Revelation 2:17

The reward for those who deny themselves pagan pleasures in this world is (as in Revelation 2:26) participation in the privileges (Pereq Meir 5), reserved for God's people in the latter days (here = a victor's banquet, Genesis 14:18), not as hitherto (Revelation 2:7; Revelation 2:11) simply participation in eternal life. The imagery is again rabbinic (Malachi 2:4-6; Malachi 2:4-6, Apoc. Bar. vi. 7 9). Previous to the destruction of Jerusalem, Isaiah or the prophet Jeremiah was supposed to have hidden the ark of the covenant (cf. on Revelation 11:19) with its sacred contents, including the pot of manna. At the appearance of the messiah, this was to be once more disclosed (cf. Mechilta on Exodus 16:25, etc.). It is significant how the writer as usual claims for his messiah, Jesus, the cherished privileges and rights to which contemporary Judaism clung as its monopoly, and further how he assumes that all the past glories of O.T. religion upon earth as well as all the coming bliss, which in one sense meant the transcendent restoration of these glories were secured in heaven for the followers of Jesus alone (Revelation 7:17; Revelation 21:2, etc.). See Apoc. Bar. xxix. 8, where “the treasury of manna will again descend from on high,” at the messianic period, that the saints may eat of it; the Fourth Gospel, on the other hand, follows Philo (quis rer. div. 39, leg. allegor. iii. 59, 61, etc.) in using manna as a type of the soul's nourishment in the present age. There does not seem to be any allusion to the rabbinical legend underlying Sap. xvi. 20. The strange association of manna and white stones, though possibly a reminiscence of the rabbinic notion preserved in Joma 8 (cadebant Israelitis una cum manna lapides pretiosi), cannot be explained apart from the popular superstitions regarding amulets which colour the metaphor. White stones represented variously to the ancient mind acquittal, admission to a feast (tessera hospitalis), good fortune, and the like. But the point here is their connexion with the new name. This alludes to the mysterious power attached in the ancient mind to amulets, stones (cf. E.J. i. 546 550, where vignettes are given; also Dieterich's Mithras-Liturgie, 31 f.) marked with secret and divine names (Jeremias, 79 80, Pfleid. Early Christ. Conc, of Christ, 112 f.), the possession of which was supposed to enable the bearer to pass closed gates, foil evil spirits, and enter the presence of the deity. If the new name (cf. Heitmüller's Im Namen Jesu, 128 f.), is thus regarded as that of Jesus the irresistible, invincible name above every name the promise then offers safe entrance through all perils into the inner bliss and feast of God; the true Christian has a charmed life. But when the new name is taken to apply to the individual, as seems more likely here, another line of interpretation is required, and the origin of the phrase (though tinged still with this amulet-conception of a stone, the more potent as it was hidden somewhere on the person, cf. Proverbs 17:8, etc.), is best approached from a passage like Epict.Revelation 1:19, where the philosopher is trying to dissuade a man from undertaking the duties of priesthood in the Imperial cultus at Nikopolis. What good will it do him after death, to have his name used to mark his year of office in public documents? “My name will remain,” replies the man. “Write it on a stone and it will remain,” is the retort of Epictetus plainly a colloquial expression for permanence. This would fit in with the Apocalyptic saying excellently (see Schol. on Pind. Olymp. vii. 159). Still more apposite, however, is an ancient ceremony of initiation (as among the aborigines of New South Wales: Trumbull, Blood-Covenant, 1887, pp. 335 337), by which each person, on the close of his novitiate, received a new name from the tribe and at the same time a white stone or quartz crystal. The latter was considered to be a divine gift, and was held specially sacred, never to be surrendered or even shown. These boons formed part of the religious covenant which marked the entrance of a man into the closest relation with the deity of his tribe and also into the full enjoyment of manhood's privileges. Hence, if we suppose some such popular rite behind the language here, the idea is apt: the victor's reward is the enjoyment of mature and intimate life with his God (so Victor.). For the symbolism of a name as evidence of personal identity (and inferentially of a new name as proof of a renovated, enduring nature), see E.B.D. 75: “May my name be given to me in the Great House, and may I remember my name in the House of Fire.… If any god whatsoever should advance to me, let me be able to proclaim his name forthwith” (the latter clause illustrating Revelation 3:12). The significance attached by the Egyptian religion especially to the reu or name was due to the belief that its loss meant the extinction of a man's existence. The idea in the prophet's mind is little more than that developed, e.g., in Mrs. Browning's sonnet, “Comfort”: “Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet, From out the hallelujahs sweet and low, Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee,” etc. As the succeeding Chapter s are full of the state and splendour of heaven, with royal majesty predominating, the prophet finds place here for the more intimate and individual aspect of the future life, depicting God in touch with the single soul (cf. Revelation 14:1). In addition to this, he conveys the idea that outside the Christian experience no one can really know what God is or what He gives; the redeemed and victorious alone can understand what it means to belong to God and to be rewarded by him. Wünsch has recently pointed out (Excav. in Palestine, 1898 1900, p. 186) that, as in Egypt the sacred paper (χὰρτης ἱερατικὸς) was used for solemn appeals to the gods (Brit. Mus. Papyri, xlvi. 308), “in like manner, doubtless, in Palestine, limestone had some superstitious significance, but of what special kind we do not know. Perhaps it is in this connexion that in Revelation 2:17 “he that overcometh” is to receive “a white stone” inscribed with a “new” spell, evidently as an “amulet”. There may also be a further local allusion to the ψῆφοι and names which were supposed to be received by votaries of Asclepius as they lay in a trance or dream (Aristides, i. 352, 520). For the initiation-custom, cf. Spence and Gillen's Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 139 140, where the secret, individual name is described as given only to those who are “capable of self-restraint” and above levity of conduct. Clem. Alex. (Strom, i. 23) preserves a Jewish tradition that Moses got three names Joachim, Moses, and Melchi (i.e., king), the last-mentioned ἐν οὐρανῷ μετὰ τὴν ἀνάληψιν, ὡς φασὶν οἱ μύσται.