Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Revelation 3:17

Priding herself not merely on the fact but (as is implied) on the means by which it had been secured (viz., personal skill, merit) and finally on the independent self-reliant position thus attained: a profuse certificate of merit, selfassigned. To conceit and self-deception the prophet wrathfully ascribes the religious indifference at Laodicea. “No one,” says Philo (Fragm. p. 649, Mang.), “is enriched by secular things, even though he possessed all the mines in the world; the witless are all paupers.” The reference is to spiritual possessions and advantages. It is irrelevant to connect the saying with the material wealth and resources of Laodicea, as exemplified in the fact that it was rebuilt by its citizens after the earthquake in 60 61 A.D. without help from the imperial authorities (Tacit. Ann. xiv. 27). For one thing, the incident is too far back; for another, the Apocalypse is concerned not with the cities but with the Christian churches. Such an allusion may have been in the writer's mind, especially if the church included in its membership prosperous and influential citizens, since complacency and self-satisfaction are fostered by material comfort. “If wealthily then happily,” in Laodicea as in Padua. Still, these weeds spring from other soils as well. An inefficient ministry (cf. Colossians 4:17) and absence of persecution or of special difficulties at Laodicea probably helped to account for the church's languid state. As John suggests, the church which is truly rich in spiritual and moral qualities does not plume itself upon them (Revelation 2:9). οὐκ οἶδας, cf. the echo of this in Oxyrhynchite Logia, i. 3: τυφλοί εἰσιν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτῶν καὶ οὐ βλέπ [ουσιν, πτωχοὶ καὶ οὐκ οἴδασιν τ] ὴν πτωχιαν (?), where blindness and poverty and unconsciousness of both occur. σύ, emphatic; ἐλεεινός, “needing pity” rather than (as Daniel 9:23; Daniel 10:11, LXX) “finding pity”; ταλ. (cf. with Revelation 3:19, Sap. iii. 11: σοφίαν γὰρ καὶ παιδείαν ὁ ἐξουθενῶν ταλαίπωρος), only here and Romans 7:24 in N. T., two passages representing the extremes of misery unconscious and conscious. ὁ κ. τ. λ. = “the embodiment of”.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Revelation 3:17

Old Testament

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