Revelation 22:16

Jesus in person now speaks in the colloquy (Revelation 22:16; Revelation 22:13; Revelation 22:12) to ratify what has just been said. This apocalypse is not an individual fantasy (2 Peter 1:21). For the contemporary need of such accrediting, cf. Herm. Sim. ix. 22 and Ascension. Isa. 3:30, 31 (where in the last days “everyone will say what is pleasing in his own eyes. And they will make of none effect the prophecy of the prophets which were before me, and these my visions also will they make of none effect, in order to speak after the impulse of their own hearts.”) ἄγγελον, not John (Weiss, Wellh.) but the angelus interpres (cf. on Revelation 1:2; Revelation 1:20). ὑμῖν, the plural here and in Revelation 22:6 (cf. Revelation 1:1) might suggest that John's apocalypse incorporated some visions of other members belonging to the prophets in the Asiatic circle or school (cf. the tradition about the co-operative origin of the Fourth gospel, in the Muratorian canon). But while any Jewish Christian sources may have been drawn from this quarter, the final authorship and authority is claimed by (or, for) John himself (cf. Revelation 22:8). Δαυείδ. Like most early Christians, John attached more weight to the Davidic descent of Jesus as messiah (Baldensperger, 82 f.), than Jesus himself allowed. Here Christ's authority in revelation is bound up with his legitimate claim to be messiah, and thus to inaugurate the new and eternal day of God. As ἀνατολή (the dawn = צֶמַח) was already a messianic symbol, and employed in LXX (Jeremiah 23:5; Zechariah 3:8; Zechariah 6:12) to denote the messianic branch or stem, this double usage explains the imagery here (so Justin, Apol. i. 32). Jesus has not only the historic preparation of Israel behind him but the infinite future before him. In one sense he was the climax of Hebrew expectation; in another, he is of world-wide significance. In connexion with the heavenly Jerusalem it was natural that Jesus should be hailed as the scion of the David who had founded the first Jerusalem. The star-metaphor reflects the significance of the morning-star which meant the beginning of a new day for toilers in the Levant; but its eschatological outlook was taken ultimately from Babylonian astro-theology, where Nebo-Mercury (nebî = prophet), the morning-star, announced the new era, or from Egyptian theology where (cf. E. B. D. p. cxliii.) Pepi the dead king “goeth forth into heaven among the Stars which never perish, and his guide the Morning-Star leadeth him to Sekhet-Hetep [the fields of peace]”. The phraselogy brings out the conviction of the early church that the present trial was only the cold, dark hour before the dawn. Their faith in Jesus assured them that an eternal prospect of bliss awaited them, and that this vista of hope was hound up with the person of the risen Jesus (cf. Revelation 22:13). The watchword was, sunrise and morning-star (cf. Expos. Dec. 1902, 424 441). Christianity was not some ephemeral Oriental cult, which had had its day; the cosmic overthrow meant a new era for its adherents. The Apocalypse thus closes, as it began (Revelation 1:5-6) with a note of ringing emphasis upon the eternal significance of Christ in the divine plan and purpose.

Revelation 22:13 Gathers up the double thought of 16 and of 12. As the Christian ἔργα (Revelation 2:2; Revelation 2:5; Revelation 2:19, etc.) are done within the sphere of faith, their recompense is a religious as well as a thoroughly moral conception (cf. Hastings' D. B. iii. 82, and Montefiore's Hibbert Lectures, p. 538). To the day's work, the day's wage. For the origin of this feeling on Syrian or Semitic soil, where the fellahin's work “was scrutinised before the wages were paid” by one who was “at once the paymaster of his dependents and their judge,” cf. Hatch's Hibb. Lectures, pp. 224 f. and Dalman, i. § viii. 3. The reward, like the new Jerusalem, was safely stored in heaven. No fear of inadequate moral appreciation in the next world, at any rated