Revelation 11:14 Komentář

In this chapter we have an account, I. Of the measuring - reed given to the apostle, to take the dimensions of the temple (Rev 11:1, Rev 11:2). II. Of the two witnesses of God (Rev 11:3-13). III. Of the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and what followed upon it (Rev 11:14, etc.).

We have here the sounding of the seventh and last trumpet, which is ushered in by the usual warning and demand of attention: The second woe is past, and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly. Then the seventh angel sounded. This had been suspended for some time, till the apostle had been made acquainted with some intervening occurrences of very great moment, and worthy of his notice and observation. But what he before expected he now heard - the seventh angel sounding. Here observe the effects and consequences of this trumpet, thus sounded. I. Here were loud and joyful acclamations of the saints and angels in heaven. Observe, 1. The manner of their adorations: they rose from their seats, and fell upon their faces, and worshipped God; they did it with reverence and humility. 2. The matter of their adorations. (1.) They thankfully recognize the right of our God and Saviour to rule and reign over all the world: The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, Rev 11:15. They were always so in title, both by creation and purchase. (2.) They thankfully observe his actual possession of them, and reign over them; they give him thanks because he had taken to him his great power, asserted his rights, exerted his power, and so turned title into possession. (3.) They rejoice that this his reign shall never end: He shall reign for ever and ever, till all enemies be put under his feet; none shall ever wrest the sceptre out of his hand. II. Here were angry resentments in the world at these just appearances and actings of the power of God (Rev 11:18): The nations were angry; not only had been so, but were so still: their hearts rose up against God; they met his wrath with their own anger. It was a time when God was taking a just revenge upon the enemies of his people, recompensing tribulation to those who had troubled them. It was a time in which he was beginning to reward his people's faithful services and sufferings; and their enemies could not bear it, they fretted against God, and so increased their guilt and hastened their destruction. III. Another consequence was the opening of the temple of God in heaven. By this may be meant that here is now a more free communication between heaven and earth, prayer and praises more freely and frequently ascending and graces and blessings plentifully descending. But it rather seems to intend the church of God on earth, a heavenly temple. It is an allusion to the various circumstances of things in the time of the first temple. Under idolatrous and wicked princes, it was shut up and neglected; but, under religious and reforming princes, it was opened and frequented. So, during the power of antichrist, the temple of God seemed to be shut up, and was so in a great degree; but now it was opened again. At this opening of it observe, 1. What was seen there: the ark of God's testament. This was in the holy of holies; in this ark the tables of the law were kept. As before Josiah's time the law of God had been lost, but was then found, so in the reign of antichrist God's law was laid aside, and made void by their traditions and decrees; the scriptures were locked up from the people, and they must not look into these divine oracles; now they are opened, now they are brought to the view of all. This was an unspeakable and invaluable privilege; and this, like the ark of the testament, was a token of the presence of God returned to his people, and his favour towards them in Jesus Christ the propitiation. 2. What was heard and felt there: Lightnings, voices, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail. The great blessing of the reformation was attended with very awful providences; and by terrible things in righteousness God would answer those prayers that were presented in his holy temple, now opened. All the great revolutions of the world are concerted in heaven, and are the answers of the prayers of the saints.

INTRODUCTION TO REVELATION 11 This chapter contains the order to measure the temple of God; an account of the two witnesses, their prophesying: and power, their slaying, resurrection, and ascension to heaven, with what followed upon it; and the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and the effects of that. A measuring rod is given to John, with an order to rise and measure the temple, altar, and worshippers, and to leave out the outer court, which was to be given to the Gentiles, who tread the holy city under foot forty and two months, Rev 11:1, the same date with the 1260 days the witnesses prophesy in sackcloth, Rev 11:3, who are compared to two olive trees and to two candlesticks, and are said to stand before God, Rev 11:4, and who are further described by their power to destroy those that hurt them with fire that proceeds out of their mouths; to shut the heaven, that it rain not during their prophecy; to turn water into blood, and smite the earth with all manner of plagues at pleasure, Rev 11:5; but when the time of their prophecy and testimony is expired, their enemies will have the advantage of them; the antichristian beast of Rome, described by the place of his ascent, the bottomless pit, will fight against them, overcome, and kill them; their dead bodies will be exposed publicly within the Roman jurisdiction, and not suffered to be interred; and their enemies will make a public and general rejoicing over them, Rev 11:7; but after a short space of time they will revive, and stand upon their feet, to the surprise of all spectators; and being invited by a voice from heaven, will ascend thither, in the sight of their enemies; upon which will be an earthquake, in which the tenth part of the city of Rome will fall, and seven thousand men be slain; which will cause consternation in the rest, and put them upon giving glory to God, Rev 11:11; and this will put an end to the second woe, and the third will quickly follow, Rev 11:14, which is the sounding of the seventh trumpet; the effects of which are, voices heard in heaven, declaring that the kingdoms of the world are become Christ's, and that he shall reign for ever and ever, Rev 11:15; upon which the four and twenty elders, that sat on their seats before God, congratulate him, worship, and give thanks unto him, at the Lord God Almighty and eternal; partly because of his visible power and kingdom he now takes to himself; and partly because the time of avenging his people that had suffered for him upon the nations, which makes them angry, was now come; as also because now would be given rewards to all his prophets, saints, and those that feared him, as well as antichrist and his followers would be destroyed, Rev 11:16; and other effects of this trumpet are, the opening of the temple of God in heaven, a sight of the ark of the testament, lightnings, voices, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail, Rev 11:9.

The second woe is past,.... Not in John's time, only in a visionary way; the meaning is, that the second woe trumpet, which is the sixth, will now have done sounding, when the four angels, bound in the river Euphrates, shall have been loosed, and they, with their horsemen, shall have done what they were designed to do; when the two witnesses shall have been slain, and are raised again, and ascended to heaven; and the things attending, or following thereon, as the earthquake, and slaughter, and the conversions of men, are accomplished. And behold the third woe cometh quickly; immediately, upon the passing of the other; namely, the sounding of the seventh trumpet, as follows.

Since all things are clearly evident and destined to occur perceptibly at that time, it is excessive to dwell on what has been acknowledged.

The second woe is past, and behold, the third woe comes quickly. This second woe pertains not to recapitulation but to the battle of the horses stirred by the trumpet of the sixth angel. For the eagle had predicted three woes from the voices of the three trumpets yet to come. But there, he did not say that the third would immediately follow, which pertains to the seventh angel and the end.

The second woe is past: behold the third woe cometh quickly. This is the end of the double recapitulation, but the second woe does not belong to this recapitulation. Indeed it had been said earlier, after the battle with the locusts was finished, that one woe was past and two were to come; then, when all that pertained to the second woe had been told (with the loosing of the four angels etc.) the second woe was not mentioned again. The reason for this is that there followed the recapitulation starting from Christ's coming, and he did not want us to think, if The second woe is past had been said there, that the third woe referred to the recapitulation. Therefore the second woe does not refer to this passage, but to the one above: the recapitulation that broke the order being finished, the second woe is mentioned with reference to where the order was broken. As for what the third woe is, it is disclosed when it is said after that:

The command to measure the temple, Rev 11:1, Rev 11:2. The two witnesses which should prophesy twelve hundred and sixty days, Rev 11:3. The description, power, and influence of these witnesses, Rev 11:4-6. They shall be slain by the beast which shall arise out of the bottomless pit, and shall arise again after three days and a half, and ascend to heaven, Rev 11:7-12. After which shall be a great earthquake, Rev 11:13. The introduction to the third wo, Rev 11:14. The sounding of the seventh angel, and the four and twenty elders give glory to God, Rev 11:15-19.

The seconds wo is past - That which took place under the sixth trumpet, and has been already described. The third wo cometh - Is about to be described under the seventh trumpet, which the angel is now prepared to sound. Of the three woes which were denounced, Rev 8:13, the first is described, Rev 9:1-12; the second, Rev 9:13-21. These woes are supposed by many learned men to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem. The first wo - the seditions among the Jews themselves. The second wo - the besieging of the city by the Romans. The third wo - the taking and sacking of the city, and burning the temple. This was the greatest of all the woes, as in it the city and temple were destroyed, and nearly a million of men lost their lives.

MEASUREMENT OF THE TEMPLE. THE TWO WITNESSES' TESTIMONY: THEIR DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND ASCENSION: THE EARTHQUAKE: THE THIRD WOE: THE SEVENTH TRUMPET USHERS IN CHRIST'S KINGDOM. THANKSGIVING OF THE TWENTY-FOUR ELDERS. (Rev. 11:1-19) and the angel stood--omitted in A, Vulgate, and Coptic. Supported by B and Syriac. If it be omitted, the "reed" will, in construction, agree with "saying." So WORDSWORTH takes it. The reed, the canon of Scripture, the measuring reed of the Church, our rule of faith, speaks. So in Rev 16:7 the altar is personified as speaking (compare Note, see on Rev 16:7). The Spirit speaks in the canon of Scripture (the word canon is derived from Hebrew, "kaneh," "a reed," the word here used; and John it was who completed the canon). So VICTORINUS, AQUINAS, and VITRINGA. "Like a rod," namely, straight: like a rod of iron (Rev 2:27), unbending, destroying all error, and that "cannot be broken." Rev 2:27; Heb 1:8, Greek, "a rod of straightness," English Version, "a scepter of righteousness"; this is added to guard against it being thought that the reed was one "shaken by the wind" In the abrupt style of the Apocalypse, "saying" is possibly indefinite, put for "one said." Still WORDSWORTH'S view agrees best with Greek. So the ancient commentator, ANDREAS OF CÆSAREA, in the end of the fifth century (compare Notes, see on Rev 11:3-4). the temple--Greek, "naon" (as distinguished from the Greek, "hieron," or temple in general), the Holy Place, "the sanctuary." the altar--of incense; for it alone was in "the sanctuary." (Greek, "naos"). The measurement of the Holy place seems to me to stand parallel to the sealing of the elect of Israel under the sixth seal. God's elect are symbolized by the sanctuary at Jerusalem (Co1 3:16-17, where the same Greek word, "naos," occurs for "temple," as here). Literal Israel in Jerusalem, and with the temple restored (Eze 40:3, Eze 40:5, where also the temple is measured with the measuring reed, the forty-first, forty-second, forty-third, and forty-fourth chapters), shall stand at the head of the elect Church. The measuring implies at once the exactness of the proportions of the temple to be restored, and the definite completeness (not one being wanting) of the numbers of the Israelite and of the Gentile elections. The literal temple at Jerusalem shall be the typical forerunner of the heavenly Jerusalem, in which there shall be all temple, and no portion exclusively set apart as temple. John's accurately drawing the distinction in subsequent chapters between God's servants and those who bear the mark of the beast, is the way whereby he fulfils the direction here given him to measure the temple. The fact that the temple is distinguished from them that worship therein, favors the view that the spiritual temple, the Jewish and Christian Church, is not exclusively meant, but that the literal temple must also be meant. It shall be rebuilt on the return of the Jews to their land. Antichrist shall there put forward his blasphemous claims. The sealed elect of Israel, the head of the elect Church, alone shall refuse his claims. These shall constitute the true sanctuary which is here measured, that is, accurately marked and kept by God, whereas the rest shall yield to his pretensions. WORDSWORTH objects that, in the twenty-five passages of the Acts, wherein the Jewish temple is mentioned, it is called hieron, not naos, and so in the apostolic Epistles; but this is simply because no occasion for mentioning the literal Holy Place (Greek, "naos") occurs in Acts and the Epistles; indeed, in Act 7:48, though not directly, there does occur the term, naos, indirectly referring to the Jerusalem temple Holy Place. In addressing Gentile Christians, to whom the literal Jerusalem temple was not familiar, it was to be expected the term, naos, should not be found in the literal, but in the spiritual sense. In Rev 11:19 naos is used in a local sense; compare also Rev 14:15, Rev 14:17; Rev 15:5, Rev 15:8.

The second woe--that under the sixth trumpet (Rev 9:12-21), including also the prophecy, Rev 11:1-13 : Woe to the world, joy to the faithful, as their redemption draweth nigh. the third woe cometh quickly--It is not mentioned in detail for the present, until first there is given a sketch of the history of the origination, suffering, and faithfulness of the Church in a time of apostasy and persecution. Instead of the third woe being detailed, the grand consummation is summarily noticed, the thanksgiving of the twenty-four elders in heaven for the establishment of Christ's kingdom on earth, attended with the destruction of the destroyers of the earth.