Revelation 1:4

ταῖς ἑπτὰ ἐκκλ., seven being the sacred and complete number in apocalyptic symbolism (E. Bi. 343 6). The ταῖς must refer proleptically to to Revelation 1:11; for other churches existed and flourished in proconsular Asia at this time, e.g., at Troas, Magnesia, Hierapolis and Colossae, with which the prophet must have been familiar. These seven are selected by him for some special reason which it is no longer possible to disinter (see above, Introd., § 2). ἀπὸ ὁ ὢν, κ. τ. λ., a quaint and deliberate violation of grammar (Win. § 10, IC.; Moult, Revelation 1:9) in order to preserve the immutability and absoluteness of the divine name from declension, though it falls under the rule that in N.T. and LXX parenthetic and accessory clauses tend to assume an independent construction. The divine title is a paraphrase probably suggested by rabbinic language (e.g., Targum Jonath. apud Deuteronomy 32:39, ego ille, qui est et qui fuit et qui erit); the idea would be quite familiar to Hellenic readers from similar expressions, e.g., in the song of doves at Dodona (Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἔστιν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται) or in the titles of Asclepius and Athene. Simon Magus is said to have designated himself also as ὁ ἐστὼς, ὁ στὰς, ὁ στησόμενος, and the shrine of Minerva (= Isis) at Sais bore the inscription, I am all that hath been and is and shall be: my veil no mortal yet hath raised (Plut. de Iside, 9), the latter part eclipsed by the comforting Christian assurance here. ἦν, another deliberate anomaly (finite verb for participle) due to dogmatic reasons; no past participle of εἰμί existed, and γενόμενος was obviously misleading. ὁ ἐρχ., instead of ὁ ἐσόμενος, to correspond with the keynote of the book, struck loudly in Revelation 1:7. In and with his messiah, Jesus, God himself comes; ἐρχ. (the present) acquires, partly through the meaning of the verb, a future significance. For the emphasis and priority of ὤν in this description of God, see the famous passage in Aug. Confess, ix. 10. τ. ἑπτὰ πνευμάτων : a puzzling conception whose roots have been traced in various directions to (a) an erroneous but not unnatural interpretation of Isaiah 11:2-3, found in the Targ. Jonath. (as in En. lxi. 11, sevenfold spirit of virtues) and shared by Justin (Dial. 87, cf. Cohort, ad Grace, c. 32, ὥσπερ οἱ ἱεροὶ προφῆται τὸ ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ πνεῦμα εἰς ἑπτὰ πνεύματα μερίζεσθαί φασιν), or more probably to the later Jewish notion (b) of the seven holy angels (Tobit xii. 15; cf. Gfrörer, i. 360 f.) which reappears in early Christianity (cf. Clem. Al. Strom, vi. 685, ἑπτὰ μέν εἰσιν οἱ τοῦ μεγίστου δύναμιν ἔχοντες πρωτόγονοι ἀγγέλων ἄρχοντες). modified from (c) a still earlier Babylonian conception, behind (b), of the seven spirits of the sky the sun, the moon, and the five planets. The latter is not unknown to Jewish literature before 100 A.D. (cf. Jub. ii. 2; Berachoth, 32, b), corresponding to the Persian Amshaspands (Yasht, xix. 19, 20, S. B. E. xxxi. 145) and reflected in “the seven first white ones” or angelic retinue of the Lord in Enoch xc. 21 f. (Cheyne, Orig. Ps. 281 2, 327 f., 334 f.; Stave, 216 f.; Lüken, 32 f.; R. J. 319). Whether the prophet and his readers were conscious of this derivation or not, the conception is stereotyped and designed to express in archaic terms the supreme majesty of God before whose throne (i.e., obedient and ready for any commission, cf. Revelation 5:6) these mighty beings live. They are not named or divided in the Apocalypse, but the objection to taking the expression in the sense of (a) denoting, as in Philo (where, e.g., ὁ κατὰ ἑβδομάδα ἅγιος or κινούμενος is a characteristic symbol of the divine Logos), the sevenfold and complete energy of the Spirit in semi-poetic fashion, is the obvious fact that this is out of line with the trinity of the apocalypse, which is allied to that of Luke 9:26; 1 Timothy 5:21; Just. Mart. Apol. i. 6. The Spirit in the Apocalypse, as in Jude, 2 Peter and the pastoral epistles, is wholly prophetic. It has not the content of the Spirit in Paul or in the Fourth Gospel. Since the writer intends to enlarge upon the person of Jesus, or because the seven spirits stood next to the deity in the traditional mise-en-scène, he makes them precede Christ in order.