Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Revelation 19:10

προσκυνῆσαι. P has καὶ προσεκύνησα.

τῷ θεῷ. Cyp[714] reads Jesum dominum.

[714] St Cyprian as quoted by Haussleiter.

ἡ … Ἰησοῦ. Areth[715] has τοῦ υἱοῦ for Ἰησοῦ; Primas[716] sanctificatio enim testificationis.

[715] Arethas, Archbishop of Caesarea.
[716] Primasius, edited by Haussleiter.

10. THE ERROR OF THE SEER

The last words of the angel seem fit “to seal up the vision and prophecy,” and what follows gives a certain plausibility to Völter’s suggestion that at one time (or in one recension) the Apocalypse ended here.

10. προσκυνῆσαι αὐτῷ. Perhaps understanding from the last words that the speaker was God Himself. This is more probable than Weiss’s conjecture that the Seer took him for Christ, to Whom it is possible to ascribe all the previous commands to write, Revelation 1:11; Revelation 14:13, as well as Revelation 1:19. In Revelation 1:17 the Seer falls down at His Feet, and is raised up again apparently without worshipping. In the O.T. God had revealed Himself to men by means of angels, and men had, by falling at the feet of angels, rightly worshipped the God Who was present in them (see esp. Hosea 12:4 compared with Genesis 32:30). But since a more perfect revelation of God has been given by the Incarnation, no such divine presence in an angel is to be looked for. (So Jer. Taylor, Dissuasive from Popery, Part II. II. viii. 3.) We have therefore no need to suppose that the holy apostle was in intent guilty of idolatry; he meant the worship for God in the angel, but this being an angel and nothing more, it follows of course that he ought not to be honoured as God. See Revelation 22:8.

σύνδουλός σου εἰμί. In a sense, the angels are even servants to the elect on earth, Hebrews 1:14.

τῶν ἐχόντων … Ἰησοῦ. Cf. Revelation 22:9, τῶν�. The last words of the verse give the reason (γὰρ) why the two phrases are equivalent. Cf. for τὴν μαρτυρίαν Ἰησοῦ Revelation 1:2; Revelation 6:9, and closest of all, Revelation 12:17. In all these μαρτυρία comes near to the sense, that became technical, of “martyrdom.”

ἡ γὰρ μαρτυρία. Comparing Revelation 22:9 with the passages last eited, it seems that the sense of the passage is, “Martyrdom like thine” (the seer was at least a confessor, Revelation 1:2, perhaps, as tradition says, a proved martyr in will) “and thy brethren’s involves in it the grace of prophecy, and so places the martyrs in so close communion with God that they need no angel mediator.” But what is said to St John as a prophet is in its measure true of all Christians. All in their measure are witnesses for Christ, and all partakers of His Spirit; and therefore all are prophets in the same sense that they are all priests and kings. Thus all, if not yet “equal with the angels” (St Luke 20:36), are brought too near to God to need angels to bring Him near to them.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Revelation 19:10

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