Revelation 22:10

he saith Still, probably, the same angel. He speaks still more unmistakeably in Christ's person, now that St John understands beyond mistake that he is not Christ Himself.

Seal not&c. Pointedly contrasted with Daniel 12:4; Daniel 12:9. In Daniel's time, both the coming of Antichrist and the deliverance from him were far off: Daniel was bidden to write what he saw and heard, but not to make it public, for it would be unintelligible till long after his own generation: at least till the typical persecution of Antiochus, and the typical day of vengeance and deliverance of the Maccabees. But to St John's readers, all was to be as plain as an unfulfilled prophecy ever can be: except one detail (Revelation 10:4) the whole vision is to be laid before the Church. It maybe meant further, that the typical persecution of Nero was already within the Church's experience, and that its typical revival under Domitian was to fall within the present generation.

for the time is at hand Song of Solomon 1:3. Besides the fact that partial and typical fulfilments were nearer to St John's age than to Daniel's, it is intimated that the same age, the same dispensation under which St John and his readers lived was to last till the time of the end; while the Jewish age in which Daniel lived passed away long before the end. For in mere chronology the difference is slight: from St John's day to the end is, as we know, more than 1800 years, and from Daniel's more than 2400: in comparison with the longer period, the shorter can hardly be spoken of as short.