The prophet again breaks off to point his readers across the sombre vista opened up by this oracle of the θηρίον, not to the church as an oasis and asylum on earth but to the glad sure hope of the faithful after death. How can the θηρίον be met? Who (Revelation 13:8) can hold out against such seduct... [ Continue Reading ]
Instead of the beast, the Lamb; instead of the beast's followers and their mark, the Lamb's followers with the divine name; instead of the pagan earth, mount Zion. The vision is based on an old Jewish apocalyptic tradition, copied by the Christian editor of 4 Esdras (2:42) but already present in the... [ Continue Reading ]
Revelation 14:1-5, introduced as a foil to what precedes and as an anticipation of 21 22, is “a sort of Te Deum” (Wellhausen), a vision of the Lamb no longer _as slain_ but triumphant (militant on the mount of Olives, Zechariah 14:3 f., against the nations = Revelation 11:8; Revelation 11:18), atten... [ Continue Reading ]
Who sing the new song? angels or the redeemed? In Revelation 5:9 it is chanted not before the living creatures and elders but by them; here it is not originally sung by the redeemed (as in Revelation 15:3-4; Ezra 2:42) but is intelligible to them and to them alone. Their experience enabled them to e... [ Continue Reading ]
ἄμωμοι, “unblemished” (a ritual term), possibly contains a sacrificial tinge, like ἀπαρχή in some of the inscriptions (= gift to deity), _cf._ Thieme's _Inschriften von Magnesia_, 26. These adherents are redeemed. But in another aspect their qualities of purity and guilelessness form a sweet sacrifi... [ Continue Reading ]
πετόμενον : angels begin to fly in the Jewish heaven about the beginning of the first century B.C. (En. lxi. 1).... [ Continue Reading ]
Revelation 14:6-20 : the fearful doom of the impenitent pagans is announced in a triple vision of angels (Revelation 14:6-13), whereupon a proleptic summary of the final judgment on the world follows (Revelation 14:14-20). In 6 13, 12 13 and καὶ ἐν τ. ἀ. (10) are the only specifically Christian touc... [ Continue Reading ]
ποιήσαντι κ. τ. λ. Since he who has created has the right to judge his creatures, as well as to receive their worship (_cf._ Revelation 4:11 f., etc.). ὥρα = the fixed (cf. Revelation 14:15), καιρός the fit, moment for action. Contrast with this summons Lucan's fulsome appeal to Nero (1:57 f.): “lib... [ Continue Reading ]
The third angel proclaims that the deliberate adherents of the Imperial cultus are to be held responsible for their actions, and punished accordingly. The object is that these votaries may be “scared into faith by warning of sin's pains”. The plea of force (Revelation 13:12) is no excuse (_cf_ Matth... [ Continue Reading ]
κεκερασμένου here as in Revelation 18:6 by oxymoron = “poured out,” the original meaning of “mixed” (with water) being dropped. The torture (depicted from Isaiah 34:9-10) is inflicted _before the holy angels_ (who evidently sit as assessors at the judgment, En. Isaiah 48:9), ἁγίων being either an _e... [ Continue Reading ]
The prospect of this fearful and imminent retaliation is not only a warning to weak-minded Christians but a consolation to the loyal. To be a saint is to obey God and to believe in Jesus at all costs. Contemporary Jews took a similar encouragement: “if ye endure and persevere in his fear, and do not... [ Continue Reading ]
The approaching climax of retribution upon pagan Rome affects the dead as well as the living. The latter are encouraged to hold on in hope; the former are brought nearer their reward (_cf._ Revelation 6:11; Revelation 11:18). Ἀπάρτι goes with μακάριοι (note here and in Clem. Rom. 47. the first appli... [ Continue Reading ]
This royal, judicial figure is evidently the messiah (drawn from Daniel 7:13, which had been already inter preted thus in En. xxxvii. lxxi. and 4 Esd. 13.). The crown (omitted in Revelation 1:13 f.) was a familiar appurtenance of deity in Phrygia (_e.g._, of Apollo); for the cloud as the seat of dei... [ Continue Reading ]
Revelation 14:14-20, in their present position, are a proleptic and realistic summary of the final judgment, representing as a divine catastrophe what 16 17. delineate as the outcome of semi-political movements (_cf._ 18. after 17). The strange picture of messiah (14 f., contrast Revelation 1:10 f.,... [ Continue Reading ]
ἄλλος ἄγγελος, as in Revelation 14:6. The alternatives are (_a_) to translate “another, an angel” (אחר מלאך) which might be the sense of the Greek (_cf. Od._ i. 132, Clem. _Protrept_. ix. 87. 3) but is harsh, or (_b_) to take the figure of Revelation 14:14 as an angel (Porter) and not as the messiah... [ Continue Reading ]
The δρέπανον (only here, Revelation 14:14-19, in Apocalypse; _cf. C. B. P._ ii. 652 f. for a Phrygian inscription καὶ τὸ ἀρᾶς δρέπανον εὶς τὸν ὗκον αὐτοῦ) is represented as a living thing, probably like the δρέπανον πετὸμενον of Zechariah 5:1 (Wellhausen). The classical use of reaping to symbolise d... [ Continue Reading ]
πυρός. The figure of this angel (= Jehuel in rabbinic tradition. Gfrörer, i. 369) has an Iranian tinge. The justice of the punishment is attested by its origin in the purpose of one who corresponded to the Persian Amshas-pand (_cf._ on Revelation 1:4), Ashem Vahishtan, who presided over fire and at... [ Continue Reading ]
The ungrammatical τὸν μέγαν may be due to the fact that ληνός is occasionally masculine (Win. § 8.10; Helbing, 46), or by a rough _constr. ad sensum_ to apposition with τὸν θυμόν (understood).... [ Continue Reading ]
The heathen are stamped and crushed till their blood gushes out of the wine-press to the height of a horse's bridle and to the extent of about two hundred miles. This ghastly hyperbole, borrowed partly from Egyptian (wine = the blood of those who fought against the gods) and partly from Jewish escha... [ Continue Reading ]