Revelation 10:11. The little book-roll has been eaten; and, in the midst of the judgments which it foretold, it has brought consolation to the Seer, for the only true consolation of the righteous is that all evil, whether in the world or in the Church, shall be put down, and that nothing but ‘righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost' shall reign. Animated by this prospect he is ready to hear that he has still a work to do. He must prophesy again before many peoples and nations and tongues and kings. The intimation, and they say unto me, with which these words are introduced, may help us to understand the nature of the prophesying referred to, for these words are hardly equivalent to the formula ‘It is said.' They may be much more naturally referred to the seven thunders which had already spoken at Revelation 10:3. A voice of thunder, however, is a voice of judgment, and the ‘prophesying' now spoken must be also judgment. One further remark may be made. The verb ‘to prophesy' is used only twice in the Apocalypse, here and of the two witnesses at chap. Revelation 11:3. In the latter case it cannot be confined to the proclamation of the visions of this book, and neither in like manner can it now be so. When, therefore, the Seer is told that he must ‘prophesy,' the meaning does not appear to be that he must declare the contents of the little book to an audience the various parts of which are immediately enumerated. The meaning rather is that he must go on uttering to the world his general testimony to the truth of God, and so preparing the world for its self-chosen fate. In other words, the Seer in this verse is less the apocalyptic revealer than the minister of Divine truth in general, the type and pattern of all the preaching of the New Testament Dispensation.

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Old Testament