see Ascension of Isaiah, 9.7-18, where the saints, as here, receive a preliminary reward; also, Bk of Enoch, 22:5f, where the voice of the spirits of the children of men who were dead “penetrated to heaven and complained.”

“The day of the Lord” is a notable phrase in the New Testament, and should receive our careful attention, though it only occurs twice in the Apocalypse (ch. 6:14; 16:14). As Davidson interprets it, “The day of the Lord is an eschatological idea; the phrase therefore cannot be rendered ‘a day of the Lord,’ as if any great calamity or judgment felt to be impending might be so named: the day is that of final and universal judgment.” (See art. “Eschatol. of Old Test.”; Hastings' Dict. of Bib.). This view, however, must not be applied too strictly; for while it is clear that the final day is usually the thought in mind, yet through long and continuous use the phrase “the day of the Lord” seems to have acquired a wider application, and to have been applied to any striking crisis in the history of the world, each day of the Lord being, however, a type of the final and great day. (See Rawlinson, Pulp. Com., Isa., p. 228).

Cf. New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 124.

See App'x G, “Apoc. Lit.”

The view here given, limiting the contents of the seventh seal to the first verse of the eighth chapter, is upon the whole the preferable one (Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 229; Wordsworth, The Apoc., p. 155; and Vaughan, Lect. on Rev., pp. 204-5), though it is disputed on exegetical grounds by Düsterdieck and others (Meyer's Com. on Rev. p. 261f.). It will be found, however, that it is amply sustained by a broad view of the context. This verse (ch. 8:1) might well have been included in chapter seven, at the close of the episode of the sealed ones where it properly belongs.

Lee, Bib. Com., Rev., p. 595.

Riddle, unpublished Classroom Lect. on Rev.

“Three kinds of significance appear to be attached to sealing in the Scriptures, viz. (1) to authenticate; (2) to assert ownership; and (3) to assure safety. The significance of sealing in Revelation seems to combine both the latter ideas.” (New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 191). Possibly all senses of the term may be here included, which gives a very forcible meaning. In Charles' view the sealing in Revelation is to secure the servants of God against the attacks of demonic powers, or against the Antichrist. See his Studies in Apoc., p. 130.

The omission of the tribe of Dan in the enumeration of the twelve tribes of Israel has been accounted for in various ways; but most likely it occurred as suggested by Ewald by an error of transcription, MAN, (the abbreviated form of Manasses) being substituted for ΔΑΝ, the correct reading. In favor of this suggestion is the fact that the correct order of birth of the sons of Jacob would thereby be followed, except that Joseph is placed before Reuben because of the prominent place he occupies as the ancestor of our Lord. See Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., pp. 207-8.

Moffatt, Exp. Gr. Test., vol. V, pp. 394-6; Jülicher, New Test., Intr., pp. 287-8; and Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 192.

“Perhaps no passage in the Apocalypse has had so wide an influence on popular eschatology.” Swete, Apoc. of St. John, p. 98.

For a like passage where the sealed wear white garments, see II Esdr. 2.34-42.

As Trench, followed by Milligan.

Faussett, J. F. & B. Com. on Rev., p. 605; also Düsterdieck, Meyer's Com. on Rev., pp. 242-50, who aptly says, “The number 144,000 there (v. 1-8) although not literal but schematic, furnishes the idea of numerability, while here (v. 9) the innumerability of the great multitude is especially emphasized.”

As Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev. p. 207, who says, “Here, as elsewhere, it is the spiritual Israel which is signified.”

“Saved by our God, who is seated on the throne, and by the Lamb!” Moffatt, New Trans. of New Test.

“Where an explanation is made of visions which refer to the church, the active part is taken by the elders, while angels introduce visions of which the signification is unexplained.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 209.

“These verses (v. 16, 17) are full of reminiscences of the O. T. Perhaps there is no passage in the whole of literature that so combines simplicity of language and sublimity of thought as these two verses.” Dean, Book of Revelation, p. 119.

Swete, Apoc. of St. John, p. 100; Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 195.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 230.

For the first view see Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 238; for the second view see Düsterdieck, Meyer's Com. on Rev., pp. 264-5; also Lange, Com. on Rev., p. 204.

Vaughan, Lect. on Rev., p. 207; and Stuart, Com. on Rev., p. 564, where they are described as “presence-angels;” also cf. Tobit, 12:15, “I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels who present the prayers of the saints, and who go in and out before the glory of the Holy One”; and Bk of Enoch, 91:21, “And the Lord called those seven first white ones, etc.” These instances serve to show how the Apocalypse of John reflects the current usage of Apocalyptic literature in his time.

Cf. I Thess. 4:16; I Cor. 15:52; and II Esdr. 6.20, 25.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 398; also compare with ch. 14:7, where these terms are apparently used as the sum of creation.

Cf. Alford, Gr. Test., vol. 4, Rev., p. 638.

Cf. Hos. 8:1; Hab. 1:8; and Apoc. of Bar. 77.19-22.

Cf. ch. 20:1-2; also see arts. “Abyss”, and “Pit”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.; and Bk of Enoch, 21:10; and 18:11.

Some find in this name a reference to Apollo, the pagan deity, and point out that the locust was one of the symbols of his cult, certainly a curious coincidence, but apparently not anything more than a coincidence. See New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 208.

“The balance of authority seems in favor of retaining τεσσάρων ‘four,’ although the Revisers omit it. The altar of incense had four horns projecting at the corners.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 265.

Light is thrown upon these perplexing figures by a passage in the Apocalypse of Ezra quoted by Bousset: “And a voice was heard: let these four kings be loosed which are bound beside the great river Euphrates, which shall destroy a third part of mankind. And they were loosed, and there was a great commotion.” Also in the Bk of Enoch (56:5), “The angels gather themselves together, and turn eastward to the Parthians and Medes, and stir up their kings,” as the four angels do here. John's conception is thus seen to be a reflection of existing apocalyptic material. See New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 208.

See Bible Com., Rev., p. 617.

“The master thought of the whole Revelation.” Moulton, Mod. Read. Bib., Rev., Intr. p. xxvi. “The realization of the kingdom of God ... is the end in the light of which God's purpose in Christ is to be read.” Orr, art. “Kingdom of God”. Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 226; also cf. II Macc., 2.1-8; and Apoc. Bar., 6.7-10.

“The episodes are interposed to give us an insight into the inner aspects of the life of the church in the midst of persecution and distress.” Ballentine, Mod. Am. Bib., Rev., p. 275.

Cf. Plummer and Alford.

New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 216.

Some, as Milligan, take this angel for Christ himself; but “throughout the book angels are everywhere distinct from the divine persons”, (Alford, Gr. Test., vol. iv, p. 649)—a general rule that is never deviated from and should not be forgotten. “In no passage of the book is our Lord represented under the form of an angel”, (Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 231).

“The Jews were accustomed to call thunder the seven voices, and to regard it as the voice of the Lord.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 274; also cf. Ps. 29:3f; 77:18; and 104:7.

Humphries, accepting the modern composite view, says, “The eating of the little book recounted in ch x. 10 suggests that borrowing from a previous source is to be looked for in what immediately follows.” St John and Other New Test. Teachers, p. 96.

See commentaries of Westcott, Reynolds, and others on the Gospel of John.

See Thayer's Lex. New Test. Greek for the distinction between the use of ναὸς and ἱερὸν; also art. “Temple”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib., at the beginning. The word ἱερὸν, it will be noticed, is never used in the Apocalypse.

Plummer thinks that the heavenly temple is indicated, because “nowhere else in the book do Jerusalem and the temple signify the earthly places”,—a view that deserves weighty consideration.

“The outer court of the temple was the addition of Herod.... The Gentiles might come there, though they might not pass into what was especially the temple, and which was sacred to Israelites only. And so it represents here all those outer-court worshippers, those mixed multitudes which are found associated with God's true people everywhere—of them, but not truly belonging to them.” Pulp. Com., Rev., pp. 300-01.

Stuart, Com. on Apoc., p. 590; and Lange, Com. on Rev., p. 223, who somewhat differently regards this as a picture of “the inner and outer church”, a thought that may perhaps be included; also see Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 288, who says, “The temple is here used figuratively of the faithful portion of the church of Christ ... placed in antithesis to the outer court, the faithless portion of the visible church, which is given over to the Gentiles—the type of all that is worldly.” Scott, Par. Ver. of Rev., p. 33 says, “The inner shrine alone of the house of God is truly his, and abides forever”; and Ballentine, Mod. Am. Bib., following Bp. Carpenter, says, “As Jerusalem and Babylon ... so here the Temple and the court of the Temple are symbols. The gospel has elevated the history and places of the past into a grand allegory. It has breathed into their dead names the life of an ever-present symbolism.”

See Mommsen's Prov. of Rom. Emp., vol. ii, pp. 214-17, note.

On the return of the Jews to Palestine, expected by many as a fulfilment of prophecy, see the very satisfactory remarks of Davidson, art. “Eschatology”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib., vol. i, pp. 737-8.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 289; Faussett, J. F. & B., Com. on Rev., p. 613; Wordsworth, The Apoc., lect. viii; and others.

Cf. ch. 1:12f, where the seven candlesticks are the seven churches.

See Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 289f, who is remarkably clear on this passage.

“The two martyrs represent the martyr church as sharing the royal priesthood of the Messiah, and as endowed with the gifts of prophecy and miracle-working like the prophets of old,” Briggs, Mess. of Apost., p. 318.

Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 291; Bib. Com., Rev., p. 639; Vincent, Word Stud. in New Test., 1 c.; also Alford, Gr. Test., vol. iv, p. 661.

Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 234.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 310.

In a footnote of the Revised Douay Version, however, the interpretation there given is, “The church of God. It may also, by allusion, be applied to our blessed Lady”—an interpretation to which no objection can properly be made.

“This threefold description (i. e. ‘the Old Serpent, he that is called the Devil, and Satan’) gathers up the primitive, the prophetic, and the New Testament conception of the supreme Power of Evil.” New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 230.

See Thayer's Gr. Lex. of New Test.

See Farrar, Early Days of Christianity, p. 527; and Stuart, Com. on Apoc., pp. 627-8.

Faussett, J. F. & B. Com. on Rev., p. 619; and Maurice, The Apoc., p. 181.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 312; Wordsworth, Lect. on Apoc., p. 200, “St John now reverts to an earlier period.”

Lee says, “Verses ten and eleven commemorate by anticipation the victory of believers.” Bib. Com., Rev., p. 662; Plummer, favoring a similar view, suggests that, “The song of the heavenly voices may be intended to end with the word ‘Christ’ (v. 10), and the following passages may be the words of the writer of the Apocalypse, and may refer to the earthly martyrs.” Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 312.

Bleek, Lect. on Apoc., p. 268; Stuart, Com. on Apoc., p. 623.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 312.

Charles, art. “Bk of Secrets of Enoch”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib. “The underlying conception here probably is that the Dragon and his angels attempted to storm the highest heaven, and in the end were cast out of heaven altogether.” New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 230.

Sayce, Hibbert Lect's., (1887), p. 102.

Gunkel, Schopfung und Chaos, 1895.

Porter, art. “Rev., Book of”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

“To read the ideas of Rev. xii into the scattered Babylonian allusions, in order to get the Marduk myth, is too fragmentary to be relied upon as a basis for such a theory;” Moffatt, The Expositor, Mar., '09, art. “Wellhausen and Others on the Apoc.” For a statement of Gunkel's tradition-historical view see art. “Rev.” in Hastings' Dict. of Bib.; also art. “Apoc. and Recent Criticism”, Barton, Am. Journ. of Theol., Oct. '98. Delitzsch in his first lecture on Babel and the Bible (1902) regards all references to the Dragon in Scriptures as echoes of Babylonian mythology. Davidson in art. “Angel”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib., regards such passages containing accounts of conflicts between God and other powerful beings as “reminiscences of Cosmic or Creation myths.”

Moffatt supports the reading, “I stood” (A. V.), and in this view he is supported by Ramsay.

See Apoc. of Baruch, 29.4 and II Esdr. 6.49.

Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 221.

Düsterdieck, Plummer, Faussett, and many others. Milligan is especially clear in his exposition of this passage, Internat. Com., vol. iv, p. 105.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 331.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., pp. 331-2.

Scott makes the sea out of which the first Beast emerges to be “the Mediterranean, from beyond which the empire of Rome rose before the eyes of the Jews”; and the earth to be the domain of “the Roman empire, from which came the priests of Caesar-worship—a priesthood native born”, which constituted the second Beast. (New Cent. Bib., Rev., pp. 235 and 239). Plummer says, “The sea is the type of instability, confusion, and commotion, frequently signifying the ungovernable nations of the world in opposition to the church of God.... The other beast pertains to the earth, thus dividing the whole world between them.” (Pulp. Com., Rev., pp. 330 and 334).

Cf. Pulp. Com., Rev., pp. 341-43; Faussett, J. F. & B. Com. on Rev., pp. 621; and Vaughan, Lect. on Rev., p. 342; also Bp. of Ripon's “Excur. on Rev.”, Pulp. Com., Rev., pp. 582-85.

The identity of the Second Beast with the False Prophet of chs. 16:13, and 19:20, can scarcely be doubted when both contexts are considered, though some historical interpreters have identified the False Prophet with Mohammed, the false prophet of Islam, apparently without any special reason except that Mohammed is the most noted of all the false prophets of history, whereas the False Prophet in Revelation is the representative of all false religions in all time, an admirable symbol.

We should not forget the great lesson of history here emphasized, that the natural religions of men are always intertwined with the civil power in heathen lands; and, also, how often in the past, even in Christian nations, the professed faith in Christ has been inwrought to its great undoing with the authority of the nation.

Salmond, Hist. Intr. to New Test., p. 245; Bousset, Bib. Encyc., art. “Apoc”.; also Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 239.

The first is Alford's view, Gr. Test., vol. iv, pp. 675-79; the second is Moulton's Mod. Read. Bib., Rev., pp. 207-09.

For a further discussion of the symbolism of the Second Beast see notes on ch 17.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 336.

“Philo reproached Jewish apostates for allowing themselves to be branded with the signs of idols” (New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 191), an allusion evidently to the same practice as that referred to here in Revelation, and showing that the language used is something more than merely a figure of speech.

“In apocalyptic writings the interpretation, if added, is only a less obscure form of the enigma, and not a solution of it”. Schürer, Hist. Jewish Peop., part II, vol. iii, p. 47.

“It is difficult to understand why all this mystery should be about the name of a dead emperor who was no favorite with Jew or Roman, or why the name should be written in Hebrew for the Christians of Asia, or how so prominent a name should so soon be forgotten, especially in view of the expectation of his return, which obtained so long.” (Dean, Book of Revelation, p. 151.).

See Salmon, Hist. Intr. to New Test., p. 23Of.; also Milligan, Expos. Bib., Rev., p. 235; and Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 337. Farrar's interpretation (following Reuss, Hitzig, and others) is Neron Kesar, using Hebrew letters in the spelling and omitting most of the vowels, as follows (see Early Days of Christianity, p. 540), viz:—

N=50
R=200
O=6
N=50

N(E)RON=306
K=100
S=60
R=200

K(E)S(A)R=360

This interpretation is the one now generally accepted by the advanced school of commentators in the present day. On the other hand if the last letter of the name (N) be dropped we have the value of 616, which is the alternate reading in some manuscripts. Moulton, however, says the number contains “probably a temporary allusion of which the point is now lost” that gave a clue to the general significance, viz. “world-religion and superstition in contradistinction to world-force.” (Mod. Read. Bib., Rev., p. 209). “The non-identification of Nero with the 666 by any early writer is significant.” (Cowan, art. “Nero”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.). “Surely not ‘Nero Kaisar,’ but ‘Ashhur-Ramman’!” Cheyne, Fresh Voyages on Unfrequented Waters, p. 171—1914).

Porter, art. “Rev., Bk. of,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

Following the Hebrew custom of offering the first fruits to God, the term is probably used in this figure as the symbol of that which is given to God, though it may possibly refer to those who share in the first resurrection.

“Παρθένοι ‘virgins,’ is a word equally applicable to men or women,” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 347; also Swete regards the word “virgins” as a metaphor for purity, as most interpreters; cf. Thayer's Gr. Lex. of New Test., for the secondary use of the term. It is evident that the phrase “These are they that were not defiled with women”—or “among women”—may properly be interpreted as applying to men who were not so defiled, though it here apparently represents a class, whether men or women, who are declared to be free from impurity, a phrase that in such a book as the Apocalypse is more likely to refer to that which is spiritual than to that which is physical. Alford, however, (Gr. Test., vol. iv, p. 685), and Moffatt, also, (Exp. Gr. Test., vol. v, p. 436), both interpret literally as “virgins.”

“The writer is controverting a fear that at the advent of the Messiah those who survived on earth would have some advantage over those who had already died.... John, however, does not share the current pessimistic belief that death was preferable to life ... but affirms that if death came in the line of religious duty it involved no deprivation.” Moffatt, Exp. Gr. Test., Rev., pp. 439-40.

“In Jewish Apocalyptic writings ever since Daniel, a Son of Man had been spoken of who would come to judge the world in the clouds of heaven,” (Pfleiderer, Hibbert Lect. (1885), p. 34. An early messianic interpretation was given to the term, apparently because of its fitness, though in Daniel's vision “the son of man,” a figure in human form, is understood by most late interpreters to be used as a symbol of Israel, whose higher qualities are set in contrast with the four beasts, and its messianic use is believed to have arisen later, though, perhaps, soon after that period. For an instructive discussion of this familiar title, “the Son of Man”, so difficult to adequately interpret, see Charles' edition of the Bk. of Enoch, app'x B; also art. “Son of Man” in Hastings' Dict. of Bib.; and Sanday's art. “Jesus Christ” in the same; together with art. “Son of Man” in Hastings' Dict. of Chr. and Gosp.

“Another angel; i. e. in addition to those already mentioned, and not implying that he who sat on the cloud was an angel”, Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 350.

For the first view see Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 350; Alford, Gr. Test., vol. iv, p. 691f; and Swete, Apoc. of St. John, p. 187. For the second view see Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 250; and Moffatt, Exp. Gr. Test., Rev., pp. 441-42.

Cf. Bk. of Enoch, 100.3.

Moulton's Mod. Read. Bib., Rev., p. 210.

See Intr. to Johan. B'ks., Temple Bib.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 3.

“The whole of God's wrath in final judgment is not exhausted by these vials, but only the whole of his wrath in sending plagues on the earth previous to the judgment.” Alford, Gr. Test., vol. iv, p. 693.

Moulton, Mod. Read. Bib., Rev., p. 198. Lange suggests that “the crystal sea may appear as though illuminated and reddened by the fiery glare of the Anger Vials.” (Com. on Rev., p. 290); Alford thinks the fire in the sea is significant of judgment, (Gr. Test., vol iv, p. 693); and Swete says, “The red glow of the sea spoke of the fire through which the martyrs had passed, and yet more of the wrath about to fall on the world which had condemned them.” (Apoc. of St John, p. 191).

So Düsterdieck, Faussett, Plummer, Alford, and others; for the Greek preposition ἐπὶ with the accusative, see Thayer's Gr. Lex. of New Test. Swete, however, regarding the sea to be of glass, interprets “on the sea itself, which forms the solid pavement of the final approach to the throne,” (Apoc. of St John, p. 192), a view which scarcely accords with our idea of a sea.

Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., pp. 253-4. Also see Westcott and Hort in App'x to Gr. Test., “Notes on Select Readings,” p. 139, who favor the Revisers' view (λίθον); and Swete, Apoc. of St. John, p. 195, who supports the former reading (λίνον).

Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 254; Plummer says, “The reason of the employment of the term ‘vial,’ or ‘bowl,’ is most likely to be found in the expression ‘cup of God's anger,’ in ch. 14.10.” Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 392.

The term “the angel of the waters” reflects the apocalyptic style of thought, for it is not unusual in apocalyptic writings to assign a presiding spirit to natural phenomena. Cf. Bk. of Enoch (ed. Charles), 60.16-21; also Intr. to same, p. 34. In the Apocalypse of John, just as in other writings of the same class, we find that “angels are associated with cosmic or elemental forces as fire and water which they direct.” Davidson, art. “Angel,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib. Also cf. chs. 7:1; 9:11; and 14:18; in connection with 16:5.

“A figure possibly drawn from the action of Cyrus in diverting the waters of the river when he took the city of Babylon.” Bib. Com., Rev., p. 721.

Düsterdieck, Meyer's Com. on Rev., p. 419; also Alford, Gr. Test., vol. iv, p. 700. For a different view see Milligan, Internat. Com., Rev., p. 122; and Plummer, Pulp. Com., p. 395.

“All is over”. Moffatt, New Trans. of New Test.

See Ascension of Isaiah, ch. 7, where the firmament is the abode of evil spirits; also cf. Eph. 2:2, in which Satan is called “the prince of the power of the air,” apparently reflecting the thought of the time, which regarded the air as the abiding place of evil spirits.

“Every Apocalyptic writer painted the final catastrophe after the model of the catastrophes of his day, only on a vaster scale and with deepened shadows.” Harnack, art. “Rev.,” Encyc. Brit.; also see Assumption of Moses, 10.8.

Twentieth Cent. New Test. in Modern English, ch. 15.1; the Am. R. V. reads, “In them is finished the wrath of God”.

Frogs which were unclean to the Hebrews become here a fitting type of unclean spirits.

See art. “Har-Magedon,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 396. “The final world-combat.” Moulton, Mod. Read. Bib., Rev., p. 212. See note on ch. 19:11-21, where this same event is again referred to.

See division made by Purvis in art. “Rev.”, Davis' Dict. of Bib.; also the analysis given in the introductory part of Twent. Cent. New Test., vol. iii, Rev., “Table of Contents.”

“The comparison of Rome to Babylon underlies much of Jewish apocalyptic literature.” Chase, art. “Babylon, in New Test.”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

Plummer gives a different idea of Babylon, interpreting it as “The degenerate portion of the church of God ... all the faithless of God's church in all time”, an interpretation that is not accepted by most commentators. Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 413.

See App'x A, Division V; also “Excur. on Rev.” by Bp. of Ripon, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 582.

“This practice was customary with harlots” (Juv., “Sat.”, vi. 123; Seneca, “Controv.”, 1, 2). Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 415.

“The City of the World, the ideal concentration of all this world's splendor and wealth and might.... The Evil-World-Metropolis.” Scott, Paragraph. Ver. of Rev., pp. 1-2. For a convincing presentation of this view, see Lee, Bib. Com., Rev., pp. 734-45. “The Anti-Church”,—i. e. the world in antithesis to the church, Seiss, Lect. on Apoc., vol. iii, p. 112. “By Babylon the whole ungodly, anti-christianized world is intended ... an ideal city, embracing all of anti-christianity.” Lange, Com. on Rev., pp. 278-303. “Under this one name (Babylon) ... the whole adverse force is concentrated.” Moulton, Mod. Read. Bib., Rev., p. 212. In this view of the interpretation which is adopted in the present volume, the Harlot is the anti-christian world, the perpetual Babylon.

For other views see Pulp. Com., J. F. & B., Com. on Rev., and Internat. Com. in loco.

As with Milligan and others.

This description of the Woman as “the great Harlot that sitteth upon many waters” is evidently taken from the Prophecy of Jeremiah (Jer. 51:13), where the many waters refer to the many canals of Babylon. Here the phrase is used figuratively, referring to the “many peoples” (v. 15) that are subject to Babylon in the Apocalypse, and affords a good example of the Apocalyptic use of Old Testament symbols in a sense that is somewhat different from their original meaning.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 417; Faussett, J. F. & B., Com. on Rev., p. 630; and many others. This is the common view with the symbolist interpreters. It should be remembered that the identification of the particular kings or kingdoms that were first in mind in this symbolism,—for there probably were such,—is not important; the special thought is that of all kingdoms in all time.

“The absence of the article before ὃγδοος ‘eighth,’ shows that this is not the eighth in a successive series, in which the kings already mentioned form the first seven.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 417.

“The Beast is the sum total of what has been described under the form of five kings, then one king, and then one king again.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 416f. “This eighth is the Beast himself in actual embodiment. He is ἐκ τῶν ἑπτᾶ—not ‘one of the seven’, but the successor and result of the seven, following and springing out of them.” Alford, Gr. Test., vol. iv. p. 711. Also, see Milligan, Internat. Com., Rev., pp. 127-8. To regard the Beast that is “an eighth,” and, of the seven, as a reference to Nero is an anomalous interpretation that is without parallel in the book, and cannot, therefore, be sustained.

“One hour denotes ‘a short time’ (i. e. a time that is relatively short in the measure of eternity). The Bible in this way constantly describes the period of the world's existence, especially that period which intervenes between the time of the writer and the judgment-day (cf. Rom. 16:20; I Cor. 7:29; and Rev. 6:11; 12:12; 22:20, etc.).” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 417.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 417.

See art. “Rev.”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib. vol. iv. pp. 257-8.

Cf. Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 333.

Moulton, Mod. Read. Bib., Rev., p. 212.

“Rome never has been, and from its very position never could be a great commercial city.” Alford, Gr. Test., vol. iv, p. 718. By the universal nature of the figures employed it is evident to most readers, that “the whole passage points not to any single city, at any one single period, but to the World-City throughout all time.” Lee, Bib. Com., Rev., p. 770.

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 432.

See Chase, art. “Peter (Simon)”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

It is to be regretted that the Hebrew word “Hallelujah” is not used in our Revised Version of the Old Testament as it is used in the New, instead of the translation “Praise ye Jehovah,” especially as it occurs in the Book of Psalms where its use is so fitting. It is now a well-known English word, and is entitled to a place in our Scriptures, like the Hebrew word “Jehovah” which is recognized by all.

“It has been supposed by some that we have in this incident (which is repeated in ch. 22.8) a protest against the incipient worship of angels which was creeping into the church.” Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 275.

“The book is filled with echoes of prophecy—mystic words through which break memories of the past—that only attain their full significance through the more perfect teachings of Christ.” Moulton, Mod. Read. Bib.

“The testimony of Jesus is the sum of the revelation made by him, the holding of which is so often in this book the sign-manual of the saints.... That deposit of truth rather than deny which Christians were prepared to die.... The testimony of Jesus thus becomes in turn the burden of his servants' testimony.” Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 275f.

Davidson, Hastings' Dict. of Bib., art. “Eschatology.”

“The Word” as a name for Jesus here introduced, though it occurs but once in the book, is used elsewhere in the New Testament only by John (Jn. 1:1 and 1:14; I Jn. 1:1), and seems to point to the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse. The Jews in the time of Christ used the Greek term λόγος “The Word”, as a name for a class of phantasmal beings whom they regarded as existing between God and man, and through whom God was supposed to speak; for to their thought, God was so exalted and transcendent that he could not speak directly to men. But John uses “The Word” as a personal name for Jesus who is both God and man, and through whom God has indeed spoken, thus bringing God near to men and revealing his truth and love. John took their own term and gave it a new application and a real meaning, and thereby furnished a new thought of Christ as the revealer of God. Cf. Thayer's Gr. Lex. of New Test.; and Burton and Mathews' Life of Christ, pp. 17-18.

“John takes us to the unseen and heavenly side of things, and we see the hosts of God marshalling themselves in defence of His weak and persecuted people, God Himself standing within the shadow, ‘Keeping watch above His own’.” Humphries, St. John and Other Teachers, p. 105.

“The word of Messiah's mouth is the sole weapon of his victory.” Moffatt, Exp. Gr. Test., Rev., p. 468.

Bib. Com., p. 607.

For a strong confirmation of this opinion see Stevens, New Test. Theol., p. 555; also, supporting the same view, R. D. Wilson in unpublished Princeton Classroom Lectures.

The fact of the resurrection is constantly emphasized in the New Testament, but it is entirely unnecessary for us to inquire into the manner of the resurrection for that is nowhere revealed. It is quite enough for us to know that there will be a resurrection, and that the new body will be a spiritual body.

“Those who reject the idea of a physical resurrection are obliged therefore to think of a resurrection from hades to heaven, taking place at the close of the martyr age, and introducing those who are thus specially honored into a state of heavenly blessedness, which continues till the close of human history.” Brown, art. “Millennium”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib., referring to Briggs' view in Mess. of Apost., p. 357.

For the use of μετᾶ with the genitive, see Thayer's Greek-English Lex. of New Test.

“If the twelve hundred and sixty days symbolize the duration of the triumph of heathenism, the thousand years as clearly symbolize the duration of the triumph of Christianity”, Swete, Apoc. of St. John, p. 263.

A. A. Hodge in unpublished Classroom Lectures.

For a more complete statement of the premillennial view see Faussett, J. F. & B. Com. on Rev.; Seiss, Lect. on Apoc.; and Alford's Gr. Test., in loco.

De Civ. Dei, xx, 7-9. For the prevalent symbolist view see Milligan, Expos. Bib., and Internat. Com.; Plummer, Pulp. Com.; and Lee, Bib. Com. Against this view it is ably contended that “the interpretation of a symbolic resurrection (as that of Israel in Ezekiel), or of a spiritual resurrection (as in regeneration), is rendered untenable by the explicit reference to the martyrs (cf. ch. 6.9-11, and 19.9).” Brown art. “Millennium,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

A careful study of this view, even when presented by so eminent a commentator as Plummer, will convince most readers that it fails to properly satisfy the statements of the text.

See Düsterdieck, Meyer's Com. on Rev., pp. 463-4; and Brown art. “Millennium”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.; also, most late authorities.

Purves, art. “Rev.”, Davis' Dict. of Bib.

Salmond, art. “Eschatol. of New Test.”, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

Cf. II Esdr. 7.28-32; and Bk. of Enoch, 91-104; also the Slavonic Enoch, “in which occurs the first mention of the millennium”, (Charles).

“The Talmud has no fixed doctrine on this point, but the view most frequently expressed there is that the messianic kingdom will last for a thousand years: e. g. ‘In six days God created the world, on the seventh he rested. But the day of God is equal to a thousand years (Ps. 90:4). Hence the world will last for six thousand years of toil and labor; then will come a thousand years of Sabbath rest for the people of God in the kingdom of the Messiah.’ This idea must have already been very common in the first century before Christ.” Harnack, art. “Millennium”, Encyc. Britan.

Fairbairn On Prophecy, p. 45Of.; also Gloag's Intr. to Johan. Writings, ch. on “Millennium”; Stuart, Com. on Apoc., pp. 702-03; and many other authorities.

“That the world's history will terminate in the culmination of evil, becomes from the time of Daniel a permanent factor in Jewish Apocalyptic.” Charles, Eschatology, p. 121.

“Jewish tradition makes use of these names to indicate those nations which are expected to war against Jerusalem in the last days and to be overthrown by the Messiah.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., p. 473. “In later Apocalyptic literature these are conventional symbols for the world hostile to Israel, or to the people of God.” New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 284.

“The whole delineation is symbolic, and embodies spiritual truths under material emblems.” Plumptre, Pulp. Com., Ezek., vol. ii, p. 306. “The Invasion of Gog, a discourse of Ezekiel which stands by itself, is not to be interpreted as a specific prediction of an historical event, nor on the other hand as merely a parable; but under the typical names of Gog, Meshech, and Tubal,—suggestive of the dimly known confines of the earth—are suggested hostile forces however distinct, which after the many days of a future however prolonged, may be massed in opposition to a purified people only to fall in the holy soil by a destruction from on high, and to trouble Israel with no more than a notable burying.” Moulton, Mod. Read. Bib., Ezek., Intr., p. xiii. Also cf. Plumptre, Pulp. Com., Ezek., chs. 38-39; and Fairbairn, Ezek. and Book of his Prophecy.

See Bleek, Lect. on Apoc., p. 339: also Alford, Gr. Test., vol. iv, Rev., p. 732, who is very clear and convincing as to the literal nature of both resurrections; and Stuart, Com. on Apoc., pp. 704-10, with Excur. vi in same volume.

See Salmond, art. “Eschatology of New Test.”; Hastings' Dict. of Bib.; and Bernard, art. “Resurrection” in same work.

Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 282. In fact this view, in some form, finds a place with many modern interpreters who do not accept the usual symbolic interpretation of the book. Alford with his accustomed vigor has well said, “If in such a passage the first resurrection may be understood to mean spiritual rising with Christ, while the second means literal rising from the grave, then there is an end to all significance in language, and Scripture is wiped out as a definite testimony to anything.” Gr. Test., vol. iv. p. 732.

“No part of the doctrine of the New Testament has been so inadequately developed by the church as that pertaining to Eschatology.” A. A. Hodge in unpublished Classroom Lectures.

“There is a stern simplicity about the whole description, and just enough pictorial detail is given to make the passage morally suggestive.” Moffatt, Exp. Gr. Test., Rev., p. 477. For Apocalyptic conceptions of the judgment, see Bk. of Enoch, 51.1f.; 91.15f.; II Esdr. 7.32f.; and Test. of XII Patriarchs, Judah 25, Benjamin 10.

See Düsterdieck, Meyer's Com. on Rev., p. 165; also Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 151, who says, “This idea of a book kept in heaven plays a great part in Jewish Apocalyptic literature, in which it is developed to include the deeds as well as the names of God's people in the heavenly record.” The passage before us, however, evidently keeps the two separate, for the book of life is distinguished from the books of record, and is mentioned seven times in the Revelation, indicating that it held an important place in the Apocalyptist's thought.

The time of the End is God's secret, but the fact of the End is clearly revealed as the point toward which all history tends.

Alford places ch. 21:1-22:5 subsequent to the millennium and the final judgment, Gr. Test., vol. iv, p. 736; and Faussett, who also holds the premillennial view, aptly says, “Now is the church: in the millennium will be the kingdom; and after that the new world wherein God shall be all in all”. J. F. & B. Com. on Rev., p. 640.

“The biblical doctrine of salvation reaches its climax in the conception of the redemption of the universe.” Brown, art. “Salvation,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib. “The fact that the heavens and the earth here spoken of are new, does not imply that they are now first brought into being. They may be the old heavens and the old earth; but they have a new aspect and a new character adapted to a new end.” Milligan, Expos. Bib., Rev., p. 362; also Internat. Com., Rev., p. 151.

“The description of the heavenly city is probably the most magnificent passage in all Apocalyptic literature.... It is an ideal pictorially described, a symbolic picture of the better day seen in prophetic vision, and cherished with persistent hope and trust.” Stevens, New Test. Theol., p. 562. “The Revelator used a redeemed city to symbolize heaven—the Kingdom fully come.” Strong, Challenge of the City, p. 199. That heaven as an actual city is, of course, only a dream of the baldest realism.

Moulton, Mod. Read. Bib., Rev., p. 215.

“The plural ‘peoples’ seems to point to the catholic nature of the New Jerusalem, which embraces many nations (cf. v. 24).” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 510.

The idea of a New Jerusalem coming down from heaven is a familiar one in Jewish Apocalypses. Cf. Bk. of Enoch, 90.28, and 29, note by Charles; also II Esdr. 7.26; and Apoc. of Bar. 32.2.

As Milligan, Expos. Bib., Rev., p. 368; Scott, however, says, “Though described as a city, it is really the figure of a people, and the ‘condition localized’ in which they dwell.” New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 287.

“He that overcometh shall inherit these things (v. 6), i. e. the promises just enumerated. These words show the reason for the words of ver. 6; and may be called the text on which the Apocalypse is based; for though the words themselves do not often recur, yet the spirit of them is constantly appearing.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 511.

See Reynolds, art. “John the Apost.,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib., who says, “The speaker is now, probably for the first time in the book, God himself;” also see Swete, Apoc. of St. John, p. 275.

Verses 11-21 describe the exterior, and verses 22-27 describe the interior of the city, while verse 22f.-ch. 22:5 further describe the life of the city.

“These stones are not arranged in the same order as in the breastplate of the highpriest. Instead of this St. John has most ingeniously disposed them according to the various shades of the same color ... showing a technical knowledge and a minute acquaintance with the nicest shades of color of precious stones only possessed by persons with a practical knowledge of their nature.” King's Nat. Hist. of Prec. Stones, quoted in Bib. Com., Rev., p. 832.

“12,000 furlongs or stadia amounting to 1378 English miles”. Dean, Book of Rev., p. 185.

For the first view see Alford, Gr. Test., vol. iv, p. 741, for the second view Milligan, Internat. Com., Rev., p. 154.

“A cube was symbolical of perfection to a Jew as a circle is to ourselves.” Moffatt, Expos. Gr. Test., Rev., p. 483.

See Smith's Dict. of Bib., art. “Babylon”; and Swete, Apoc. of St. John, p. 285.

“Life in each case is ζωή, the vital principle which man shares with God. not Βίος, the life which he shares with his fellowmen.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 52.

“In the old Paradise there was but one such tree, in the new one there are many.” New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 297. For a similar idea, not of twelve crops of fruit but of twelve trees with divers fruits for Israel, see II Esdr. 2.18.

“By oriental usage, no condemned or criminal person was allowed to look on the king's face” (Esth. 7:8). Moffatt, Exp. Gr. Test., Rev., p. 488.

“The whole meaning and value of the New Jerusalem lies in the presence of God with men which it guarantees.” Moffatt, Exp. Gr. Test., Rev., p. 480.

Düsterdieck, Meyer's Com. on Rev., p. 490; and Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 546. “The Revelation is begun (ch. 1.17-20) and ended (ch. 22.16) by Christ himself; but the main portion is conducted by means of his angel.” Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 2.

“In the seventh verse, with the affirmation Behold, I come quickly, the narration passes into the words of Christ himself, just as in ver. 12 and ch. xi. 3.” Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 546.

“The present era, which is ‘a day of salvation’, is so nearly at an end that there is hardly room for change.... The principle which underlies the whole verse (v. 11) applies only to the moment before the Judgment breaks, the point when the Bridegroom comes and the door is shut, when choice is sealed and opportunity ends,” Scott, New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 300f.

“All history from the redemptive point of view is summed up in the three sentences, He is coming, He has come, He will come again.” Ottley, art. “Incarnation.” Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

“When Christ claims this title for himself, it is plainly announced that the revelation of God in Christ, in what he was and what he did, is the key to the issues of human life. Christianity is final.” Ross, art. “First and Last.” Hastings' Dict. of Chr. and Gosp. “The first title is symbolical; the second is borrowed from the Old Testament; the third is philosophical. The sense is, ‘I am He from whom all Being has proceeded, and to whom it will return;—the primal Cause and final Aim of all history;—Who have created the world, and Who will perfect it.’ ” Lee, Bib. Com. Rev., p. 840. Also cf. the view of Bacon, art. “Alpha and Omega,” Hastings' Dict. of Chr. and Gosp.

“The Apocalypse thus closes, as it began (ch. 1.5-6), with a note of ringing emphasis upon the eternal significance of Christ in the divine plan and purpose.” Moffatt, Exp. Gr. Test., Rev., p. 491.

Alford says, “The speech passes into the words of Christ reported by the angel.” (Gr. Test., vol. iv, p. 746). Scott however, may be right in his comment on verse sixteen (New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 302), when he says, “The figure which has been behind the angel from the beginning of the visions (ch. 1.13-17) ... now steps forth, as it were, to authenticate the angel's testimony.” Swete says, “Now at length Christ speaks in his human personal name” (Apoc. of St. John, p. 305). Plummer's comment is made with apparent reserve, “The words are spoken as by Christ himself” (Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 547), though elsewhere he says more definitely, “The Revelation is begun and ended by Christ himself” (Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 2).

Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 547.

Plummer says, “These words are best understood as uttered by the writer.” Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 547; in Swete's opinion “It is the answer of the church to the voice of John in verse twelve.” Apoc. of St. John., p. 306; Milligan suggests that the first clause is the answer of the church moved by the Spirit, the second is the words of John, and the latter half is Christ himself speaking—“an interchange of thought and feeling between Jesus and his church” Internat. Com., Rev., pp. 160-161. There is, however, nothing in the context that implies a change of speaker.

“This is the fulfilment of the duty laid upon St. John in ch. 1.1, not an announcement of our Lord himself”, Plummer, Pulp. Com., Rev., p. 548. Swete, however, regards these as the words of Jesus himself, Apoc. of St. John, p. 307.

“It becomes a serious evil when the magnificent confidence and certainty of St John as to the speedy accomplishment of all these things is distorted into a declaration of the immediate coming of the Lord and the end of the world. Time was not an element in his anticipation. He was gazing upon the eternal, in which time has no existence.” Ramsay, Letters to Seven Ch's, p. 113.

New Cent. Bib., Rev., p. 304.

For a list of authorities on Apocalyptic see note under heading of “The Form,” in the Introduction to this volume. At this point the author feels constrained to say that the account of Apocalyptic Literature here given reflects so largely the opinions of others that it must be regarded, like much else in the book, as an effort to present concisely and in his own way the best that has been said upon the subject by many others who are more qualified to speak.

Bacon, Intr. to New Test., p. 232.

“It has been too readily assumed that these books are wholly without ‘evidences of the Divine Spirit leading on to Christ.’ ” Fairweather, art. “Development of Doctr. in Apoc. Period.,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib., vol. 5.

Jülicher, Intr. to New Test., p. 52.

“The fundamental idea is the moral one ... the basis of the religious is ethical.” See art. “Eschatol.” by Davidson. Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

“If we could grasp the underlying faiths that have clothed themselves in these strange forms, faith in the kingship of God, and the sure triumph of good over evil, and the heavenly blessedness of those who hold to God's side amid whatever shame and abuse and in the face of death; if through the peculiar imagery and obscure symbolism of the books we could feel the power of the unseen world and gain a fresh sense of its reality, then this use, call it literary, or call it devotional, would be the best use to which the books could be put, and even most in accordance with the highest mood and real purpose of their writers.” Porter, Mess. of Apoc. Writers, Pref., p. xiii.

“In this weird world of fantasy, peopled by a rich Oriental imagination with spectral shapes and uncouth figures, where angels flit, eagles and altars speak, and monsters rise from sea and land—in a world of this kind many Asiatic Christians of that age evidently were at home, and there the prophet's message had to find them.” Moffatt, Exp. Gr. Test., Rev., Intr., p. 301.

See art. “Development of Doctrine in the Apocryphal Period,” Hastings' Dict. of Bib., vol. 5; also art. “Zoroasterism” by Moulton, Hastings' Dict. of Bib.

Zenos, art. “Apoc. Lit.,” Hastings' Dict. of Christ and the Gospels.

“The deus ex machina, an abnormal and effectual interposition of God, is an essential feature of an apocalypse.” Humphries, St John and Other Teachers, p. 92.

Footnotes