Bible Commentary for Revelation Wesley's Notes for Revelation And the heathen nations were wroth - At the breaking out of the power and kingdom of God. This wrath of the heathens now rises to the highest pitch; but it meets the wrath of the Almighty, and melts away. In this verse is described both the going forth and the end of God's wrath, which together take up several ages. And the time of the dead is come - Both of the quick and dead, of whom those already dead are far the more numerous part.
That they be judged - This, being infallibly certain, they speak of as already present. Revelation YLT and the nations were angry, and Thine anger did come, and the time of the dead, to be judged, and to give the reward to Thy servants, to the prophets, and to the saints, and to those fearing Thy name, to the small and to the great, and to destroy those who are destroying the land. Chapter 11 The state of the church is represented under the figure of a temple measured.
The design of this measuring seems to be the preservation of the church in times of public danger; or for its trial, or for its reformation. The worshippers must be measured; whether they make God's glory their end, and his word their rule, in all their acts of worship. Those in the outer court, worship in a false manner, or with dissembling hearts, and will be found among his enemies.
God will have a temple and an altar in the world, till the end of time. He looks strictly to his temple. The holy city, the visible church, is trodden under foot; is filled with idolaters, infidels, and hypocrites.
But the desolations of the church are limited, and she shall be delivered out of all her troubles. Verses In the time of treading down, God kept his faithful witnesses to attest the truth of his word and worship, and the excellence of his ways, The number of these witnesses is small, yet enough. They prophesy in sackcloth. It shows their afflicted, persecuted state, and deep sorrow for the abominations against which they protested.
They are supported during their great and hard work, till it is done. When they had prophesied in sackcloth the greatest part of years, antichrist, the great instrument of the devil, would war against them, with force and violence for a time. Determined rebels against the light rejoice, as on some happy event, when they can silence, drive to a distance, or destroy the faithful servants of Christ, whose doctrine and conduct torment them. It does not appear that the term is yet expired, and the witnesses are not a present exposed to endure such terrible outward sufferings as in former times; but such things may again happen, and there is abundant cause to prophesy in sackcloth, on account of the state of religion.
The depressed state of real Christianity may relate only to the western church. The Spirit of life from God, quickens dead souls, and shall quicken the dead bodies of his people, and his dying interest in the world. The revival of God's work and witnesses, will strike terror into the souls of his enemies. Where there is guilt, there is fear; and a persecuting spirit, though cruel, is a cowardly spirit. It will be no small part of the punishment of persecutors, both in this world, and at the great day, that they see the faithful servants of God honoured and advanced.
The Lord's witnesses must not be weary of suffering and service, nor hastily grasp at the reward; but must stay till their Master calls them. The consequence of their being thus exalted was a mighty shock and convulsion in the antichristian empire.
Events alone can show the meaning of this. But whenever God's work and witnesses revive, the devil's work and witnesses fall before him. And that the slaying of the witnesses is future, appears to be probable. Verses Before the sounding of the seventh and last trumpet, there is the usual demand of attention. The saints and angels in heaven know the right of our God and Saviour to rule over all the world.
But the nations met God's wrath with their own anger. It was a time in which he was beginning to reward his people's faithful services, and sufferings; and their enemies fretted against God, and so increased their guilt, and hastened their destruction. By the opening the temple of God in heaven, may be meant, that there was a more free communication between heaven and earth; prayer and praises more freely and frequently going up, graces and blessings plentifully coming down.
But it rather seems to refer to the church of God on earth. In the reign of antichrist, God's law was laid aside, and made void by traditions and decrees; the Scriptures were locked up from the people, but now they are brought to the view of all. This, like the ark, is a token of the presence of God returned to his people, and his favour toward them in Jesus Christ, as the Propitiation for their sins. The great blessing of the Reformation was attended with very awful providences; as by terrible things in righteousness God answered the prayers presented in his holy temple now opened.
Revelation This eleventh chapter is a compendious summary of, and introduction to, the more detailed prophecies of the same events to come in the twelfth through twentieth chapters. Hence we find anticipatory allusions to the subsequent prophecies; compare Revelation , "the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit" not mentioned before , with the detailed accounts, Revelation Revelation , ; also Revelation , "the great city," with Revelation , Revelation Revelation , Supported by B and Syriac.
If it be omitted, the "reed" will, in construction, agree with "saying. The reed, the canon of Scripture, the measuring reed of the Church, our rule of faith, speaks. So in Revelation the altar is personified as speaking compare Note, 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. 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 1 Corinthians 1 Corinthians , where the same Greek word, " naos, " occurs for "temple," as here.
Literal Israel in Jerusalem, and with the temple restored Ezekiel Ezekiel , 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.
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 Revelation naos is used in a local sense; compare also Revelation Revelation , Revelation Revelation But -- Greek, "And.
It is not to be measured; whereas the Holy Place is. The same period as Daniel's "time, times, and half" Revelation ; and Revelation , and Revelation , the woman a fugitive in the wilderness "a thousand two hundred and threescore days. Some one of the epochs assigned by many may be right but as yet it is uncertain. The times of the Gentile monarchies during Israel's seven times punishment, will probably, in the narrower sense Revelation , be succeeded by the much more restricted times of the personal Antichrist's tyranny in the Holy Land.
The long years of papal misrule may be followed by the short time of the man of sin who shall concentrate in himself all the apostasy, persecution, and evil of the various forerunning Antichrists, Antiochus, Mohammed, Popery, just before Christ's advent. Witnessing churches may be followed by witnessing individuals, the former occupying the longer, the latter, the shorter period. The three and a half days being three and a half years of three hundred sixty days each, during which the two witnesses prophesy in sackcloth is the sacred number seven halved, implying the Antichristian world-power's time is broken at best; it answers to the three and a half years' period in which Christ witnessed for the truth, and the Jews, His own people, disowned Him, and the God-opposed world power crucified Him compare Note, three and a half, in a word, marks the time in which the earthly rules over the heavenly kingdom.
It was the duration of Antiochus' treading down of the temple and persecution of faithful Israelites. The resurrection of the witnesses after three and a half days, answers to Christ's resurrection after three days.
The world power's times never reach the sacred fulness of seven times three hundred sixty, that is, , though they approach to it in Daniel The forty-two months answer to Israel's forty-two sojournings Numbers in the wilderness, as contrasted with the sabbatic rest in Canaan: reminding the Church that here, in the world wilderness, she cannot look for her sabbatic rest.
Also, three and a half years was the period of the heaven being shut up, and of consequent famine, in Elias' time. Thus, three and a half represented to the Church the idea of toil, pilgrimage, and persecution. I will give power --There is no "power" in the Greek, so that "give" must mean "give commission, " or some such word. They are described by symbol as "the two olive trees" and "the two candlesticks," or lamp-stands, "standing before the God of the earth.
So in the final apostasy God will raise up two inspired witnesses to minister encouragement to the afflicted, though sealed, remnant. As two candlesticks are mentioned in Revelation , but only one in Zechariah , I think the twofold Church, Jewish and Gentile, may be meant by the two candlesticks represented by the two witnesses: just as in Revelation there are described first the sealed of Israel, then those of all nations.
But those of Moses when witnessing for God against Pharaoh the type of Antichrist, the last and greatest foe of Israel , turning the waters into blood, and smiting with plagues; and of Elijah the witness for God in an almost universal apostasy of Israel, a remnant of seven thousand, however, being left, as the , sealed, Revelation causing fire by his word to devour the enemy, and shutting heaven, so that it rained not for three years and six months, the very time days during which the two witnesses prophesy.
Moreover, the words "witness" and "prophesy" are usually applied to individuals, not to abstractions compare Psalms Moses and Elijah appeared with Christ at the Transfiguration, which foreshadowed His coming millennial kingdom. As to Moses, compare Deuteronomy Deuteronomy , Jude Many of the early Church thought the two witnesses to be Enoch and Elijah.
This would avoid the difficulty of the dying a second time, for these have never yet died; but, perhaps, shall be the witnesses slain. Still, the turning the water to blood, and the plagues Revelation , apply best to " Moses compare Revelation , the song of Moses ".
The transfiguration glory of Moses and Elias was not their permanent resurrection-state, which shall not be till Christ shall come to glorify His saints, for He has precedence before all in rising. An objection to this interpretation is that those blessed departed servants of God would have to submit to death Revelation Revelation , and this in Moses' case a second time, which Hebrews denies.
The Holy Spirit is the oil in them. Christ's witnesses, in remarkable times of the Church's history, have generally appeared in pairs: as Moses and Aaron, the inspired civil and religious authorities; Caleb and Joshua; Ezekiel the priest and Daniel the prophet; Zerubbabel and Joshua.
Their very exterior aspect accorded with their teachings: so Elijah, and John who came in His spirit and power. And the nations were angry; and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that Thou shouldest give reward unto Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints and them that fear Thy name, small and great, and shouldest destroy them that destroy the earth. And the nations were wroth, and thy wrath came, and the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, the small and the great; and to destroy them that destroy the earth.
And the heathen the nations raged, but Your wrath retribution, indignation came, the time when the dead will be judged and Your servants the prophets and saints rewarded—and those who revere fear Your name, both low and high and small and great—and [the time] for destroying the corrupters of the earth.
And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. The nations were angry, but your wrath has come. The time has come for the dead to be judged and to give the reward to your servants the prophets, to the saints, and to those who fear your name, both small and great, and the time has come to destroy those who destroy the earth.
The nations were enraged, but your wrath came. The time came for the dead to be judged. The time came to reward your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.
But now your rage has come, the time for the dead to be judged, the time for rewarding your servants the prophets and your holy people, those who stand in awe of your name, both small and great. It is also the time for destroying those who destroy the earth. When the nations got angry, you became angry too!
Now the time has come for the dead to be judged. It is time for you to reward your servants the prophets and all of your people who honor your name, no matter who they are.
It is time to destroy everyone who has destroyed the earth. And the nations have been full of wrath, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead to be judged, and to give the recompense to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to those who fear thy name, small and great; and to destroy those that destroy the earth. And the nations became-angry. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest render reward to thy servants the prophets and the saints, and to them that fear thy name, little and great, and shouldest destroy them who have corrupted the earth.
The people of the world were angry, but now is the time for your anger. Now is the time for the dead to be judged. It is time to reward your servants, the prophets, and to reward your holy people, the people, great and small, who respect you. It is time to destroy those people who destroy the earth! The nations were angry, and your anger has come. And the time has come when the dead are to be judged, and when you will give the reward to your servants the prophets and to your saints, namely, to those who fear your name, the small and the great, and when you will destroy those who destroy the earth.
The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth. The time has come to judge the dead [Dan.
The time has come to destroy those who destroy the earth! And the Gentiles were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the Prophets, and to thy Saints, and to them that fear thy Name, to small and great, and shouldest destroy them, which destroy the earth.
The time has come for the dead to be judged: to reward your servants, the prophets, your holy people, and those who fear your name, no matter if they are important or unimportant, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.
The heathen were filled with rage, because the time for your anger has come, the time for the dead to be judged. The time has come to reward your servants, the prophets, and all your people, all who have reverence for you, great and small alike. The nations were angry, but Your wrath has come. The time has come for the dead to be judged and to give the reward to Your servants the prophets, to the saints, and to those who fear Your name, both small and great, and the time has come to destroy those who destroy the earth.
The people of the world were angry; but now is the time for your anger. It is time to reward your servants the prophets and to reward your holy people, all who respect you, great and small.
It is time to destroy those who destroy the earth! The nations were angry, but the time for your wrath has come.
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