Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Revelation 2:24

ὑμῖν δέ. The form of address to the Angel of the Church is dropped, and the Church addressed directly. The sense is “to the rest of you in Thyatira,” or more literally, “to you, namely to the rest.”

οἵτινες οὐκ ἔγνωσαν τὰ βαθέα τοῦ Σατανᾶ, ὡς λέγουσιν. The heretics condemned in the preceding verses were doubtless a sect of those who called themselves Gnostics, probably at this time, certainly in the next generation. They contrasted their knowledge of “the depths” or “deep things of God” (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:10), with the faith of the orthodox in the plain simple doctrines that were openly preached to the world: the Lord answers, that the depths of knowledge that they attained were depths, not of God, but of Satan. It is uncertain how far the quotation of their own language marked by ὡς λέγουσιν extends; it is hardly possible that they themselves actually gloried in a knowledge of the depths of Satan (yet cf. 2 Corinthians 2:11): but it is to be remembered that the Gnostic systems of the second century, and probably those of the first also, included a strange mythology of half-personified abstractions; and it may be that the Lord rather identifies one of these with Satan than substitutes the name of Satan for that of God. It appears from Irenæus that the Gnostics of his time talked of “the deep things of Depth” as well as “the deep things of God.” It is curious that the phrase “the depths of knowledge” is quoted from the great Ephesian philosopher Heraclitus: possibly it was owing to his influence, that such notions found a congenial home in Asia Minor.

οὐ βάλλω. See Revelation 2:22 n.

ἄλλο βάρος. ἄλλο refers forward to πλὴν so that the sense is “I will lay on you no other burden than to hold fast”; but, as in English, this does not exclude a reference backward to the sins taught by Jezebel. If so this passage confirms the rule of Christian Liberty laid down Acts 15:28.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Revelation 2:24

Old Testament

New Testament