Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Revelation 13:4

Revelation 13:4. This verse contains a parody of the ascriptions of praise given to the true God in many passages of the Old Testament (Isaiah 40:18; Isaiah 40:25; Isaiah 46:5; Psalms 113:5, etc.). If the words apply to Nero they must apply to Nero redux, for it is unnecessary to spend time in showing that it is to the beast as healed, and not before it was stain, that the song is raised (comp. especially chap. Revelation 17:8). But there is not a tittle of evidence to prove that homage of this kind was paid even to the thought of the resuscitated tyrant. The acclamations with which he had been received by the citizens of Rome, when he returned from Campania his hands red with the blood of his murdered mother, belong to a period before his death, and afford no indication of the feelings with which he was regarded after that event. It is true that some even then cherished his memory and decked his tomb with flowers. But, as invariably happens when a tyrant dies, the sentiment of the masses underwent an immediate and profound revulsion. Suetonius tells us that ‘the public joy was so great upon the occasion that the people ran up and down with caps upon their heads' (Nero, chap. 57). Horror rather than admiration filled their breasts.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Revelation 13:4

Old Testament

New Testament