Revelation 2:5

Thou art fallen [ε κ π ε π τ ω κ α ς] Lit., hast fallen out.

Repent [μ ε τ α ν ο η σ ο ν]. See on Matthew 3:2; Matthew 21:29.

l will come [ε ρ χ ο μ α ι]. Rev., correctly, I come.

Quickly. Omit.

Will remove thy candlestick. "Its candlestick has been for centuries removed out of his place; the squalid Mohammedan village which is nearest to its site does not count one Christian in its insignificant population; its temple is a mass of shapeless ruins; its harbor is a reedy pool; the bittern booms amid its pestilent and stagnant marshes; and malaria and oblivion reign supreme over the place where the wealth of ancient civilization gathered around the scenes of its grossest superstitions and its most degraded sins" (Farrar, "Life and Work of Paul," 2, 43, 44). John employs the verb kinew remove (Rev., move) only in Revelation, and only once besides the present instance, in chapter Revelation 6:14, where, as here, it signifies moving in judgment.

The Nicolaitans. From nikan to conquer, and laov the people. There are two principal explanations of the term. The first and better one historical. A sect springing, according to credible tradition, from Nicholas a proselyte of Antioch, one of the seven deacons of Jerusalem (Acts 6:5), who apostatized from the truth, and became the founder of an Antinomian Gnostic sect. They appear to have been characterized by sensuality, seducing Christians to participate in the idolatrous feasts of pagans, and to unchastity. Hence they are denoted by the names of Balaam and Jezebel, two leading agents of moral contamination under the Old Testament dispensation. Balaam enticed the Israelites, through the daughters of Moab and Midian, to idolatry and fornication (Numbers 31:16). Jezebel murdered the Lord's prophets, and set up idolatry in Israel. The Nicolaitans taught that, in order to master sensuality, one must know the whole range of it by experience; and that he should therefore abandon himself without reserve to the lusts of the body, since they concerned only the body and did not touch the spirit. These heretics were hated and expelled by the Church of Ephesus (Revelation 2:6), but were tolerated by the Church of Pergamum (Revelation 2:15). The other view regards the name as symbolic, and Nicholas as the Greek rendering of Balaam, whose name signifies destroyer or corrupter of the people. This view is adopted by Trench (" Seven Churches "), who says : "The Nicolaitans are the Balaamites; no sect bearing the one name or the other; but those who, in the new dispensation, repeated the sin of Balaam in the old, and sought to overcome or destroy the people of God by the same temptations whereby Balaam had sought to overcome them before." The names, however, are by no means parallel : Conqueror of the people not being the same as corrupter of the people. Besides, in verse 14, the Balaamites are evidently distinguished from the Nicolaitans.

Alford remarks : "There is no sort of reason for interpreting the name otherwise than historically. It occurs in a passage indicating simple matters of historical fact, just as the name Antipas does in verse 13."