{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"REV","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Revelation","commonName":"Revelation","introduction":"AUTHENTICITY.--The author calls himself John (Rev 1:1, Rev 1:4, Rev 1:9; Rev 2:8). JUSTIN MARTYR [Dialogue with Trypho, p. 308] (A.D. 139-161) quotes from the Apocalypse, as John the apostle's work, the prophecy of the millennium of the saints, to be followed by the general resurrection and judgment. This testimony of JUSTIN is referred to also by EUSEBIUS [Ecclesiastical History, 4.18]. JUSTIN MARTYR, in the early part of the second century, held his controversy with TRYPHO, a learned Jew, at Ephesus, where John had been living thirty or thirty-five years before: he says that \"the Revelation had been given to John, one of the twelve apostles of Christ.\" MELITO, bishop of Sardis (about A.D. 171), one of the seven churches addressed, a successor, therefore, of one of the seven angels, is said by EUSEBIUS [Ecclesiastical History, 4.26] to have written treatises on the Apocalypse of John. The testimony of the bishop of Sardis is the more impartial, as Sardis is one of the churches severely reproved (Rev 3:1). So also THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH (about A.D. 180), according to EUSEBIUS [Ecclesiastical History, 4.26], quoted testimonies from the Apocalypse of John. EUSEBIUS says the same of Apollonius, who lived in Asia Minor in the end of the second century. IRENÆUS (about A.D. 180), a hearer of POLYCARP, the disciple of John, and supposed by ARCHBISHOP USHER to be the angel of the Church of Smyrna, is most decided again and again in quoting the Apocalypse as the work of the apostle John [Against Heresies, 4.20.11; 4.21.3; 4.30.4; 5.36.1; 5.30.3; 5.35.2]. In [5.30.1], alluding to the mystical number of the beast, six hundred sixty-six (Rev 13:18), found in all old copies, he says, \"We do not hazard a confident theory as to the name of Antichrist; for if it had been necessary that his name should be proclaimed openly at the present time, it would have been declared by him who saw the apocalyptic vision; for it was seen at no long time back, but almost in our generation, towards the end of Domitian's reign.\" In his work Against Heresies, published ten years after Polycarp's martyrdom, he quotes the Apocalypse twenty times, and makes long extracts from it, as inspired Scripture. These testimonies of persons contemporary with John's immediate successors, and more or less connected with the region of the seven churches to which Revelation is addressed, are most convincing. TERTULLIAN, of North Africa (about A.D. 220), [Against Marcion, 3.14], quotes the apostle John's descriptions in the Apocalypse of the sword proceeding out of the Lord's mouth (Rev 19:15), and of the heavenly city (Rev. 21:1-27). Compare On the Resurrection of the Flesh [27]; A Treatise on the Soul, [8, 9, &c.]; The Prescription Against Heretics, [33]. The MURATORI fragment of the canon (about A.D. 200) refers to John the apostle writing to the seven churches. HIPPOLYTUS, bishop of Ostia, near Rome (about A.D. 240) [On Antichrist, p. 67], quotes Rev. 17:1-18, as the writing of John the apostle. Among HIPPOLYTUS' works, there is specified in the catalogue on his statue, a treatise \"on the Apocalypse and Gospel according to John.\" CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (about A.D. 200) [Miscellanies, 6.13], alludes to the twenty-four seats on which the elders sit as mentioned by John in the Apocalypse (Rev 4:5); also, [Who Is the Rich Man Who Shall Be Saved? 42], he mentions John's return from Patmos to Ephesus on the death of the Roman tyrant. ORIGEN (about A.D. 233), [Commentary on Matthew, in EUSEBIUS Ecclesiastical History, 6.25], mentions John as the author of the Apocalypse, without expressing any doubts as to its authenticity; also, in Commentary on Matthew, [16.6], he quotes Rev 1:9, and says, \"John seems to have beheld the Apocalypse in the island of Patmos.\" VICTORINUS, bishop of Pettau in Pannonia, who suffered martyrdom under Diocletian in A.D. 303, wrote the earliest extant commentary on the Apocalypse. Though the Old Syriac Peschito version does not contain the Apocalypse, yet EPHREM THE SYRIAN (about A.D. 378) frequently quotes the Apocalypse as canonical, and ascribes it to John.\n\nIts canonicity and inspiration (according to a scholium of ANDREAS OF CAPPADOCIA) are attested by PAPIAS, a hearer of John, and associate of POLYCARP. PAPIAS was bishop of Hierapolis, near Laodicea, one of the seven churches. WORDSWORTH conjectures that a feeling of shame, on account of the rebukes of Laodicea in Revelation, may have operated on the Council of Laodicea, so as to omit Revelation from its list of books to be read publicly (?). The Epistle of the churches of Lyons and Vienne to the churches of Asia and Phrygia (in EUSEBIUS, [Ecclesiastical History, 5.1-3]), in the persecution under Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 77) quotes Rev 1:5; Rev 3:14; Rev 14:4; Rev 22:11, as Scripture. CYPRIAN (about A.D. 250) also, in Epistle 13, quotes Rev 2:5 as Scripture; and in Epistle 25 he quotes Rev 3:21, as of the same authority as the Gospel. (For other instances, see ALFORD'S Prolegomena, from whom mainly this summary of evidence has been derived). ATHANASIUS, in his Festival Epistle, enumerates the Apocalypse among the canonical Scriptures, to which none must add, and from which none must take away. JEROME [Epistle to Paulinus] includes in the canon the Apocalypse, adding, \"It has as many mysteries as words. All praise falls short of its merits. In each of its words lie hid manifold senses.\" Thus an unbroken chain of testimony down from the apostolic period confirms its canonicity and authenticity.\n\nThe ALOGI [EPIPHANIUS, Heresies, 51] and CAIUS the Roman presbyter [EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 3.28], towards the end of the second and beginning of the third century, rejected John's Apocalypse on mere captious grounds. CAIUS, according to JEROME [On Illustrious Men], about A.D. 210, attributed it to Cerinthus, on the ground of its supporting the millennial reign on earth. DIONYSIUS OF ALEXANDRIA mentions many before his time who rejected it because of its obscurity and because it seemed to support Cerinthus' dogma of an earthly and carnal kingdom; whence they attributed it to Cerinthus. This DIONYSIUS, scholar of ORIGEN, and bishop of Alexandria (A.D. 247), admits its inspiration (in EUSEBIUS [Ecclesiastical History, 7.10]), but attributes it to some John distinct from John the apostle, on the ground of its difference of style and character, as compared with John's Gospel and Epistle, as also because the name John is several times mentioned in the Apocalypse, which is always kept back in both the Gospel and Epistle; moreover, neither does the Epistle make any allusion to the Apocalypse, nor the Apocalypse to the Epistle; and the style is not pure Greek, but abounds in barbarisms and solecisms. EUSEBIUS wavers in opinion [Ecclesiastical History, 24.39] as to whether it is, or is not, to be ranked among the undoubtedly canonical Scriptures. His antipathy to the millennial doctrine would give an unconscious bias to his judgment on the Apocalypse. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM (A.D. 386), [Catechetical Lectures, 4.35,36], omits the Apocalypse in enumerating the New Testament Scriptures to be read privately as well as publicly. \"Whatever is not read in the churches, that do not even read by thyself; the apostles and ancient bishops of the Church who transmitted them to us were far wiser than thou art.\" Hence, we see that, in his day, the Apocalypse was not read in the churches. Yet in Catechetical Lectures, 1.4 he quotes Rev 2:7, Rev 2:17; and in Catechetical Lectures, 1; 15.13 he draws the prophetical statement from Rev 17:11, that the king who is to humble the three kings (Dan 7:8, Dan 7:20) is the eighth king. In Catechetical Lectures, 15 and 27, he similarly quotes from Rev 12:3-4. ALFORD conjectures that CYRIL had at some time changed his opinion, and that these references to the Apocalypse were slips of memory whereby he retained phraseology which belonged to his former, not his subsequent views. The sixtieth canon (if genuine) of the Laodicean Council in the middle of the fourth century omits the Apocalypse from the canonical books. The Eastern Church in part doubted, the Western Church, after the fifth century, universally recognized, the Apocalypse. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA [On Worship, 146], though implying the fact of some doubting its genuineness, himself undoubtedly accepts it as the work of St. John. ANDREAS OF CÆSAREA, in Cappadocia, recognized as genuine and canonical, and wrote the first entire and connected commentary on, the Apocalypse. The sources of doubt seem to have been, (1) the antagonism of many to the millennium, which is set forth in it; (2) its obscurity and symbolism having caused it not to be read in the churches, or to be taught to the young. But the most primitive tradition is unequivocal in its favor. In a word, the objective evidence is decidedly for it; the only arguments against it seem to have been subjective.\n\nThe personal notices of John in the Apocalypse occur Rev 1:1, Rev 1:4, Rev 1:9; Rev 22:8. Moreover, the writer's addresses to the churches of Proconsular Asia (Rev 2:1) accord with the concurrent tradition, that after John's return from his exile in Patmos, at the death of Domitian, under Nerva, he resided for long, and died at last in Ephesus, in the time of Trajan [EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 3.20,23]. If the Apocalypse were not the inspired work of John, purporting as it does to be an address from their superior to the seven churches of Proconsular Asia, it would have assuredly been rejected in that region; whereas the earliest testimonies in those churches are all in its favor. One person alone was entitled to use language of authority such as is addressed to the seven angels of the churches--namely, John, as the last surviving apostle and superintendent of all the churches. Also, it accords with John's manner to assert the accuracy of his testimony both at the beginning and end of his book (compare Rev 1:2-3, and Rev 22:8, with Joh 1:14; Joh 21:24; Jo1 1:1-2). Again, it accords with the view of the writer being an inspired apostle that he addresses the angels or presidents of the several churches in the tone of a superior addressing inferiors. Also, he commends the Church of Ephesus for trying and convicting \"them which say they are apostles, and are not,\" by which he implies his own undoubted claim to apostolic inspiration (Rev 2:2), as declaring in the seven epistles Christ's will revealed through him.\n\nAs to the difference of style, as compared with the Gospel and Epistle, the difference of subject in part accounts for it, the visions of the seer, transported as he was above the region of sense, appropriately taking a form of expression abrupt, and unbound by the grammatical laws which governed his writings of a calmer and more deliberate character. Moreover, as being a Galilean Hebrew, John, in writing a Revelation akin to the Old Testament prophecies, naturally reverted to their Hebraistic style. ALFORD notices, among the features of resemblance between the styles of the Apocalypse and John's Gospel and Epistle: (1) the characteristic appellation of our Lord, peculiar to John exclusively, \"the Word of God\" (Rev 19:13; compare Joh 1:1; Jo1 1:1). (2) the phrase, \"he that overcometh\" (Rev 2:7, Rev 2:11, Rev 2:17; Rev 3:5, Rev 3:12, Rev 3:21; Rev 12:11; Rev 15:2; Rev 17:14; Rev 21:7; compare Joh 16:33 Jo1 2:13-14; Jo1 4:4; Jo1 5:4-5). (3) The Greek term (alethinos) for \"true,\" as opposed to that which is shadowy and unreal (Rev 3:7, Rev 3:14; Rev 6:10; Rev 15:3; Rev 16:7; Rev 19:2, Rev 19:9, Rev 19:11; Rev 21:5; Rev 22:6). This term, found only once in Luke (Luk 16:11), four times in Paul (Th1 1:9; Heb 8:2; Heb 9:24; Heb 10:22), is found nine times in John's Gospel (Joh 1:9; Joh 4:23, Joh 4:37; Joh 6:32; Joh 7:28; Joh 8:16; Joh 15:1 Joh 17:3; Joh 19:3, Joh 19:5), twice in John's First Epistle (Jo1 2:8; Jo1 5:20), and ten times in Revelation (Rev 3:7, Rev 3:14; Rev 6:10; Rev 15:3; Rev 16:7; Rev 19:2, Rev 19:9, Rev 19:11; Rev 21:5 Rev 22:6). (4) The Greek diminutive for \"Lamb\" (arnion, literally, \"lambkin\") occurs twenty-nine times in the Apocalypse, and the only other place where it occurs is Joh 21:15. In John's writings alone is Christ called directly \"the Lamb\" (Joh 1:29, Joh 1:36). In Pe1 1:19, He is called \"as a lamb without blemish,\" in allusion to Isa 53:7. So the use of \"witness,\" or \"testimony\" (Rev 1:2, Rev 1:9; Rev 6:9; Rev 11:7, &c.; compare Joh 1:7-8, Joh 1:15, Joh 1:19, Joh 1:32; Jo1 1:2; Jo1 4:14; Jo1 5:6-11). \"Keep the word,\" or \"commandments\" (Rev 3:8, Rev 3:10; Rev 12:17; compare Joh 8:51, Joh 8:55; Joh 14:15). The assertion of the same thing positively and negatively (Rev 2:2, Rev 2:6, Rev 2:8, Rev 2:13; Rev 3:8, Rev 3:17-18; compare Joh 1:3, Joh 1:6-7, Joh 1:20; Jo1 2:27-28). Compare also Jo1 2:20, Jo1 2:27 with Rev 3:18, as to the spiritual anointing. The seeming solecisms of style are attributable to that,inspired elevation which is above mere grammatical rules, and are designed to arrest the reader's attention by the peculiarity of the phrase, so as to pause and search into some deep truth lying beneath. The vivid earnestness of the inspired writer, handling a subject so transcending all others, raises him above all servile adherence to ordinary rules, so that at times he abruptly passes from one grammatical construction to another, as he graphically sets the thing described before the eye of the reader. This is not due to ignorance of grammar, for he \"has displayed a knowledge of grammatical rules in other much more difficult constructions\" [WINER]. The connection of thought is more attended to than mere grammatical connection. Another consideration to be taken into account is that two-fifths of the whole being the recorded language of others, he moulds his style accordingly. Compare TREGELLES' Introduction to Revelation from Heathen Authorities.\n\nTREGELLES well says [New Testament Historic Evidence], \"There is no book of the New Testament for which we have such clear, ample, and numerous testimonies in the second century as we have in favor of the Apocalypse. The more closely the witnesses were connected with the apostle John (as was the case with IRENÆUS), the more explicit is their testimony. That doubts should prevail in after ages must have originated either in ignorance of the earlier testimony, or else from some supposed intuition of what an apostle ought to have written. The objections on the ground of internal style can weigh nothing against the actual evidence. It is in vain to argue, a priori, that John could not have written this book when we have the evidence of several competent witnesses that he did write it.\"\n\nRELATION OF THE APOCALYPSE TO THE REST OF THE CANON.--GREGORY OF NYSSA [tom. 3, p. 601], calls Revelation \"the last book of grace.\" It completes the volume of inspiration, so that we are to look for no further revelation till Christ Himself shall come. Appropriately the last book completing the canon was written by John, the last survivor of the apostles. The New Testament is composed of the historical books, the Gospels and Acts, the doctrinal Epistles, and the one prophetical book, Revelation. The same apostle wrote the last of the Gospels, and probably the last of the Epistles, and the only prophetical book of the New Testament. All the books of the New Testament had been written, and were read in the Church assemblies, some years before John's death. His life was providentially prolonged that he might give the final attestation to Scripture. About the year A.D. 100, the bishops of Asia (the angels of the seven churches) came to John at EPHESUS, bringing him copies of the three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and desired of him a statement of his apostolical judgment concerning them; whereupon he pronounced them authentic, genuine, and inspired, and at their request added his own Gospel to complete the fourfold aspect of the Gospel of Christ (compare MURATORI [Fragment on the Canon of Scripture]; EUSEBIUS [Ecclesiastical History, 3.24]; JEROME [Commentary on Matthew]; VICTORINUS on the Apocalypse; THEODORET [Ecclesiastical History, 39]). A Greek divine, quoted in ALLATIUS, calls Revelation \"the seal of the whole Bible.\" The canon would be incomplete without Revelation. Scripture is a complete whole, its component books, written in a period ranging over one thousand five hundred years, being mutually connected. Unity of aim and spirit pervades the entire, so that the end is the necessary sequence of the middle, and the middle of the beginning. Genesis presents before us man and his bride in innocence and blessedness, followed by man's fall through Satan's subtlety, and man's consequent misery, his exclusion from Paradise and its tree of life and delightful rivers. Revelation presents, in reverse order, man first liable to sin and death, but afterwards made conqueror through the blood of the Lamb; the first Adam and Eve, represented by the second Adam, Christ, and the Church. His spotless bride, in Paradise, with free access to the tree of life and the crystal water of life that flows from the throne of God. As Genesis foretold the bruising of the serpent's head by the woman's seed (Gen 3:15), so Revelation declares the final accomplishment of that prediction (Rev. 19:1-20:15).\n\nPLACE AND TIME OF WRITING.--The best authorities among the Fathers state that John was exiled under Domitian (IRENÆUS [Against Heresies, 5; 30]; CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA; EUSEBIUS [Ecclesiastical History, 3.20]). VICTORINUS says that he had to labor in the mines of Patmos. At Domitian's death, A.D. 95, he returned to Ephesus under the Emperor Nerva. Probably it was immediately after his return that he wrote, under divine inspiration, the account of the visions vouchsafed to him in Patmos (Rev 1:2, Rev 1:9). However, Rev 10:4 seems to imply that he wrote the visions immediately after seeing them. Patmos is one of the Sporades. Its circumference is about thirty miles. \"It was fitting that when forbidden to go beyond certain bounds of the earth's lands, he was permitted to penetrate the secrets of heaven\" [BEDE, Explanation of the Apocalypse on chap. 1]. The following arguments favor an earlier date, namely, under Nero: (1) EUSEBIUS [Demonstration of the Gospel] unites in the same sentence John's banishment with the stoning of James and the beheading of Paul, which were under Nero. (2) CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA'S'S story of the robber reclaimed by John, after he had pursued, and with difficulty overtaken him, accords better with John then being a younger man than under Domitian, when he was one hundred years old. Arethas, in the sixth century, applies the sixth seal to the destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70), adding that the Apocalypse was written before that event. So the Syriac version states he was banished by Nero the CÃ&brvbrsar. Laodicea was overthrown by an earthquake (A.D. 60) but was immediately rebuilt, so that its being called \"rich and increased with goods\" is not incompatible with this book having been written under the Neronian persecution (A.D. 64). But the possible allusions to it in Heb 10:37; compare Rev 1:4, Rev 1:8; Rev 4:8; Rev 22:12; Heb 11:10; compare Rev 21:14; Heb 12:22-23; compare Rev 14:1; Heb 8:1-2; compare Rev 11:19; Rev 15:5; Rev 21:3; Heb 4:12; compare Rev 1:16; Rev 2:12, Rev 2:16; Rev 19:13, Rev 19:15; Heb 4:9; compare Rev 20:1-15; also Pe1 1:7, Pe1 1:13; Pe1 4:13, with Rev 1:1; Pe1 2:9 with Rev 5:10; Ti2 4:8, with Rev 2:26-27; Rev 3:21; Rev 11:18; Eph 6:12, with Rev 12:7-12; Phi 4:3, with Rev 3:5; Rev 13:8; Rev 17:8; Rev 20:12, Rev 20:15; Col 1:18, with Rev 1:5; Co1 15:52, with Rev 10:7; Rev 11:15-18, make a date before the destruction of Laodicea possible. Cerinthus is stated to have died before John; as then he borrowed much in his Pseudo-Apocalypse from John's, it is likely the latter was at an earlier date than Domitian's reign. See TILLOCH'S Introduction to Apocalypse. But the Pauline benediction (Rev 1:4) implies it was written after Paul's death under Nero.\n\nTO WHAT READERS ADDRESSED.--The inscription states that it is addressed to the seven churches of Asia, that is, Proconsular Asia. John's reason for fixing on the number seven (for there were more than seven churches in the region meant by \"Asia,\" for instance, Magnesia and Tralles) was doubtless because seven is the sacred number implying totality and universality: so it is implied that John, through the medium of the seven churches, addresses in the Spirit the Church of all places and ages. The Church in its various states of spiritual life or deadness, in all ages and places, is represented by the seven churches, and is addressed with words of consolation or warning accordingly. Smyrna and Philadelphia alone of the seven are honored with unmixed praise, as faithful in tribulation and rich in good works. Heresies of a decided kind had by this time arisen in the churches of Asia, and the love of many had waxed cold, while others had advanced to greater zeal, and one had sealed his testimony with his blood.\n\nOBJECT.--It begins with admonitory addresses to the seven churches from the divine Son of man, whom John saw in vision, after a brief introduction which sets forth the main subject of the book, namely, to \"show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass\" (the first through third chapters). From the fourth chapter to the end is mainly prophecy, with practical exhortations and consolations, however, interspersed, similar to those addressed to the seven churches (the representatives of the universal Church of every age), and so connecting the body of the book with its beginning, which therefore forms its appropriate introduction. Three schools of interpreters exist: (1) The Preterists, who hold that almost the whole has been fulfilled. (2) The Historical Interpreters, who hold that it comprises the history of the Church from John's time to the end of the world, the seals being chronologically succeeded, by the trumpets and the trumpets by the vials. (3) The Futurists, who consider almost the whole as yet future, and to be fulfilled immediately before Christ's second coming. The first theory was not held by any of the earliest Fathers, and is only held now by Rationalists, who limit John's vision to things within his own horizon, pagan Rome's persecutions of Christians, and its consequently anticipated destruction. The Futurist school is open to this great objection: it would leave the Church of Christ unprovided with prophetical guidance or support under her fiery trials for 1700 or 1800 years. Now God has said, \"Surely He will do nothing, but He revealeth His secrets unto His servants the prophets\" (Amo 3:7). The Jews had a succession of prophets who guided them with the light of prophecy: what their prophets were to them, that the apocalyptic Scriptures have been, and are, to us.\n\nALFORD, following ISAAC WILLIAMS, draws attention to the parallel connection between the Apocalypse and Christ's discourse on the Mount of Olives, recorded in Mat. 24:4-28. The seals plainly bring us down to the second coming of Christ, just as the trumpets also do (compare Rev 6:12-17; Rev 8:1, &c.; Rev 11:15), and as the vials also do (Rev 16:17): all three run parallel, and end in the same point. Certain \"catchwords\" (as WORDSWORTH calls them) connect the three series of symbols together. They do not succeed one to the other in historical and chronological sequence, but move side by side, the subsequent series filling up in detail the same picture which the preceding series had drawn in outline. So VICTORINUS (on Rev 7:2), the earliest commentator on the Apocalypse, says, \"The order of the things said is not to be regarded, since often the Holy Spirit, when He has run to the end of the last time, again returns to the same times, and supplies what He has less fully expressed.\" And PRIMASIUS [Commentary on the Apocalypse], \"In the trumpets he gives a description by a pleasing repetition, as is his custom.\"\n\nAt the very beginning, John hastens, by anticipation (as was the tendency of all the prophets), to the grand consummation. Rev 1:7, \"Behold, He cometh with clouds,\" &c. Rev 1:8, Rev 1:17, \"I am the beginning and the ending . . . the first and the last.\" So the seven epistles exhibit the same anticipation of the end. Rev 3:12, \"Him that overcometh, I will write upon Him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven\"; compare at the close, Rev 21:2. So also Rev 2:28, \"I will give him the morning star\"; compare at the close, Rev 22:16, \"I am the bright and morning star.\"\n\nAgain, the earthquake that ensues on the opening of the sixth seal is one of the catchwords, that is, a link connecting chronologically this sixth seal with the sixth trumpet (Rev 9:13; Rev 11:13): compare also the seventh vial, Rev 16:17-18. The concomitants of the opening of the sixth seal, it is plain, in no full and exhaustive sense apply to any event, save the terrors which shall overwhelm the ungodly just before the coming of the Judge.\n\nAgain, the beast out of the bottomless pit (Rev 11:7), between the sixth and seventh trumpets, connects this series with the section, twelfth through fourteenth chapters, concerning the Church and her adversaries.\n\nAgain, the sealing of the 144,000 under the sixth seal connects this seal with the section, the twelfth through fourteenth chapters.\n\nAgain, the loosing of the four winds by the four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, under the sixth seal, answers to the loosing of the four angels at the Euphrates, under the sixth trumpet.\n\nMoreover, links occur in the Apocalypse connecting it with the Old Testament. For instance, the \"mouth speaking great things\" (Dan 7:8 Rev 13:5), connects the beast that blasphemes against God, and makes war against the saints, with the little horn (Dan 7:21; Rev 13:6-7), or at last king, who, arising after the ten kings, shall speak against the Most High, and wear out the saints (Dan 7:25); also, compare the \"forty-two months\" (Rev 13:5), or \"a thousand two hundred and threescore days\" (Rev 12:6), with the \"time, times, and the dividing of time,\" of Dan 7:25. Moreover, the \"forty-two months,\" Rev 11:2, answering to Rev 12:6; Rev 13:5, link together the period under the sixth trumpet to the section, Rev. 12:1-14:20.\n\nAUBERLEN observes, \"The history of salvation is mysteriously governed by holy numbers. They are the scaffolding of the organic edifice. They are not merely outward indications of time, but indications of nature and essence. Not only nature, but history, is based in numbers. Scripture and antiquity put numbers as the fundamental forms of things, where we put ideas.\" As number is the regulator of the relations and proportions of the natural world, so does it enter most frequently into the revelations of the Apocalypse, which sets forth the harmonies of the supernatural, the immediately Divine. Thus the most supernatural revelation leads us the farthest into the natural, as was to be expected, seeing the God of nature and of revelation is one. Seven is the number for perfection (compare Rev 1:4; Rev 4:5, the seven Spirits before the throne; also, Rev 5:6, the Lamb's seven horns and seven eyes). Thus the seven churches represent the Church catholic in its totality. The seven seals (Rev 5:1), the seven trumpets (Rev 8:2), and the seven vials (Rev 17:1), are severally a complete series each in itself, fulfilling perfectly the divine course of judgments. Three and a half implies a number opposed to the divine (seven), but broken in itself, and which, in the moment of its highest triumph, is overwhelmed by judgment and utter ruin. Four is the number of the world's extension; seven is the number of God's revelation in the world. In the four beasts of Daniel (Dan 7:3) there is a recognition of some power above them, at the same time that there is a mimicry of the four cherubs of Ezekiel (Eze 10:9), the heavenly symbols of all creation in its due subjection to God (Rev 4:6-8). So the four corners of the earth, the four winds, the four angels loosed from the Euphrates, and Jerusalem lying \"foursquare\" (Rev 21:16), represent world-wide extension. The sevenfoldness of the Spirits on the part of God corresponds with the fourfold cherubim on the part of the created. John, seeing more deeply into the essentially God-opposed character of the world, presents to us, not the four beasts of Daniel, but the seven heads of the beast, whereby it arrogates to itself the sevenfold perfection of the Spirits of God; at the same time that, with characteristic self-contradiction, it has ten horns, the number peculiar to the world power. Its unjust usurpation of the sacred number seven is marked by the addition of an eighth to the seven heads, and also by the beast's own number, six hundred sixty-six, which in units, tens, and hundreds, verges upon, but falls short of, seven. The judgments on the world are complete in six: after the sixth seal and the sixth trumpet, there is a pause. When seven comes, there comes \"the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ.\" Six is the number of the world given to judgment. Moreover, six is half of twelve, as three and a half is the half of seven. Twelve is the number of the Church: compare the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve stars on the woman's head (Rev 12:1), the twelve gates of new Jerusalem (Rev 21:12, Rev 21:21). Six thus symbolizes the world broken, and without solid foundation. Twice twelve is the number of the heavenly elders; twelve times twelve thousand the number of the sealed elect (Rev 7:4): the tree of life yields twelve manner of fruits. Doubtless, besides this symbolic force, there is a special chronological meaning in the numbers; but as yet, though a commanded subject of investigation, they have received no solution which we can be sure is the true one. They are intended to stimulate reverent inquiry, not to gratify idle speculative curiosity; and when the event shall have been fulfilled, they will show the divine wisdom of God, who ordered all things in minutely harmonious relations, and left neither the times nor the ways haphazard.\n\nThe arguments for the year-day theory are as follows: Dan 9:24, \"Seventy weeks are determined upon,\" where the Hebrew may be seventy sevens; but MEDE observes, the Hebrew word means always seven of days, and never seven of years (Lev 12:5; Deu 16:9-10, Deu 16:16). Again, the number of years' wandering of the Israelites was made to correspond to the number of days in which the spies searched the land, namely, forty: compare \"each day for a year,\" Num 14:33-34. So in Eze 4:5-6, \"I have laid up on thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days . . . forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.\" John, in Revelation itself, uses days in a sense which can hardly be literal. Rev 2:10, \"Ye shall have tribulation ten days\": the persecution of ten years recorded by EUSEBIUS seems to correspond to it. In the year-day theory there is still quite enough of obscurity to exercise the patience and probation of faith, for we cannot say precisely when the 1260 years begin: so that this theory is quite compatible with Christ's words, \"Of that day and hour knoweth no man\" [Mat 24:36; Mar 13:32]. However, it is a difficulty in this theory that \"a thousand years,\" in Rev 20:6-7, can hardly mean one thousand by three hundred sixty days, that is, three hundred sixty thousand years. The first resurrection there must be literal, even as Rev 20:5 must be taken literally, \"the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished\" (Rev 20:5). To interpret the former spiritually would entail the need of interpreting the latter so, which would be most improbable; for it would imply that \"the rest of the (spiritually) dead lived not (spiritually)\" until the end of the thousand years, and then that they did come spiritually to life. Co1 15:23, \"they that are Christ's at His coming,\" confirms the literal view. \n\n\n\nNext: Revelation Chapter 1\n\n","order":66,"numberOfChapters":22,"sha256":"b1b2f4bdd3f0b8f87a417893c7249b3d441d62238b27ae65a7aee09d89d78f53","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/REV/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"REV","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":22,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/REV/22.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"REV","chapter":22},"totalNumberOfVerses":374},"chapter":{"number":12,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["pained--Greek, \"tormented\" (basanizomene). DE BURGH explains this of the bringing in of the first-begotten into the world AGAIN, when Israel shall at last welcome Him, and when \"the man-child shall rule all nations with the rod of iron.\" But there is a plain contrast between the painful travailing of the woman here, and Christ's second coming to the Jewish Church, the believing remnant of Israel, \"Before she travailed she brought forth . . . a MAN-CHILD,\" that is, almost without travail-pangs, she receives (at His second advent), as if born to her, Messiah and a numerous seed.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["appeared--\"was seen.\" \n\nwonder--Greek, \"semeion,\" \"sign.\" \n\nred--So A and Vulgate read. But B, C, and Coptic read, \"of fire.\" In either case, the color of the dragon implies his fiery rage as a murderer from the beginning. His representative, the beast, corresponds, having seven heads and ten horns (the number of horns on the fourth beast of Dan 7:7; Rev 13:1). But there, ten crowns are on the ten horns (for before the end, the fourth empire is divided into ten kingdoms); here, seven crowns (rather, \"diadems,\" Greek, \"diademata,\" not stephanoi, \"wreaths\") are upon his seven heads. In Dan 7:4-7 the Antichristian powers up to Christ's second coming are represented by four beasts, which have among them seven heads, that is, the first, second, and fourth beasts having one head each, the third, four heads. His universal dominion as prince of this fallen world is implied by the seven diadems (contrast the \"many diadems on Christ's head,\" Rev 19:12, when coming to destroy him and his), the caricature of the seven Spirits of God. His worldly instruments of power are marked by the ten horns, ten being the number of the world. It marks his self-contradictions that he and the beast bear both the number seven (the divine number) and ten (the world number).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["drew--Greek, present tense, \"draweth,\" \"drags down.\" His dragging down the stars with his tail (lashed back and forward in his fury) implies his persuading to apostatize, like himself, and to become earthy, those angels and also once eminent human teachers who had formerly been heavenly (compare Rev 12:1; Rev 1:20; Isa 14:12). \n\nstood--\"stands\" [ALFORD]: perfect tense, Greek, \"hesteken.\" \n\nready to be delivered--\"about to bring forth.\" \n\nfor to devour, &c.--\"that when she brought forth, he might devour her child.\" So the dragon, represented by his agent Pharaoh (a name common to all the Egyptian kings, and meaning, according to some, crocodile, a reptile like the dragon, and made an Egyptian idol), was ready to devour Israel's males at the birth of the nation. Antitypically the true Israel, Jesus, when born, was sought for destruction by Herod, who slew all the males in and around Bethlehem.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["man-child--Greek, \"a son, a male.\" On the deep significance of this term, see on Rev 12:1-2. \n\nrule--Greek, \"poimainein,\" \"tend as a shepherd\"; (see on Rev 2:27). \n\nrod of iron--A rod is for long-continued obstinacy until they submit themselves to obedience [BENGEL]: Rev 2:27; Psa 2:9, which passages prove the Lord Jesus to be meant. Any interpretation which ignores this must be wrong. The male son's birth cannot be the origin of the Christian state (Christianity triumphing over heathenism under Constantine), which was not a divine child of the woman, but had many impure worldly elements. In a secondary sense, the ascending of the witnesses up to heaven answers to Christ's own ascension, \"caught up unto God, and unto His throne\": as also His ruling the nations with a rod of iron is to be shared in by believers (Rev 2:27). What took place primarily in the case of the divine Son of the woman, shall take place also in the case of those who are one with Him, the sealed of Israel (Rev 7:1-8), and the elect of all nations, about to be translated and to reign with Him over the earth at His appearing.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["woman fled--Mary's flight with Jesus into Egypt is a type of this. \n\nwhere she hath--So C reads. But A and B add \"there.\" \n\na place--that portion of the heathen world which has received Christianity professedly, namely, mainly the fourth kingdom, having its seat in the modern Babylon, Rome, implying that all the heathen world would not be Christianized in the present order of things. \n\nprepared of God--literally, \"from God.\" Not by human caprice or fear, but by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, the woman, the Church, fled into the wilderness. \n\nthey should feed her--Greek, \"nourish her.\" Indefinite for, \"she should be fed.\" The heathen world, the wilderness, could not nourish the Church, but only afford her an outward shelter. Here, as in Dan 4:26, and elsewhere, the third person plural refers to the heavenly powers who minister from God nourishment to the Church. As Israel had its time of first bridal love, on its first going out of Egypt into the wilderness, so the Christian Church's wilderness-time of first love was the apostolic age, when it was separate from the Egypt of this world, having no city here, but seeking one to come; having only a place in the wilderness prepared of God (Rev 12:6, Rev 12:14). The harlot takes the world city as her own, even as Cain was the first builder of a city, whereas the believing patriarchs lived in tents. Then apostate Israel was the harlot and the young Christian Church the woman; but soon spiritual fornication crept in, and the Church in the seventeenth chapter is no longer the woman, but the harlot, the great Babylon, which, however, has in it hidden the true people of God (Rev 18:4). The deeper the Church penetrated into heathendom, the more she herself became heathenish. Instead of overcoming, she was overcome by the world [AUBERLEN]. Thus, the woman is \"the one inseparable Church of the Old and New Testament\" [HENGSTENBERG], the stock of the Christian Church being Israel (Christ and His apostles being Jews), on which the Gentile believers have been grafted, and into which Israel, on her conversion, shall be grafted, as into her own olive tree. During the whole Church-historic period, or \"times of the Gentiles,\" wherein \"Jerusalem is trodden down of the Gentiles,\" there is no believing Jewish Church, and therefore, only the Christian Church can be \"the woman.\" At the same time there is meant, secondarily, the preservation of the Jews during this Church-historic period, in order that Israel, who was once \"the woman,\" and of whom the man-child was born, may become so again at the close of the Gentile times, and stand at the head of the two elections, literal Israel, and spiritual Israel, the Church elected from Jews and Gentiles without distinction. Eze 20:35-36, \"I will bring you into the wilderness of the people (Hebrew, 'peoples'), and there will I plead with you . . . like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of Egypt\" (compare Notes, see on Eze 20:35-36): not a wilderness literally and locally, but spiritually a state of discipline and trial among the Gentile \"peoples,\" during the long Gentile times, and one finally consummated in the last time of unparalleled trouble under Antichrist, in which the sealed remnant (Rev 7:1-8) who constitute \"the woman,\" are nevertheless preserved \"from the face of the serpent\" (Rev 12:14). \n\nthousand two hundred and threescore days--anticipatory of Rev 12:14, where the persecution which caused her to flee is mentioned in its place: Rev 13:11-18 gives the details of the persecution. It is most unlikely that the transition should be made from the birth of Christ to the last Antichrist, without notice of the long intervening Church-historical period. Probably the 1260 days, or periods, representing this long interval, are RECAPITULATED on a shorter scale analogically during the last Antichrist's short reign. They are equivalent to three and a half years, which, as half of the divine number seven, symbolize the seeming victory of the world over the Church. As they include the whole Gentile times of Jerusalem's being trodden of the Gentiles, they must be much longer than 1260 years; for, above several centuries more than 1260 years have elapsed since Jerusalem fell.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["In Job 1:6-11; Job 2:1-6, Satan appears among the sons of God, presenting himself before God in heaven, as the accuser of the saints: again in Zac 3:1-2. But at Christ's coming as our Redeemer, he fell from heaven, especially when Christ suffered, rose again, and ascended to heaven. When Christ appeared before God as our Advocate, Satan, the accusing adversary, could no longer appear before God against us, but was cast out judicially (Rom 8:33-34). He and his angels henceforth range through the air and the earth, after a time (namely, the interval between the ascension and the second advent) about to be cast hence also, and bound in hell. That \"heaven\" here does not mean merely the air, but the abode of angels, appears from Rev 12:9-10, Rev 12:12; Kg1 22:19-22. \n\nthere was--Greek, \"there came to pass,\" or \"arose.\" \n\nwar in heaven--What a seeming contradiction in terms, yet true! Contrast the blessed result of Christ's triumph, Luk 19:38, \"peace in heaven.\" Col 1:20, \"made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; whether . . . things in earth, or things in heaven.\" \n\nMichael and his angels . . . the dragon . . . and his angels--It was fittingly ordered that, as the rebellion arose from unfaithful angels and their leader, so they should be encountered and overcome by faithful angels and their archangel, in heaven. On earth they are fittingly encountered, and shall be overcome, as represented by the beast and false prophet, by the Son of man and His armies of human saints (Rev 19:14-21). The conflict on earth, as in Dan 10:13, has its correspondent conflict of angels in heaven. Michael is peculiarly the prince, or presiding angel, of the Jewish nation. The conflict in heaven, though judicially decided already against Satan from the time of Christ's resurrection and ascension, receives its actual completion in the execution of judgment by the angels who cast out Satan from heaven. From Christ's ascension he has no standing-ground judicially against the believing elect. Luk 10:18, \"I beheld (in the earnest of the future full fulfilment given in the subjection of the demons to the disciples) Satan as lightning fall from heaven.\" As Michael fought before with Satan about the body of the mediator of the old covenant (Jde 1:9), so now the mediator of the new covenant, by offering His sinless body in sacrifice, arms Michael with power to renew and finish the conflict by a complete victory. That Satan is not yet actually and finally cast out of heaven, though the judicial sentence to that effect received its ratification at Christ's ascension, appears from Eph 6:12, \"spiritual wickedness in high (Greek, 'heavenly') places.\" This is the primary Church-historical sense here. But, through Israel's unbelief, Satan has had ground against that, the elect nation, appearing before God as its accuser. At the eve of its restoration, in the ulterior sense, his standing-ground in heaven against Israel, too, shall be taken from him, \"the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem\" rebuking him, and casting him out from heaven actually and for ever by Michael, the prince, or presiding angel of the Jews. Thus Zac 3:1-9 is strictly parallel, Joshua, the high priest, being representative of his nation Israel, and Satan standing at God's fight hand as adversary to resist Israel's justification. Then, and not till then, fully (Rev 12:10, \"NOW,\" &c.) shall ALL things be reconciled unto Christ IN HEAVEN (Col 1:20), and there shall be peace in heaven (Luk 19:38). \n\nagainst--A, B, and C read, \"with.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["prevailed not--A and Coptic read, \"He prevailed not.\" But B and C read as English Version. \n\nneither--A, B, and C read, \"not even\" (Greek, \"oude\"): a climax. Not only did they not prevail, but not even their place was found any more in heaven. There are four gradations in the ever deeper downfall of Satan: (1) He is deprived of his heavenly excellency, though having still access to heaven as man's accuser, up to Christ's first coming. As heaven was not fully yet opened to man (Joh 3:13), so it was not yet shut against Satan and his demons. The Old Testament dispensation could not overcome him. (2) From Christ, down to the millennium, he is judicially cast out of heaven as the accuser of the elect, and shortly before the millennium loses his power against Israel, and has sentence of expulsion fully executed on him and his by Michael. His rage on earth is consequently the greater, his power being concentrated on it, especially towards the end, when \"he knoweth that he hath but a short time\" (Rev 12:12). (3) He is bound during the millennium (Rev 20:1-3). (4) After having been loosed for a while, he is cast for ever into the lake of fire.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["that old serpent--alluding to Gen 3:1, Gen 3:4. \n\nDevil--the Greek, for \"accuser,\" or \"slanderer.\" \n\nSatan--the Hebrew for \"adversary,\" especially in a court of justice. The twofold designation, Greek and Hebrew, marks the twofold objects of his accusations and temptations, the elect Gentiles and the elect Jews. \n\nworld--Greek, \"habitable world.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["Now--Now that Satan has been cast out of heaven. Primarily fulfilled in part at Jesus' resurrection and ascension, when He said (Mat 28:18), \"All power [Greek, 'exousia,' 'authority,' as here; see below] is given unto Me in heaven and in earth\"; connected with Rev 12:5, \"Her child was caught up unto God and to His throne.\" In the ulterior sense, it refers to the eve of Christ's second coming, when Israel is about to be restored as mother-church of Christendom, Satan, who had resisted her restoration on the ground of her unworthiness, having been cast out by the instrumentality of Michael, Israel's angelic prince (see on Rev 12:7). Thus this is parallel, and the necessary preliminary to the glorious event similarly expressed, Rev 11:15, \"The kingdom of this world is become (the very word here, Greek, 'egeneto,' 'is come,' 'hath come to pass') our Lord's and His Christ's,\" the result of Israel's resuming her place. \n\nsalvation, &c.--Greek, \"the salvation (namely, fully, finally, and victoriously accomplished, Heb 9:28; compare Luk 3:6, yet future; hence, not till now do the blessed raise the fullest hallelujah for salvation to the Lamb, Rev 7:10; Rev 19:1) the power (Greek, 'dunamis'), and the authority (Greek, 'exousia'; 'legitimate power'; see above) of His Christ.\" \n\naccused them before our God day and night--Hence the need that the oppressed Church, God's own elect (like the widow, continually coming, so as even to weary the unjust judge), should cry day and night unto Him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["they--emphatic in the Greek. \"They\" in particular. They and they alone. They were the persons who overcame. \n\novercame-- (Rom 8:33-34, Rom 8:37; Rom 16:20). \n\nhim-- (Jo1 2:14-15). It is the same victory (a peculiarly Johannean phrase) over Satan and the world which the Gospel of John describes in the life of Jesus, his Epistle in the life of each believer, and his Apocalypse in the life of the Church. \n\nby, &c.--Greek (dia to haima; accusative, not genitive case, as English Version would require, compare Heb 9:12), \"on account of (on the ground of) the blood of the Lamb\"; \"because of\"; on account of and by virtue of its having been shed. Had that blood not been shed, Satan's accusations would have been unanswerable; as it is, that blood meets every charge. SCHOTTGEN mentions the Rabbinical tradition that Satan accuses men all days of the year, except the day of atonement. TITTMANN takes the Greek \"dia,\" as it often means, out of regard to the blood of the Lamb; this was the impelling cause which induced them to undertake the contest for the sake of it; but the view given above is good Greek, and more in accordance with the general sense of Scripture. \n\nby the word of their testimony--Greek, \"on account of the word of their testimony.\" On the ground of their faithful testimony, even unto death, they are constituted victors. Their testimony evinced their victory over him by virtue of the blood of the Lamb. Hereby they confess themselves worshippers of the slain Lamb and overcome the beast, Satan's representative; an anticipation of Rev 15:2, \"them that had gotten the victory over the beast\" (compare Rev 13:15-16). \n\nunto--Greek, \"achri,\" \"even as far as.\" They carried their not-love of life as far as even unto death.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["Therefore--because Satan is cast out of heaven (Rev 12:9). \n\ndwell--literally, \"tabernacle.\" Not only angels and the souls of the just with God, but also the faithful militant on earth, who already in spirit tabernacle in heaven, having their home and citizenship there, rejoice that Satan is cast out of their home. \"Tabernacle\" for dwell is used to mark that, though still on the earth, they in spirit are hidden \"in the secret of God's tabernacle.\" They belong not to the world, and, therefore, exult in judgment having been passed on the prince of this world. \n\nthe inhabiters of--So ANDREAS reads. But A, B, and C omit. The words probably, were inserted from Rev 8:13. \n\nis come down--rather as Greek, \"catebee,\" \"is gone down\"; John regarding the heaven as his standing-point of view whence he looks down on the earth. \n\nunto you--earth and sea, with their inhabitants; those who lean upon, and essentially belong to, the earth (contrast Joh 3:7, Margin, with Joh 3:31; Joh 8:23; Phi 3:19, end; Jo1 4:5) and its sea-like troubled politics. Furious at his expulsion from heaven, and knowing that his time on earth is short until he shall be cast down lower, when Christ shall come to set up His kingdom (Rev 20:1-2), Satan concentrates all his power to destroy as many souls as he can. Though no longer able to accuse the elect in heaven, he can tempt and persecute on earth. The more light becomes victorious, the greater will be the struggles of the powers of darkness; whence, at the last crisis, Antichrist will manifest himself with an intensity of iniquity greater than ever before. \n\nshort time--Greek, \"kairon,\" \"season\": opportunity for his assaults.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["Resuming from Rev 12:6 the thread of the discourse, which had been interrupted by the episode, Rev 12:7-12 (giving in the invisible world the ground of the corresponding conflict between light and darkness in the visible world), this verse accounts for her flight into the wilderness (Rev 12:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["were given--by God's determinate appointment, not by human chances (Act 9:11). \n\ntwo--Greek, \"the two wings of the great eagle.\" Alluding to Exo 19:4 : proving that the Old Testament Church, as well as the New Testament Church, is included in \"the woman.\" All believers are included (Isa 40:30-31). The great eagle is the world power; in Eze 17:3, Eze 17:7, Babylon and Egypt: in early Church history, Rome, whose standard was the eagle, turned by God's providence from being hostile into a protector of the Christian Church. As \"wings\" express remote parts of the earth, the two wings may here mean the east and west divisions of the Roman empire. \n\nwilderness--the land of the heathen, the Gentiles: in contrast to Canaan, the pleasant and glorious land. God dwells in the glorious land; demons (the rulers of the heathen world, Rev 9:20; Co1 10:20), in the wilderness. Hence Babylon is called the desert of the sea, Isa 21:1-10 (referred to also in Rev 14:8; Rev 18:2). Heathendom, in its essential nature, being without God, is a desolate wilderness. Thus, the woman's flight into the wilderness is the passing of the kingdom of God from the Jews to be among the Gentiles (typified by Mary's flight with her child from Judea into Egypt). The eagle flight is from Egypt into the wilderness. The Egypt meant is virtually stated (Rev 11:8) to be Jerusalem, which has become spiritually so by crucifying our Lord. Out of her the New Testament Church flees, as the Old Testament Church out of the literal Egypt; and as the true Church subsequently is called to flee out of Babylon (the woman become an harlot, that is, the Church become apostate) [AUBERLEN]. \n\nher place--the chief seat of the then world empire, Rome. The Acts of the Apostles describe the passing of the Church from Jerusalem to Rome. The Roman protection was the eagle wing which often shielded Paul, the great instrument of this transmigration, and Christianity, from Jewish opponents who stirred up the heathen mobs. By degrees the Church had \"her place\" more and more secure, until, under Constantine, the empire became Christian. Still, all this Church-historical period is regarded as a wilderness time, wherein the Church is in part protected, in part oppressed, by the world power, until just before the end the enmity of the world power under Satan shall break out against the Church worse than ever. As Israel was in the wilderness forty years, and had forty-two stages in her journey, so the Church for forty-two months, three and a half years or times [literally, seasons, used for years in Hellenistic Greek (MOERIS, the Atticist), Greek, \"kairous,\" Dan 7:25; Dan 12:7], or 1260 days (Rev 12:6) between the overthrow of Jerusalem and the coming again of Christ, shall be a wilderness sojourner before she reaches her millennial rest (answering to Canaan of old). It is possible that, besides this Church-historical fulfilment, there may be also an ulterior and narrower fulfilment in the restoration of Israel to Palestine, Antichrist for seven times (short periods analogical to the longer ones) having power there, for the former three and a half times keeping covenant with the Jews, then breaking it in the midst of the week, and the mass of the nation fleeing by a second Exodus into the wilderness, while a remnant remains in the land exposed to a fearful persecution (the \"144,000 sealed of Israel,\" Rev 7:1-8; Rev 14:1, standing with the Lamb, after the conflict is over, on Mount Zion: \"the first-fruits\" of a large company to be gathered to Him) [DE BURGH]. These details are very conjectural. In Dan 7:25; Dan 12:7, the subject, as perhaps here, is the time of Israel's calamity. That seven times do not necessarily mean seven years, in which each day is a year, that is, 2520 years, appears from Nebuchadnezzar's seven times (Dan 4:23), answering to Antichrist, the beast's duration.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["flood--Greek, \"river\" (compare Exo 2:3; Mat 2:20; and especially Exo. 14:1-31). The flood, or river, is the stream of Germanic tribes which, pouring on Rome, threatened to destroy Christianity. But the earth helped the woman, by swallowing up the flood. The earth, as contradistinguished from water, is the world consolidated and civilized. The German masses were brought under the influence of Roman civilization and Christianity [AUBERLEN]. Perhaps it includes also, generally, the help given by earthly powers (those least likely, yet led by God's overruling providence to give help) to the Church against persecutions and also heresies, by which she has been at various times assailed.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["wroth with--Greek, \"at.\" \n\nwent--Greek, \"went away.\" \n\nthe remnant of her seed--distinct in some sense from the woman herself. Satan's first effort was to root out the Christian Church, so that there should be no visible profession of Christianity. Foiled in this, he wars (Rev 11:7; Rev 13:7) against the invisible Church, namely, \"those who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus\" (A, B, and C omit \"Christ\"). These are \"the remnant,\" or rest of her seed, as distinguished from her seed, \"the man-child\" (Rev 12:5), on one hand, and from mere professors on the other. The Church, in her beauty and unity (Israel at the head of Christendom, the whole forming one perfect Church), is now not manifested, but awaiting the manifestations of the sons of God at Christ's coming. Unable to destroy Christianity and the Church as a whole, Satan directs his enmity against true Christians, the elect remnant: the others he leaves unmolested.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Revelation Chapter 13\n\n"]}],"introduction":"VISION OF THE WOMAN, HER CHILD, AND THE PERSECUTING DRAGON. (Rev. 12:1-17)\n\nThis episode (Rev. 12:1-15:8) describes in detail the persecution of Israel and the elect Church by the beast, which had been summarily noticed, Rev 11:7-10, and the triumph of the faithful, and torment of the unfaithful. So also the sixteenth through twentieth chapters are the description in detail of the judgment on the beast, &c., summarily noticed in Rev 11:13, Rev 11:18. The beast in Rev 12:3, &c., is shown not to be alone, but to be the instrument in the hand of a greater power of darkness, Satan. That this is so, appears from the time of the eleventh chapter being the period also in which the events of the twelfth and thirteenth chapters take place, namely, 1260 days (Rev 12:6, Rev 12:14; Rev 13:5; compare Rev 11:2-3). \n\ngreat--in size and significance. \n\nwonder--Greek, \"sign\": significant of momentous truths. \n\nin heaven--not merely the sky, but the heaven beyond just mentioned, Rev 11:19; compare Rev 12:7-9. \n\nwoman clothed with the sun . . . moon under her feet--the Church, Israel first, and then the Gentile Church; clothed with Christ, \"the Sun of righteousness.\" \"Fair as the moon, clear as the sun.\" Clothed with the Sun, the Church is the bearer of divine supernatural light in the world. So the seven churches (that is, the Church universal, the woman) are represented as light-bearing candlesticks (Rev 1:12, Rev 1:20). On the other hand, the moon, though standing above the sea and earth, is altogether connected with them and is an earthly light: sea, earth, and moon represent the worldly element, in opposition to the kingdom of God--heaven, the sun. The moon cannot disperse the darkness and change it into-day: thus she represents the world religion (heathenism) in relation to the supernatural world. The Church has the moon, therefore, under her feet; but the stars, as heavenly lights, on her head. The devil directs his efforts against the stars, the angels of the churches, about hereafter to shine for ever. The twelve stars, the crown around her head, are the twelve tribes of Israel [AUBERLEN]. The allusions to Israel before accord with this: compare Rev 11:19, \"the temple of God\"; \"the ark of His testament.\" The ark lost at the Babylonian captivity, and never since found, is seen in the \"temple of God opened in heaven,\" signifying that God now enters again into covenant with His ancient people. The woman cannot mean, literally, the virgin mother of Jesus, for she did not flee into the wilderness and stay there for 1260 days, while the dragon persecuted the remnant of her seed (Rev 12:13-17) [DE BURGH]. The sun, moon, and twelve stars, are emblematical of Jacob, Leah, or else Rachel, and the twelve patriarchs, that is, the Jewish Church: secondarily, the Church universal, having under her feet, in due subordination, the ever changing moon, which shines with a borrowed light, emblem of the Jewish dispensation, which is now in a position of inferiority, though supporting the woman, and also of the changeful things of this world, and having on her head the crown of twelve stars, the twelve apostles, who, however, are related closely to Israel's twelve tribes. The Church, in passing over into the Gentile world, is (1) persecuted; (2) then seduced, as heathenism begins to react on her. This is the key to the meaning of the symbolic woman, beast, harlot, and false prophet. Woman and beast form the same contrast as the Son of man and the beasts in Daniel. As the Son of man comes from heaven, so the woman is seen in heaven (Rev 12:1). The two beasts arise respectively out of the sea (compare Dan 7:3) and the earth (Rev 13:1, Rev 13:11): their origin is not of heaven, but of earth earthy. Daniel beholds the heavenly Bridegroom coming visibly to reign. John sees the woman, the Bride, whose calling is heavenly, in the world, before the Lord's coming again. The characteristic of woman, in contradistinction to man, is her being subject, the surrendering of herself, her being receptive. This similarly is man's relation to God, to be subject to, and receive from, God. All autonomy of the human spirit reverses man's relation to God. Woman-like receptivity towards God constitutes faith. By it the individual becomes a child of God; the children collectively are viewed as \"the woman.\" Humanity, in so far as it belongs to God, is the woman. Christ, the Son of the woman, is in Rev 12:5 emphatically called \"the MAN-child\" (Greek, \"huios arrheen,\" \"male-child\"). Though born of a woman, and under the law for man's sake, He is also the Son of God, and so the HUSBAND of the Church. As Son of the woman, He is \"'Son of man\"; as male-child, He is Son of God, and Husband of the Church. All who imagine to have life in themselves are severed from Him, the Source of life, and, standing in their own strength, sink to the level of senseless beasts. Thus, the woman designates universally the kingdom of God; the beast, the kingdom of the world. The woman of whom Jesus was born represents the Old Testament congregation of God. The woman's travail-pains (Rev 12:2) represent the Old Testament believers' ardent longings for the promised Redeemer. Compare the joy at His birth (Isa 9:6). As new Jerusalem (called also \"the woman,\" or \"wife,\" Rev 21:2, Rev 21:9-12), with its twelve gates, is the exalted and transfigured Church, so the woman with the twelve stars is the Church militant.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/REV/12.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"REV","chapter":12},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/REV/13.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"REV","chapter":13},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/REV/11.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"REV","chapter":11},"numberOfVerses":15}