Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Revelation 1:20

τὸ μυστήριον. The only possible construction of these words is as an accusative in loose apposition to ἃ εἶδες κ.τ.λ.; perhaps the writer left them without any construction. If he had attended to details of style he would have been more likely to begin anew with “This is the mystery …” than to continue, “Write what thou sawest … the mystery …”

μυστήριον in the N.T. bears a meaning not very far removed from its primary meaning in classical Greek. There it is a secret rite which only the initiated share, and so a secret lore which they only know. Generally we may paraphrase it, “the hidden divine truth now made known, but made known to God’s favoured ones only”: see Ephesians 3:13 for the completest illustration of its meaning. Here the sense is, “I reveal to thee the hidden, sacred meaning of the stars and candlesticks.”

τὰς ἑπτὰ λυχνίας: symmetry would have required these words to be in the genitive, for the mystery includes both the stars and the “candlesticks”; the accusative depends probably on εἶδες, even if τὸ μυστήριον depends on γράψον; the connexion being “the seven stars which thou sawest and [with them thou sawest] the seven golden candlesticks.”

ἂγγελοι. For the meaning of the word “Angels” here, see Excursus I.

αἱ λυχνίαι αἱ ἑπτά. Plainly this image is suggested by the seven-branched candlestick of Exodus 25:31 sqq.—still more by the earlier mystical vision of one resembling it, in Zechariah 4. But here the image of seven detached candlesticks does not exactly correspond to the description of either, nor are we to assume that the significance of those is exactly the same as of these.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Revelation 1:20

Old Testament

New Testament