Revelation 19:1-10

The Marriage of the Lamb.

Revelation 19:1. Hallelujah: this term is found in NT only in this chapter. It means Praise ye the Lord. It occurs in several psalms, but is always translated in the versions. The term itself is first found in the Apocrypha; cf. Tob_13:18, All her streets shall say - Hallelujah-'!

Revelation 19:2. the great harlot: Rome (cf. Revelation 17:1 ff.*).

Revelation 19:3. her smoke: i.e. the smoke from the ruins of the city.

Revelation 19:4. elders. creatures: Revelation 4:4; Revelation 4:6 *.

Revelation 19:7. marriage of the Lamb: the first suggestion of a new theme, worked out in more detail in ch. 20. It is the manner of the writer to throw out hints of the next great scene some time before he begins to enter upon it (Swete). The metaphor of marriage is often found in OT to denote the ideal relationship between God and His people (cf. Hosea 2:19; Isaiah 54:1, Psalms 45), and it is taken over in NT in the teaching of Jesus (Matthew 25:1) and by Paul (e.g. Ephesians 5:23 ff.). his wife: i.e. the New Jerusalem, the Church of Christ (cf. Revelation 21:2).

Revelation 19:8. righteous acts: we must compare with this the statement in Revelation 7:14, They washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Revelation 19:10. see thou do it not: this prohibition, which is repeated in Revelation 22:8 f., seems to be introduced as a protest against the tendency to the worship of angels which undoubtedly existed in Asia Minor, as we know from the Epistle to the Colossians. hold the testimony of Jesus: the meaning of this phrase is not quite clear. It may mean either the testimony to Jesus, i.e. the common faith in Jesus, or the witness of Jesus Himself in their hearts. the spirit of prophecy: one of the difficulties in the early Church was to find some criterion to judge between true and false prophets (1 John 4:1 *). Here the testimony of Jesus is made the standard. The phrase means that the true prophet is to be recognised by the testimony of Jesus, i.e. either by his faithfulness to the common faith of the Church in Jesus (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:3 *), or, less probably, by the fact that he has the witness of Jesus in his heart.