Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Revelation 4:2

A fresh wave of ecstasy catches up the seer. εὐθέως … πνεύματι, repeating Revelation 1:10, not because the author had forgotten his previous statement, and still less because a new source begins here (Vischer), but simply because every successive phase of this Spirit-consciousness, every new access of ecstasy, was considered to be the result of a fresh inspiration; so the O.T. prophets (e.g., Ezekiel 11:1 καὶ ἀνέλαβέν με πνεῦμα κ. τ. λ., followed by Ezekiel 11:5 καὶ ἔπεσεν ἐπʼ ἐμὲ πνεῦμα, Ezekiel 2:2 and Ezekiel 3:24; cf. Enoch xiv. 9 καὶ ἄνεμοι ἐν τῇ ὁράσει μου … εἰσήνεγκάν με εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν followed by ver 14 ἐθεώρουν ἐν τ. ὁ. μ. καὶ ἰδοὺ κ. τ. λ., lxxi. 1 and 5, etc.). The primitive Christian conception of the Spirit was that of a sudden and repeated transport rather than a continuous experience (Acts 4:8; Acts 4:31, etc.), particularly in the region of ecstasy. The royal presence is depicted in this theophany by means of similes and metaphors (partly rabbinic) which originally were suggested in part by the marvellous atmospheric colouring of an Eastern sky during storm or sunset; several had been for long traditional and fanciful modes of expressing the divine transcendence (e.g., En. xiv. 18 f. the divine glory like crystal, etc.) which dominates the Apocalypse. God is a silent, enthroned (cf. 1 Kings 22:19 etc.), eternal Figure, hidden by the very excess of light, keeping ward and watch over his people, but never directly interfering in their affairs till the judgment, when mankind appears before his throne for doom and recompense. This reluctance to name or describe God, so characteristic of the later Judaism, was allied to the feeling which mediated his action upon the world through angels or through his Christ (see on Revelation 1:1 and Revelation 15:8). For the tendency to describe God and heaven in priestly terms, cf. Gfrörer, i. 276 f. The whole of the present passage is illustrated by Pirke Elieser, iv.: “majestas sancti benedicti est in medio quattuor classium angelicarum. Ipse insidet throno excelso eleuatus, atque solium eius sublime suspensum est sursum in aere, figura autem gloriae eius est sicut color Chasonal, juxta uerba prophetiae (Ezekiel 1:27) … atque oculi per totum orbem discurrunt. Sagittae eius sunt ignis et grando; a dextra eius uita est, a sinistramors, sceptrum ignitum in manu eius. Expansum est ante eum uelum, et septem angeli qui prius creati sunt, famulantur ei ante uelum … infra thronum gloriae eius est sicuti lapis sapphiri.”

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Revelation 4:2

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