{"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":2,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["I know thy works--expressing His omniscience. Not merely \"thy professions, desires, good resolutions\" (Rev 14:13, end). \n\nthy labour--Two oldest manuscripts omit \"thy\"; one supports it. The Greek means \"labor unto weariness.\" \n\npatience--persevering endurance. \n\nbear--evil men are a burden which the Ephesian Church regarded as intolerable. We are to \"bear (the same Greek, Gal 6:2) one another's burdens\" in the case of weak brethren; but not to bear false brethren. \n\ntried--by experiment; not the Greek for \"test,\" as Jo1 4:1. The apostolical churches had the miraculous gift of discerning spirits. Compare Act 20:28-30, wherein Paul presciently warned the Ephesian elders of the coming false teachers, as also in writing to Timothy at Ephesus. TERTULLIAN [On Baptism, 17], and JEROME [On Illustrious Men, in Lucca 7], record of John, that when a writing, professing to be a canonical history of the acts of Paul, had been composed by a presbyter of Ephesus, John convicted the author and condemned the work. So on one occasion he would not remain under the same roof with Cerinthus the heretic. \n\nsay they are apostles--probably Judaizers. IGNATIUS [Epistle to the Ephesians, 6], says subsequently, \"Onesimus praises exceedingly your good discipline that no heresy dwells among you\"; and [Epistle to the Ephesians, 9], \"Ye did not permit those having evil doctrine to sow their seed among you, but closed your ears.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["borne . . . patience--The oldest manuscripts transpose these words. Then translate as Greek, \"persevering endurance . . . borne.\" \"Thou hast borne\" My reproach, but \"thou canst not bear the evil\" (Rev 2:2). A beautiful antithesis. \n\nand . . . hast laboured, and hast not fainted--The two oldest manuscripts and oldest versions read, \"and . . . hast not labored,\" omitting \"and hast fainted.\" The difficulty which transcribers by English Version reading tried to obviate, was the seeming contradiction, \"I know thy labor . . . and thou hast not labored.\" But what is meant is, \"Thou hast not been wearied out with labor.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["somewhat . . . because--Translate, \"I have against thee (this) that,\" &c. It is not a mere somewhat\"; it is everything. How characteristic of our gracious Lord, that He puts foremost all He can find to approve, and only after this notes the shortcomings! \n\nleft thy first love--to Christ. Compare Ti1 5:12, \"cast off their first faith.\" See the Ephesians' first love, Eph 1:15. This epistle was written under Domitian, when thirty years had elapsed since Paul had written his Epistle to them. Their warmth of love had given place to a lifeless orthodoxy. Compare Paul's view of faith so called without love, Co1 13:2.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["whence--from what a height. \n\ndo the first works--the works which flowed from thy first love. Not merely \"feel thy first feelings,\" but do works flowing from the same principle as formerly, \"faith which worketh by love.\" \n\nI will come--Greek, \"I am coming\" in special judgment on thee. \n\nquickly--omitted in two oldest manuscripts, Vulgate and Coptic versions: supported by one oldest manuscript. \n\nremove thy candlestick out of his place--I will take away the Church from Ephesus and remove it elsewhere. \"It is removal of the candlestick, not extinction of the candle, which is threatened here; judgment for some, but that very judgment the occasion of mercy for others. So it has been. The seat of the Church has been changed, but the Church itself survives. What the East has lost, the West has gained. One who lately visited Ephesus found only three Christians there, and these so ignorant as scarcely to have heard the names of St. Paul or St. John\" [TRENCH].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["But--How graciously, after necessary censure, He returns to praise for our consolation, and as an example to us, that we would show, when we reprove, we have more pleasure in praising than in fault-finding. \n\nhatest the deeds--We should hate men's evil deeds, not hate the men themselves. \n\nNicolaitanes--IRENÆUS [Against Heresies, 1.26.3] and TERTULLIAN [Prescription against Heretics, 46] make these followers of Nicolas, one of the seven (honorably mentioned, Act 6:3, Act 6:5). They (CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA [Miscellanies, 2.20 3.4] and EPIPHANIUS [Heresies, 25]) evidently confound the latter Gnostic Nicolaitanes, or followers of one Nicolaos, with those of Revelation. MICHAELIS' view is probable: Nicolaos (conqueror of the people) is the Greek version of Balaam, from Hebrew \"Belang Am,\" \"Destroyer of the people.\" Revelation abounds in such duplicate Hebrew and Greek names: as Apollyon, Abaddon: Devil, Satan: Yea (Greek, \"Nai\"), Amen. The name, like other names, Egypt, Babylon, Sodom, is symbolic. Compare Rev 2:14-15, which shows the true sense of Nicolaitanes; they are not a sect, but professing Christians who, like Balaam of old. tried to introduce into the Church a false freedom, that is, licentiousness; this was a reaction in the opposite direction from Judaism, the first danger to the Church combated in the council of Jerusalem, and by Paul in the Epistle to Galatians. These symbolical Nicolaitanes, or followers of Balaam, abused Paul's doctrine of the grace of God into a plea for lasciviousness (Pe2 2:15-16, Pe2 2:19; Jde 1:4, Jde 1:11 who both describe the same sort of seducers as followers of Balaam). The difficulty that they should appropriate a name branded with infamy in Scripture is met by TRENCH: The Antinomian Gnostics were so opposed to John as a Judaizing apostle that they would assume as a name of chiefest honor one which John branded with dishonor.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["He that hath an ear--This clause precedes the promise in the first three addresses, succeeds it in the last four. Thus the promises are enclosed on both sides with the precept urging the deepest attention as to the most momentous truths. Every man \"hath an ear\" naturally, but he alone will be able to hear spiritually to whom God has given \"the hearing ear\"; whose \"ear God hath wakened\" and \"opened.\" Compare \"Faith, the ears of the soul\" [CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA]. \n\nthe Spirit saith--What Christ saith, the Spirit saith; so one are the Second and Third Persons. \n\nunto the churches--not merely to the particular, but to the universal Church. \n\novercometh--In John's Gospel (Joh 16:33) and First Epistle (Jo1 2:13-14; Jo1 5:4-5) an object follows, namely, \"the world,\" \"the wicked one.\" Here, where the final issue is spoken of, the conqueror is named absolutely. Paul uses a similar image (Co1 9:24-25; Ti2 2:5; but not the same as John's phrase, except Rom 12:21). \n\nwill I give--as the Judge. The tree of life in Paradise, lost by the fall, is restored by the Redeemer. Allusions to it occur in Pro 3:18; Pro 11:30; Pro 13:12; Pro 15:4, and prophetically, Rev 22:2, Rev 22:14; Eze 47:12; compare Joh 6:51. It is interesting to note how closely these introductory addresses are linked to the body of Revelation. Thus, the tree of life here, with Rev 22:1; deliverance from the second death (Rev 2:11), with Rev 20:14; Rev 21:8; the new name (Rev 2:17), with Rev 14:1; power over the nations, with Rev 20:4; the morning star (Rev 2:28), with Rev 22:16; the white raiment (Rev 3:5), with Rev 4:4; Rev 16:15; the name in the book of life (Rev 3:5), with Rev 13:8; Rev 20:15; the new Jerusalem and its citizenship (Rev 3:12), with Rev 21:10. \n\ngive . . . tree of life--The thing promised corresponds to the kind of faithfulness manifested. They who refrain from Nicolaitane indulgences (Rev 2:6) and idol-meats (Rev 2:14-15), shall eat of meat infinitely superior, namely, the fruit of the tree of life, and the hidden manna (Rev 2:17). \n\nin the midst of the paradise--The oldest manuscripts omit \"the midst of.\" In Gen 2:9 these words are appropriate, for there were other trees in the garden, but not in the midst of it. Here the tree of life is simply in the paradise, for no other tree is mentioned in it; in Rev 22:2 the tree of life is \"in the midst of the street of Jerusalem\"; from this the clause was inserted here. Paradise (a Persian, or else Semitic word), originally used of any garden of delight; then specially of Eden; then the temporary abode of separate souls in bliss; then \"the Paradise of God,\" the third heaven, the immediate presence of God. \n\nof God-- (Eze 28:13). One oldest manuscript, with Vulgate, Syriac, and Coptic, and CYPRIAN, read, \"MY God,\" as in Rev 3:12. So Christ calls God, \"My God and your God\" (Joh 20:17; compare Eph 1:17). God is our God, in virtue of being peculiarly Christ's God. The main bliss of Paradise is that it is the Paradise of God; God Himself dwelling there (Rev 21:3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["Smyrna--in Ionia, a little to the north of Ephesus. POLYCARP, martyred in A.D. 168, eighty-six years after his conversion, was bishop, and probably \"the angel of the Church in Smyrna\" meant here. The allusions to persecutions and faithfulness unto death accord with this view. IGNATIUS [The Martyrdom of Ignatius 3], on his way to martyrdom in Rome, wrote to POLYCARP, then (A.D. 108) bishop of Smyrna; if his bishopric commenced ten or twelve years earlier, the dates will harmonize. TERTULLIAN [The Prescription against Heretics, 32], and IRENÆUS, who had talked with POLYCARP in youth, tell us POLYCARP was consecrated bishop of Smyrna by St. John. \n\nthe first . . . the last . . . was dead . . . is alive--The attributes of Christ most calculated to comfort the Church of Smyrna under its persecutions; resumed from Rev 1:17-18. As death was to Him but the gate to life eternal, so it is to be to them (Rev 2:10-11).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["thy works, and--omitted in two oldest manuscripts, Vulgate, and Coptic. Supported by one oldest manuscript. \n\ntribulation--owing to persecution. \n\npoverty--owing to \"the spoiling of their goods.\" \n\nbut thou art rich--in grace. Contrast Laodicea, rich in the world's eyes and her own, poor before God. \"There are both poor rich-men, and rich poor-men in God's sight\" [TRENCH]. \n\nblasphemy of them--blasphemous calumny of thee on the part of (or arising from) them. \n\nsay they are Jews, and are not--Jews by national descent, but not spiritually of \"the true circumcision.\" The Jews blaspheme Christ as \"the hanged one.\" As elsewhere, so at Smyrna they bitterly opposed Christianity; and at POLYCARP'S martyrdom they joined the heathens in clamoring for his being cast to the lions; and when there was an obstacle to this, for his being burnt alive; and with their own hands they carried logs for the pile. \n\nsynagogue of Satan--Only once is the term \"synagogue\" in the New Testament used of the Christian assembly, and that by the apostle who longest maintained the union of the Church and Jewish Synagogue. As the Jews more and more opposed Christianity, and it more and more rooted itself in the Gentile world, the term \"synagogue\" was left altogether to the former, and Christians appropriated exclusively the honorable term \"Church\"; contrast an earlier time when the Jewish theocracy is called \"the Church in the wilderness.\" Compare Num 16:3; Num 20:4, \"congregation of the Lord.\" Even in Jam 2:2 it is \"your (not the Lord's) assembly.\" The Jews, who might have been \"the Church of God,\" had now, by their opposition and unbelief, become the synagogue of Satan. So \"the throne of Satan\" (Rev 2:13) represents the heathens' opposition to Christianity; \"the depths of Satan\" (Rev 2:24), the opposition of heretics.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["Fear none, &c.--the oldest manuscripts read, \"Fear not those things,\" &c. \"The Captain of our salvation never keeps back what those who faithfully witness for Him may have to bear for His name's sake; never entices recruits by the promise they shall find all things easy and pleasant there\" [TRENCH]. \n\ndevil--\"the accuser.\" He acted, through Jewish accusers against Christ and His people. The conflict of the latter was not with mere flesh and blood, but with the rulers of the darkness of this world. \n\ntried--with temptation by \"the devil.\" The same event is often both a temptation from the devil, and a trial from God--God sifting and winnowing the man to separate his chaff from his wheat, the devil sifting him in the hope that nothing but chaff will be found in him [TRENCH]. \n\nten days--not the ten persecutions from Nero to Diocletian. LYRA explains ten years on the year-day principle. The shortness of the duration of the persecution is evidently made the ground of consolation. The time of trial shall be short, the duration of your joy shall be for ever. Compare the use of \"ten days\" for a short time, Gen 24:55; Num 11:19. Ten is the number of the world powers hostile to the Church; compare the ten horns of the beast, Rev 13:1. \n\nunto death--so as even to endure death for My sake. \n\ncrown of life-- Jam 1:12; Ti2 4:8, \"crown of righteousness\"; Pe1 5:4, \"crown of glory.\" The crown is the garland, the mark of a conqueror, or of one rejoicing, or at a feast; but diadem is the mark of a KING.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["shall not be hurt--Greek, \"shall not by any means (or possibly) be hurt.\" \n\nthe second death--\"the lake of fire.\" \"The death in life of the lost, as contrasted with the life in death of the saved\" [TRENCH]. The phrase \"the second death\" is peculiar to the Apocalypse. What matter about the first death, which sooner or later must pass over us, if we escape the second death? \"It seems that they who die that death shall be hurt by it; whereas, if it were annihilation, and so a conclusion of their torments, it would be no way hurtful, but highly beneficial to them. But the living torments are the second death\" [BISHOP PEARSON]. \"The life of the damned is death\" [AUGUSTINE]. Smyrna (meaning myrrh) yielded its sweet perfume in being bruised even to death. Myrrh was used in embalming dead bodies (Joh 19:39); was an ingredient in the holy anointing oil (Exo 30:23); a perfume of the heavenly Bridegroom (Psa 45:8), and of the bride (Sol 3:6). \"Affliction, like it, is bitter for the time being, but salutary; preserving the elect from corruption, and seasoning them for immortality, and gives scope for the exercise of the fragrantly breathing Christian virtues\" [VITRINGA]. POLYCARP'S noble words to his heathen judges who wished him to recant, are well known: \"Fourscore and six years have I served the Lord, and He never wronged me, how then can I blaspheme my King and Saviour?\" Smyrna's faithfulness is rewarded by its candlestick not having been removed out of its place (Rev 2:5); Christianity has never wholly left it; whence the Turks call it, \"Infidel Smyrna.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["TRENCH prefers writing Pergamus, or rather, Pergamum, on the river Caicus. It was capital of Attalus the Second's kingdom, which was bequeathed by him to the Romans, 133 B.C. Famous for its library, founded by Eumenes (197-159), and destroyed by Caliph Omar. Parchment, that is, Pergamena charta, was here discovered for book purposes. Also famous for the magnificent temple of Æsculapius, the healing god [TACITUS, Annals, 3.63]. \n\nhe which hath the sharp sword with two edges--appropriate to His address having a twofold bearing, a searching power so as to convict and convert some (Rev 2:13, Rev 2:17), and to convict and condemn to punishment others (Rev 2:14-16, especially Rev 2:16; compare also see on Rev 1:16).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["I know thy works--Two oldest manuscripts omit this clause; one oldest manuscript retains it. \n\nSatan's seat--rather as the Greek is translated all through Revelation, \"throne.\" Satan, in impious mimicry of God's heavenly throne, sets up his earthly throne (Rev 4:2). Æsculapius was worshipped there under the serpent form; and Satan, the old serpent, as the instigator (compare Rev 2:10) of fanatical devotees of Æsculapius, and, through them, of the supreme magistracy at Pergamos, persecuted one of the Lord's people (Antipas) even to death. Thus, this address is an anticipatory preface to Rev. 12:1-17; Note: \"throne . . . the dragon, Satan . . . war with her seed,\" Rev 12:5, Rev 12:9, Rev 12:17. \n\neven in those days--Two oldest manuscripts omit \"even\"; two retain it. \n\nwherein--Two oldest manuscripts omit this (then translate, \"in the days of Antipas, My faithful witness,\" or \"martyr\"); two retain it. Two oldest manuscripts read, \"My witness, MY faithful one\"; two read as English Version. Antipas is another form for Antipater. SIMEON METAPHRASTES has a palpably legendary story, unknown to the early Fathers, that Antipas, in Domitian's reign, was shut up in a red-hot brazen bull, and ended his life in thanksgivings and prayers. HENGSTENBERG makes the name, like other apocalyptic names, symbolical, meaning one standing out \"against all\" for Christ's sake.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["few--in comparison of the many tokens of thy faithfulness. \n\nhold the doctrine of Balaam--\"the teaching of Balaam,\" namely, that which he \"taught Balak.\" Compare \"the counsel of Balaam,\" Num 31:16. \"Balak\" is dative in the Greek, whence BENGEL translates, \"taught (the Moabites) for (that is, to please) Balak.\" But though in Numbers it is not expressly said he taught Balak, yet there is nothing said inconsistent with his having done so; and JOSEPHUS [Antiquities,4. 6. 6], says he did so. The dative case is a Hebraism for the accusative case. \n\nchildren--Greek, \"sons of Israel.\" \n\nstumbling-block--literally, that part of a trap on which the bait was laid, and which, when touched, caused the trap to close on its prey; then any entanglement to the foot [TRENCH]. \n\neat things sacrificed unto idols--the act common to the Israelites of old, and the Nicolaitanes in John's day; he does not add what was peculiar to the Israelites, namely, that they sacrificed to idols. The temptation to eat idol-meats was a peculiarly strong one to the Gentile converts. For not to do so involved almost a withdrawal from partaking of any social meal with the heathen around. For idol-meats, after a part had been offered in sacrifice, were nearly sure to be on the heathen entertainer's table; so much so, that the Greek \"to kill\" (thuein) meant originally \"to sacrifice.\" Hence arose the decree of the council of Jerusalem forbidding to eat such meats; subsequently some at Corinth ate unscrupulously and knowingly of such meats, on the ground that the idol is nothing; others needlessly tortured themselves with scruples, lest unknowingly they should eat of them when they got meat from the market or in a heathen friend's house. Paul handles the question in Co1 8:1-13; Co1 10:25-33. \n\nfornication--often connected with idolatry.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["thou--emphatic: \"So THOU also hast,\" As Balak and the Moabites of old had Balaam and his followers literally, so hast thou also them that hold the same Balaamite or Nicolaitane doctrine spiritually or symbolically. Literal eating of idol-meats and fornication in Pergamos were accompanied by spiritual idolatry and fornication. So TRENCH explains. But I prefer taking it, \"THOU also,\" as well as Ephesus (\"in like manner\" as Ephesus; see below the oldest reading), hast . . . Nicolaitanes, with this important difference, Ephesus, as a Church, hates them and casts them out, but thou \"hast them,\" namely, in the Church. \n\ndoctrine--teaching (see on Rev 2:6): namely, to tempt God's people to idolatry. \n\nwhich thing I hate--It is sin not to hate what God hates. The Ephesian Church (Rev 2:6) had this point of superiority to Pergamos. But the three oldest manuscripts, and Vulgate and Syriac, read instead of \"which I hate,\" \"IN LIKE MANNER.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["The three oldest manuscripts read, \"Repent, therefore.\" Not only the Nicolaitanes, but the whole Church of Pergamos is called on to repent of not having hated the Nicolaitane teaching and practice. Contrast Paul, Act 20:26. \n\nI will come--I am coming. \n\nfight against them--Greek, \"war with them\"; with the Nicolaitanes primarily; but including also chastisement of the whole Church at Pergamos: compare \"unto THEE.\" \n\nwith the sword of my mouth--resumed from Rev 1:16, but with an allusion to the drawn sword with which the angel of the Lord confronted Balaam on his way to curse Israel: an earnest of the sword by which he and the seduced Israelites fell at last. The spiritual Balaamites of John's day are to be smitten with the Lord's spiritual sword, the word or \"rod of His mouth.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["to eat--omitted in the three oldest manuscripts. \n\nthe hidden manna--the heavenly food of Israel, in contrast to the idol-meats (Rev 2:14). A pot of manna was laid up in the holy place \"before the testimony.\" The allusion is here to this: probably also to the Lord's discourse (Joh 6:31-35). Translate, \"the manna which is hidden.\" As the manna hidden in the sanctuary was by divine power preserved from corruption, so Christ in His incorruptible body has passed into the heavens, and is hidden there until the time of His appearing. Christ Himself is the manna \"hidden\" from the world, but revealed to the believer, so that he has already a foretaste of His preciousness. Compare as to Christ's own hidden food on earth, Joh 4:32, Joh 4:34, and Job 23:12. The full manifestation shall be at His coming. Believers are now hidden, even as their meat is hidden. As the manna in the sanctuary, unlike the other manna, was incorruptible, so the spiritual feast offered to all who reject the world's dainties for Christ is everlasting: an incorruptible body and life for ever in Christ at the resurrection. \n\nwhite stone . . . new name . . . no man knoweth saving he--TRENCH'S explanation seems best. White is the color and livery of heaven. \"New\" implies something altogether renewed and heavenly. The white stone is a glistening diamond, the Urim borne by the high priest within the choschen or breastplate of judgment, with the twelve tribes' names on the twelve precious stones, next the heart. The word Urim means \"light,\" answering to the color white. None but the high priest knew the name written upon it, probably the incommunicable name of God, \"Jehovah.\" The high priest consulted it in some divinely appointed way to get direction from God when needful. The \"new name\" is Christ's (compare Rev 3:12, \"I will write upon him My new name\"): some new revelation of Himself which shall hereafter be imparted to His people, and which they alone are capable of receiving. The connection with the \"hidden manna\" will thus be clear, as none save the high priest had access to the \"manna hidden\" in the sanctuary. Believers, as spiritual priests unto God, shall enjoy the heavenly antitypes to the hidden manna and the Urim stone. What they had peculiarly to contend against at Pergamos was the temptation to idol-meats, and fornication, put in their way by Balaamites. As Phinehas was rewarded with \"an everlasting priesthood\" for his zeal against these very sins to which the Old Testament Balaam seduced Israel; so the heavenly high priesthood is the reward promised here to those zealous against the New Testament Balaamites tempting Christ's people to the same sins. \n\nreceiveth it--namely, \"the stone\"; not \"the new name\"; see above. The \"name that no man knew but Christ Himself,\" He shall hereafter reveal to His people.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["Thyatira--in Lydia, south of Pergamos. Lydia, the purple-seller of this city, having been converted at Philippi, a Macedonian city (with which Thyatira, as being a Macedonian colony, had naturally much intercourse), was probably the instrument of first carrying the Gospel to her native town. John follows the geographical order here, for Thyatira lay a little to the left of the road from Pergamos to Sardis [STRABO, 13:4]. \n\nSon of God . . . eyes like . . . fire . . . feet . . . like fine brass--or \"glowing brass\" (see on Rev 1:14-15, whence this description is resumed). Again His attributes accord with His address. The title \"Son of God,\" is from Psa 2:7, Psa 2:9, which is referred to in Rev 2:27. The attribute, \"eyes like a flame,\" &c., answers to Rev 2:23, \"I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts.\" The attribute, \"feet like . . . brass,\" answers to Rev 2:27, \"as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers,\" He treading them to pieces with His strong feet.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["The oldest manuscripts transpose the English Version order, and read, \"faith and service.\" The four are subordinate to \"thy works\"; thus, \"I know thy works, even the love and the faith (these two forming one pair, as 'faith works by love,' Gal 5:6), and the service (ministration to the suffering members of the Church, and to all in spiritual or temporal need), and the endurance of (that is, shown by) thee (this pronoun belongs to all four).\" As love is inward, so service is its outward manifestation. Similarly, faith and persevering endurance, or \"patient continuance (the same Greek as here, Rom 2:7) in well-doing,\" are connected. \n\nand thy works; and the last--Omit the second \"and,\" with the three oldest manuscripts and the ancient versions; translate, \"And (I know) thy works which are last (to be) more in number than the first\"; realizing Th1 4:1; the converse of Mat 12:45; Pe2 2:20. Instead of retrograding from \"the first works\" and \"first love,\" as Ephesus, Thyatira's last works exceeded her first (Rev 2:4-5).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["a few things--omitted in the three oldest manuscripts. Translate then, \"I have against thee that,\" &c. \n\nsufferest--The three oldest manuscripts read, \"lettest alone.\" \n\nthat woman--Two oldest manuscripts read, \"THY wife\"; two omit it. Vulgate and most ancient versions read as English Version. The symbolical Jezebel was to the Church of Thyatira what Jezebel, Ahab's \"wife,\" was to him. Some self-styled prophetess (or as the feminine in Hebrew is often used collectively to express a multitude, a set of false prophets), as closely attached to the Church of Thyatira as a wife is to a husband, and as powerfully influencing for evil that Church as Jezebel did Ahab. As Balaam, in Israel's early history, so Jezebel, daughter of Eth-baal, king of Sidon (Kg1 16:31, formerly priest of Astarte, and murderer of his predecessor on the throne, JOSEPHUS [Against Apion, 1.18]), was the great seducer to idolatry in Israel's later history. Like her father, she was swift to shed blood. Wholly given to Baal worship, like Eth-baal, whose name expresses his idolatry, she, with her strong will, seduced the weak Ahab and Israel beyond the calf-worship (which was a worship of the true God under the cherub-ox form, that is, a violation of the second commandment) to that of Baal (a violation of the first commandment also). She seems to have been herself a priestess and prophetess of Baal. Compare Kg2 9:22, Kg2 9:30, \"whoredoms of . . . Jezebel and her witchcrafts\" (impurity was part of the worship of the PhÅ“nician Astarte, or Venus). Her spiritual counterpart at Thyatira lured God's \"servants\" by pretended utterances of inspiration to the same libertinism, fornication, and eating of idol-meats, as the Balaamites and Nicolaitanes (Rev 2:6, Rev 2:14-15). By a false spiritualism these seducers led their victims into the grossest carnality, as though things done in the flesh were outside the true man, and were, therefore, indifferent. \"The deeper the Church penetrated into heathenism, the more she herself became heathenish; this prepares us for the expressions 'harlot' and 'Babylon,' applied to her afterwards\" [AUBERLEN]. \n\nto teach and to seduce--The three oldest manuscripts read, \"and she teaches and seduces,\" or \"deceives.\" \"Thyatira was just the reverse of Ephesus. There, much zeal for orthodoxy, but little love; here, activity of faith and love, but insufficient zeal for godly discipline and doctrine, a patience of error even where there was not a participation in it\" [TRENCH].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["space--Greek, \"time.\" \n\nof her fornication . . . she repented not--The three oldest manuscripts read, \"and she willeth not to repent of (literally, 'out of,' that is, so as to come out of) her fornication.\" Here there is a transition from literal to spiritual fornication, as appears from Rev 2:22. The idea arose from Jehovah's covenant relation to the Old Testament Church being regarded as a marriage, any transgression against which was, therefore, harlotry, fornication, or adultery.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["Behold--calling attention to her awful doom to come. \n\nI will--Greek present, \"I cast her.\" \n\na bed--The place of her sin shall be the place of her punishment. The bed of her sin shall be her bed of sickness and anguish. Perhaps a pestilence was about to be sent. Or the bed of the grave, and of the hell beyond, where the worm dieth not. \n\nthem that commit adultery with her--spiritually; including both the eating of idol-meats and fornication. \"With her,\" in the Greek, implies participation with her in her adulteries, namely, by suffering her (Rev 2:20), or letting her alone, and so virtually encouraging her. Her punishment is distinct from theirs; she is to be cast into a bed, and her children to be killed; while those who make themselves partakers of her sin by tolerating her, are to be cast into great tribulation. \n\nexcept they repent--Greek aorist, \"repent\" at once; shall have repented by the time limited in My purpose. \n\ntheir deeds--Two of the oldest manuscripts and most ancient versions read \"her.\" Thus, God's true servants, who by connivance, are incurring the guilt of her deeds, are distinguished from her. One oldest manuscript, ANDREAS, and CYPRIAN, support \"their.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["her children-- (Isa 57:3; Eze 23:45, Eze 23:47). Her proper adherents; not those who suffer her, but those who are begotten of her. A distinct class from the last in Rev 2:22 (compare Note, see on Rev 2:22), whose sin was less direct, being that only of connivance. \n\nkill . . . with death--Compare the disaster that overtook the literal Jezebel's votaries of Baal, and Ahab's sons, Kg1 18:40; Kg2 10:6-7, Kg2 10:24-25. Kill with death is a Hebraism for slay with most sure and awful death; so \"dying thou shalt die\" (Gen 2:17). Not \"die the common death of men\" (Num 16:29). \n\nall the churches shall know--implying that these addresses are designed for the catholic Church of all ages and places. So palpably shall God's hand be seen in the judgment on Thyatira, that the whole Church shall recognize it as God's doing. \n\nI am he--the \"I\" is strongly emphatical: \"that it is I am He who,\" &c. \n\nsearcheth . . . hearts--God's peculiar attribute is given to Christ. The \"reins\" are the seat of the desires; the \"heart,\" that of the thoughts. The Greek for \"searcheth\" expresses an accurate following up of all tracks and windings. \n\nunto every one of you--literally, \"unto you, to each.\" \n\naccording to your works--to be judged not according to the mere act as it appears to man, but with reference to the motive, faith and love being the only motives which God recognizes as sound.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["you . . . and . . . the rest--The three oldest manuscripts omit \"and\"; translate then, \"Unto you, the rest.\" \n\nas many as have not--not only do not hold, but are free from contact with. \n\nand which--The oldest manuscripts omit \"and\"; translate, \"whosoever.\" \n\nthe depths--These false prophets boasted peculiarly of their knowledge of mysteries and the deep things of God; pretensions subsequently expressed by their arrogant title, Gnostics (\"full of knowledge\"). The Spirit here declares their so-called \"depths,\" (namely, of knowledge of divine things) to be really \"depths of Satan\"; just as in Rev 2:9, He says, instead of \"the synagogue of God,\" \"the synagogue of Satan.\" HENGSTENBERG thinks the teachers themselves professed to fathom the depths of Satan, giving loose rein to fleshly lusts, without being hurt thereby. They who thus think to fight Satan with his own weapons always find him more than a match for them. The words, \"as they speak,\" that is, \"as they call them,\" coming after not only \"depths,\" but \"depths of Satan,\" seem to favor this latter view; otherwise I should prefer the former, in which case, \"as they speak,\" or \"call them,\" must refer to \"depths\" only, not also \"depths of Satan.\" The original sin of Adam was a desire to know EVIL as well as good, so in HENGSTENBERG'S view, those who professed to know \"the depths of Satan.\" It is the prerogative of God alone to know evil fully, without being hurt or defiled by it. \n\nI will put--Two oldest manuscripts have \"I put,\" or \"cast.\" One oldest manuscript reads as English Version. \n\nnone other burden--save abstinence from, and protestation against, these abominations; no \"depths\" beyond your reach, such as they teach, no new doctrine, but the old faith and rule of practice once for all delivered to the saints. Exaggerating and perfecting Paul's doctrine of grace without the law as the source of justification and sanctification, these false prophets rejected the law as a rule of life, as though it were an intolerable \"burden.\" But it is a \"light\" burden. In Act 15:28-29, the very term \"burden,\" as here, is used of abstinence from fornication and idol-meats; to this the Lord here refers.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["that which ye have already-- (Jde 1:3, end). \n\nhold fast--do not let go from your grasp, however false teachers may wish to wrest it from you. \n\ntill I come--when your conflict with evil will be at an end. The Greek implies uncertainty as to when He shall come.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["And--implying the close connection of the promise to the conqueror that follows, with the preceding exhortation, Rev 2:25. \n\nand keepeth--Greek, \"and he that keepeth.\" Compare the same word in the passage already alluded to by the Lord, Act 15:28-29, end. \n\nmy works--in contrast to \"her (English Version, 'their') works\" (Rev 2:22). The works which I command and which are the fruit of My Spirit. \n\nunto the end-- (Mat 24:13). The image is perhaps from the race, wherein it is not enough to enter the lists, but the runner must persevere to the end. \n\ngive power--Greek, \"authority.\" \n\nover the nations--at Christ's coming the saints shall possess the kingdom \"under the whole heaven\"; therefore over this earth; compare Luk 19:17, \"have thou authority [the same word as here] over ten cities.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["From Psa 2:8-9. \n\nrule--literally, \"rule as a shepherd.\" In Psa 2:9 it is, \"Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron.\" The Septuagint, pointing the Hebrew word differently, read as Revelation here. The English Version of Psa 2:9 is doubtless right, as the parallel word, \"dash in pieces,\" proves. But the Spirit in this case sanctions the additional thought as true, that the Lord shall mingle mercy to some, with judgment on others; beginning by destroying His Antichristian foes, He shall reign in love over the rest. \"Christ shall rule them with a scepter of iron, to make them capable of being ruled with a scepter of gold; severity first, that grace may come after\" (TRENCH, who thinks we ought to translate \"SCEPTER\" for \"rod,\" as in Heb 1:8). \"Shepherd\" is used in Jer 6:3, of hostile rulers; so also in Zac 11:16. As severity here is the primary thought, \"rule as a shepherd\" seems to me to be used thus: He who would have shepherded them with a pastoral rod, shall, because of their hardened unbelief, shepherd them with a rod of iron. \n\nshall they be broken--So one oldest manuscript, Vulgate, Syriac, and Coptic Versions read. But two oldest manuscripts, read, \"as the vessels of a potter are broken to shivers.\" A potter's vessel dashed to pieces, because of its failing to answer the design of the maker, is the image to depict God's sovereign power to give reprobates to destruction, not by caprice, but in the exercise of His righteous judgment. The saints shall be in Christ's victorious \"armies\" when He shall inflict the last decisive blow, and afterwards shall reign with Him. Having by faith \"overcome the world,\" they shall also rule the world. \n\neven as I--\"as I also have received of (from) My Father,\" namely, in Psa 2:7-9. Jesus had refused to receive the kingdom without the cross at Satan's hands; He would receive it from none but the Father, who had appointed the cross as the path to the crown. As the Father has given the authority to Me over the heathen and uttermost parts of the earth, so I impart a share of it to My victorious disciple.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["the morning star--that is, I will give unto him Myself, who am \"the morning star\" (Rev 22:16); so that reflecting My perfect brightness, he shall shine like Me, the morning star, and share My kingly glory (of which a star is the symbol, Num 21:17; Mat 2:2). Compare Rev 2:17, \"I will give him . . . the hidden manna,\" that is, Myself, who am that manna (Joh 6:31-33).\n\n\n\n\nNext: Revelation Chapter 3\n\n"]}],"introduction":"EPISTLES TO EPHESUS, SMYRNA, PERGAMOS, THYATIRA. (Rev. 2:1-29)\n\nEphesus--famed for the temple of Diana, one of the seven wonders of the world. For three years Paul labored there. He subsequently ordained Timothy superintending overseer or bishop there: probably his charge was but of a temporary nature. John, towards the close of his life, took it as the center from which he superintended the province. \n\nholdeth--Greek, \"holdeth fast,\" as in Rev 2:25; Rev 3:11; compare Joh 10:28-29. The title of Christ here as \"holding fast the seven stars (from Rev 1:16 : only that, for having is substituted holding fast in His grasp), and walking in the midst of the seven candlesticks,\" accords with the beginning of His address to the seven churches representing the universal Church. Walking expresses His unwearied activity in the Church, guarding her from internal and external evils, as the high priest moved to and fro in the sanctuary.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/REV/2.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"REV","chapter":2},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/REV/3.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"REV","chapter":3},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/REV/1.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"REV","chapter":1},"numberOfVerses":27}