Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Revelation 1:14,15

Revelation 1:14-15. From the dress the Seer now proceeds to some characteristics of the personal appearance of Him whom he beholds in vision. His head and hairs were white as white wool, as snow. The head is not the forehead, but, as appears from the omission of the personal pronoun when the hair is mentioned, simply the head, with more especial reference to the hair; and the white wool and the snow are emblems of purity and holiness (comp. Psalms 51:7; Isaiah 1:18), not of old age.

His eyes were as a flame of fire, penetrating into every dark recess of sin, not only discovering sin, but consuming it.

And his feet like unto white brass burned in a furnace. The word here used for ‘white brass' is found elsewhere only at chap. Revelation 2:18 of this book, where the part of the description now given is again made use of. It may perhaps have been a technical word of the workers in brass employed about Ephesus; or, what is still more probable, it may have been a mystical word compounded by the Seer himself, who would express, by its partly Greek partly Hebrew com-position, that from the treading of these burning feet no ungodly of any nation shall escape.

Lastly, And his voice as a voice of many waters. The connection in chaps. Revelation 14:2; Revelation 19:6, between ‘many waters' and ‘thunderings' at once points out the meaning of this figure. The voice is not simply loud and clear, but of irresistible strength and power, a voice the rebuke of which no enemy shall be able to withstand. All the features of the description, it will be observed, are those of majesty, terror, and judgment, absolute purity, penetrating and consuming fire, the white heat of brass raised to its highest temperature in the furnace, the awful sound of many waters.

Continues after advertising

BibliaPlus

Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Revelation 1:14,15

Old Testament

New Testament