Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Revelation 12:7

ἐγένετο … τοῦ π. (= ותהי מלחמה בשׂמים לִהלחם), the nomin. makes this rare use of the genit. infin. even more clumsy and irregular than the similar constr. with accus. in Acts 10:25 (where see note). The sense is plain, and it is better to put the constr. down to syntactical laxity than to conjecture subtle reasons for the blunder or to suggest emendations such as the addition of ἐγένετο to πόλεμους (Vit. i. 168), or of ἦσαν or ἐγένετο before ὁ Μ. κ. οἱ ἄγ. αὐτοῦ (Ws., Bousset), the latter being an irregular nomin., or the alteration of πολ. to ἐπολέμησαν (Düst.) or the simple omission of πόλεμος … οὐρανῷ. For πολ. μετὰ cf. Thumb 125 (a Copticism?). In the present form of the oracle, the rapture of messiah seems to have stimulated the devil to fresh efforts, unless we are meant to understand that the initiative came from Michael and his allies. The devil, as the opponent of mankind had access to the Semitic heaven, but his role here recalls the primitive mythological conception of the dragon storming heaven (A. C. 146 150). Michael had been for over two centuries the patron-angel or princely champion of Israel (ὁ εἷς τῶν ἁγίων ἀγγέλων ὂς ἐπὶ τῶν τοῦ λαοῦ ἀγαθῶν τέτακται, En. Revelation 20:5; cf. A. C. 227 f.; Lueken 15 f.; Volz 195; R. J. 320 f., and Dieterich's Abraxas, 122 f.). As the protector of Israel's interests he was assigned a prominent rôle by Jewish and even Christian eschatology in the final conflict (cf. Ass. Mos. x. 2). For the theory that he was the prince-angel, like a son of man (Daniel 7:13) who subdued the world-powers, cf. Grill 55 and Cheyne 215 f. More generally, a celestial battle, as the prelude of messiah's triumph on earth, forms an independent Jewish tradition which can be traced to the second century B.C. (cf. Sibyll. iii. 795 807, 2Ma 5:2-4; Jos. Bell. vi. 5, 3). καὶ οἱ ἄγγελοι αὐτοῦ The only allusion in the Apocalypse (cf. even Revelation 20:11 with Matthew 25:41) to the double hierarchy of angels, which post-exilic Judaism took over from Persia (Bund, iii. 11). In the Leto-myth, Pytho returns to Parnassus after being baffled in his pursuit of the pregnant Leto.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Revelation 12:7

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