A Commentary in Simple English on Revelation

[17.1] (17:3) Here and in verse 7 the heads are mentioned before the horns. In 13:1 the horns are mentioned before the heads, and the horns are crowned. This may just be because the beast is emerging from the sea in Chapter 13. The horns are seen before the heads. Some writers seem to force some significance from this.

[17.2] (17:3-6) Who sat for the portrait of the great harlot? Some have suggested a temple prostitute. Others Messalina, the consort of Claudius. It is alleged that she worked as a common prostitute in the Roman brothels and Roman prostitutes wore their name on their foreheads. But we should not believe all the tales told by Roman historians. Once an eminent Roman was dead, there were often reasons - bad ones! - for telling such things against him or her, and the truth of them could not be challenged. There was no libel law.

I guess that John remembers a scene he had seen on his travels through Asia - a girl dressed up and riding a donkey, which also had trappings, and taking part in a heathen procession of one of the ancient cults.

More to the point however, is the question of whether this is the woman of Chapter 13. Has the faithful, persecuted early church become corrupt? Is it not a fact of history that within three centuries, the Latin and Greek churches were riding on the back of the Empire of Constantine the Great? If so, John's vision is very solemn and very clear for two or three centuries ahead.

[17.3] (17:9) Other suggestions like Constantinople or Jerusalem really do seem to be forced. Milligan for example thinks of empires - Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia and Greece, with Rome the sixth.

[17.4] (17:10) The early Roman Emperors were: -

Augustus 27BC - 14 AD

Tiberius 14AD - 37 AD

Caligula 37AD - 41 AD

Claudius 41AD - 54 AD

Nero 54AD - 68 AD

Galba 68AD

Otho 69AD

Vitellius 69AD

Vespasian 69AD-79 AD

Titus 79AD - 81 AD

Domitian 81AD - 96 AD

If it helped we could add Julius Caesar at the beginning of the list, although he was only Dictator, not Emperor, for a short period. But this is forced, and does not make Nero the seventh. We should leave out Galba, Otho and Vitellius, who each only survived a few months. We could perhaps leave out Augustus because his reign was looked back to as a golden age. That is the only way in which Domitian can be reckoned the seventh. But this is not necessary at all.

[17.5] (17:12) The efforts of Charlemagne and Napoleon - and even Hitler! to reunite Europe were short-lived.

[17.6] (17:14) It may help some people to think of this description of Christians as 'called, chosen and faithful' as a parallel to John's title of God - 'He Who is, Who was and Who is to come'. The Christian is now 'called'. That is present experience, parallel to 'He who is'. We argue back from the fact that we have been called, to the fact that we have also been 'chosen', just as we argue that if God now is, He always was. Because we know Him as Redeemer, we believe Him to be the Creator. And then we are faithful. That takes us into the future to meet with God 'Who is to come'.

[18.1] (18:1) Here again, Beasley Murray's description of this chapter is just right.

[18.2] (18:1) Richard Bauckham included 19:1-8 with this chapter. Perhaps the division should really come after 19:5. The oracle echoes all the Old Testament oracles against Babylon. There are Isaiah 13:1-14:23; Isaiah 21:1-10; Isaiah 47; Jeremiah 25:12-38; Jeremiah 50 and 51; and as regards 'Tyre'; Isaiah 23 and Ezekiel 26-28

However, even on this basis the passage does not fall into the familiar patterns of the Book.

1 verses 1-3 Announcement by another angel.

A verses 4-5 Intervention - God speaks to His people

2 verses 6-8 Call for retribution

3 verses 9-10 The lament of the Kings

4 verses 11-17 The lament of the merchants

5 verses 18-19 The nautical lament.

B verse 20 Intervention - preparatory to 19:1-4

6 verses 21-23(or 24?) - Final lament

7 Chapter 19:1-4 Heaven's rejoicing

The change from the prose of Chapter 17 to the poetic elegy of Chapter 18 is marked enough to prevent us looking to attach part of Chapter 17 to complete a structure in Chapter 18. Indeed, Chapter 17 has a unity of its own, with an introduction (1 and 2) and concluding explanations (15-18) bracketing the main section.

Only the threefold lament of kings, merchants and seafarers emerges from Chapter 18 to suggest that there should be something more there in the way of a pattern. And 19:1-4 should perhaps not be separated from verses 5-10, because in verse 11 John says: 'And I saw...' It is not that John does not see anything in the first part of the chapter. He sees the angel in verse 10. But 'And I saw...' is often a marker.

[18.3] (18:3) This interpretation is based on R.E.B.

[18.4] (18:13) Tacitus - page 353 in the Penguin edition of the 'Annals'.

[19.1] (19:1) Some people think that the use here of the word 'Hallelujah' indicated the conversion of the people of Israel. While I quite believe that all Israel will be converted at this time, the use of the word is not adequate to prove it.

[19.2] (Chapter 19 v 2) Some of the other verses on this subject are as follows: -

Deuteronomy 10:18; 24:17; Job 22:9; 24:3,21; Psalm 10:14,17,18; Psalm 68:5; Proverbs 23:10,11; Isaiah 1:17; Jeremiah 7:5,6; 22:3; Zechariah 7:9,10; Malachi 3:5.

The other part of the system in the Commonwealth of Israel was the duty of the Redeemer to protect his next-of-kin.

I feel these systems have something to commend them to developing societies.

[19.3] (19:7) We should be rather careful what we say about marriage customs, because the background to scripture extends over hundreds of years, many races and many places.

C.K.Barrett in 'The New Testament Background' (SPCK, London - revised edition, 1987), gives a contract of marriage at page 40 from 13BC. The parties have Greek names, but there is no religious content.

[19.4] (19:7) 'Righteous acts' is disputed as a translation. Leon Morris suggested ‘Sentence of justification’. More recently Webb Mealy suggested that the word here and elsewhere should be rendered 'valid legal claims'. Beasley Murray acknowledges the difficulty over the exact meaning of the word. And in addition there must be no idea of justification by works.

[19.5] (19:10) 'The testimony of Jesus' could of course mean the testimony which He bore to us during His earthly ministry. This does not seem to make good sense. R.E.B. has: 'For those who bear witness to Jesus have the spirit of prophecy', whereas its forerunner, N.E.B. rendered it: 'Those who bear testimony to Jesus are inspired like the prophets'. Beasley Murray's interpretation is 'that the testimony borne by Jesus is the concern or burden of the Spirit Who inspires prophecy'. Good News has: 'For the truth that Jesus revealed is what inspires the prophets' - which seems unduly loose.

[19.6] (19:11) So R Bauckham p 66. 'Twelve' is, perhaps, more meaningful than 'four' in Revelation. The precise meaning of four seems to be the penetration of God into every part of the world. The four living beings are thought to represent creation. Christ in these verses and the Holy Spirit also reach out to the whole of mankind. The idea is interesting but remains rather fragile and less than convincing. (See also 12:9 and 20:2). The number 3 in Revelation can be thought of as a triangle and in some cases it is a triangle which points upwards and in other cases it is a triangle which points down.

[19.7] (19:11). There may be some debate about the exact shade of meaning of these words. G.E.Ladd (p 253) says that the two words mean much the same '...the Hebrew idea of truth was not basically correspondence to reality as in Greek thought but reliability'. But is the background Hebrew or Greek?

[19.8] (19:13) The nameless figure of Isaiah 63:1 may be on horseback, swaying in the saddle, although it is usual to think of him swaying as he strides along. The picture here may remind us of the 'taurobolium' ritual, in which a bull was killed over a pit in which was a person seeking initiation into the cult of Mithras. They emerged with their clothing covered in blood. It is known that this ritual was used in the much older cult of the Great Mother when a priest was consecrated. Is it possible that the ritual was so ancient that Isaiah would have known of it? Certainly John could have known it. There is some uncertainty as to whether we should understand the clothing to be 'sprinkled' or 'soaked, dyed‘, red as with blood.

[19.9] (19:20) See Hemer, p 40 and notes 52 and 53 on page 260 for the suggestion that the picture of the lake of fire may be to do with the burial place at a lake beyond the river north of Sardis. The picture is not taken from the Old Testament. Otherwise we must think of the crater of an active volcano.

[19.10] (19:21) J.M.Court (p114) has a valuable quotation on this point from Gezer Vermes. Court says: 'Great care is needed, not only to describe the work of Christ in terms which Revelation uses, but also to allow for the thought world where the imagery is used.'

[20.1] (20:3) Some of the main Old Testament passages are Isaiah 2:1-4 (and Micah 4:1-3); Isaiah 65: 17-25; Ezekiel 48:30-35; Zechariah 8.

The connection between the Millennium of Chapter 20 and the Old Testament prophecies can be made through some Jewish apocalyptic writings, and was made also by some writers in the early church. John may well have been aware of the Jewish writers; but about the only clue he gives us is his reference to 'Gog and Magog'. This in itself is problematical because 'Gog and Magog' in Ezekiel 38 and 39 are usually thought to have to do with the battle of Armageddon prior to the Lord's Second coming, whereas here they are placed after the Millennium. Bauckham (p.108) argues that by restricting the meaning of the Millennium to the victory of the saints over the Beast we can avoid all the awkward questions. Yes, we can. But should we? Admittedly, the truth is usually simple.

[20.2] (20:3) Webb Mealy seems to take the view - for example on page 126 - that none of humanity will survive the Second Coming. Therefore the armies of Gog and Magog in verse 8 cannot be the descendants of survivors around the world. They can only be the 'risen' wicked dead.

Webb Mealy follows this up with a great deal of flimsy speculation, but it is curious to note that Dr. Gill in the Eighteenth Century found the same problem and solved it in a similar way in his 'Body of Divinity'.

'A little while' uses the same word for ‘time’, which the angel used in 10:6 when he said that there would be 'no more time'. So that verse cannot be taken to mean that time itself ends.

[20.3] (20:5) Knox, in a note in his version, disputes this conclusion.

[20.4] (20:7) This is another place - and a very important one! - where John uses the Greek word which originally meant 'whenever' rather that just 'when'. But it would be hard to argue for any other meaning than 'when' here.

[20.5] (20:9) The 'camp' with its military overtones is rather unexpected at this point. Should we think of the city, God's dwelling place, the successor to the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, with Messiah's army encamped by tribes (7:1-8) on its four sides?

[21.1] (21:1) Partly because of the distinction in meaning between the two Greek words for 'new' - one meaning 'newly made' and the other meaning 'fresh' - there is no agreement as to whether the meaning here is 'newly made' or 'fresh, renewed'. It is not certain, either, that the distinction between the two words was still observed in the Greek of the New Testament period. Beasley Murray discusses the issue (pp. 306-307) and prefers 'newly created, in the strictest sense of the term and that they replace a creation which has ceased to exist'. See also G.E.Ladd p 276, who hesitates. For the opposite point of view, see Lenski (pp 614-615)

[21.2] (21:5) Bauckham rightly remarks (p51) that where faith in God the Creator wanes, so does hope for resurrection, let alone the new creation of all things.

[21.3] (21:9) What Hemer says is important and, I believe, original enough to quote. 'A...relationship exists between the letters (of chapters 2 and 3) and the vision of the heavenly Jerusalem in Chapter 21 - 22. That city is set in implicit contrast with the imperfections of the seven actual earthly cities. The parallels are not in this case obtrusive or systematic....' (p. 16). It is a matter for regret that we can only use Dr Hemer's cross-references to gain an insight into what he had in mind. (See also p 44). I find a real relief in this approach to the imagery of the description of the heavenly city. Better men than me and better minds may develop the approach in more detail and more securely than I can.

Rosenthal (pp 286-292) discusses Chapters 2 and 3 in a way that I do not find helpful. He concedes that the seven messages were intended to deal with problems in real churches at that time. But then it seems he says: - 1. That Revelation is a prophetic book. 2. That all prophecy is predictive. 3. That there can be nothing in a prophetic book except predictive prophecy. 4. Therefore the seven messages to the churches must be predictive. In view of the link between the seven cities and the City of God, this argument loses much of such force as it has.

To me, none of this seems a proper way to handle the Word of God. Do we need 'a logical justification' for the inclusion of messages to the seven churches (p 288.) when they are as useful and profitable as any part of Revelation!

[21.4] (21:13) And of course Isaiah 49: 12 if we are prepared to accept that 'Sinim' there means China.

[21.5] (21:14) This would suit 4: 4 being interpreted as meaning that the 24 enthroned elders were the sons of Israel and the Apostles.

[21.6] (21:16) In my view, about the weakest point in Hemer's book is the suggestion that Philadelphia was laid out in the form of a square at a later date by Christians who were aware of this verse! It seems much more likely that John knew that the Philadelphia of his own day was in the form of a square. The underlying street plan can still be seen: archaeological excavations would be needed to settle the issue of the date of the layout.

[21.7] (21:17) The suggestion that the city was not a cube, but a step pyramid is quite a sensible one in the light of Middle Eastern culture: but the symbolism of the cube is lost.

[21.8] (21:19,20) There are two theories. One is that the list of gems is the same as that in Exodus 28: 15-21, where the gems mounted in the High Priest's breastplate are listed. The other is that they are the gem equivalents of the Signs of the Zodiac, but in reverse order. Neither of these views can be proved, although John would have been familiar enough with representations of the Zodiac in heathen cities.

[21.9] (21:19,20) I would only guess that the rich citizens of Laodicea who rebuilt the gates of the city after the great earthquake would each seek to build something bigger and better than the other man. Envy and pride would dictate this. But most of the gates have long since gone.

[21.10] (21:22) If this is a sequence starting at Smyrna, which goes round the cities and finishes at Ephesus (22:1-5) then John is at Laodicea at this point. No one seems to have much to say about heathen worship or the Imperial cult at Laodicea - the humanist city, the secular society. Nor is there any trace of false religion in the message to Laodicea (3:14 seq). Could it just be that among the great public buildings and mansions of Laodicea - John did not see a temple? (See S.E. Johnson in Biblical Archaeologist Reader 2. p 359).

[22.1] (22:2) The Greek of first part of verse 2 could mean one or two slightly different things. Perhaps for each gate there is an Avenue, and for each Avenue a stream. But it seems likely that the contrast is with the sluggish River Cayster at Ephesus, where the city seems to have been built only on the south bank.

[22.2] (22:2) Hemer is quite full on this subject. (pp 44-47). By their nature, the confused legends do not come together. But perhaps it comes to this. An Amazon - Hittite woman soldier - killed a wild pig under an oak or an elm. A wooden image was set up to commemorate this. When the meteorite fell, it left a depression and the shrine was moved there.

[22.3] (22:4) The verses which speak of the 'beatific vision' are: Psalm 27:8; Job 19:26; Psalm 11:7; Psalm 17:15; Psalm 42:2; Matthew 5:8; Hebrews 12:14; John 17:24; 1 John 3:2; 1 Corinthians 13:12 and perhaps 1 Peter 1:8.

[22.4] (22:16) When we cut a tree down, we usually leave a stump. This will often throw up new shoots. But in the East, 'the axe is laid to the root of the tree'. The stump is cut out along with the trunk. This leaves only the roots in the ground. These roots are much more likely to die without sending up new shoots. There is a further point here. 'Anatole' in the Greek Old Testament means both dawn (Luke 1:78) and a branch or shoot. The two ideas are placed together in this verse.

[22.5] (22:17) From 'Glory' by F W Bourne, Ambassador Productions Ltd, Belfast 1989.

[22.6] (22:17) 'He who can hear the voice of the church (the Bride) without raising his own is falling away from her' (Lenski). 'The Spirit of God in every Christian saith 'Come' and that is not in vain. The desires of the Spirit of God must be fulfilled'. (Sibbes)