--- title: "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible" author: "Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown" languages: [en] shelf: "Commentaries" section: 912 of 927 url: https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/912/ cite: "Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, section 912. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/912/" --- # Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible *Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown* The Victorian standard commentary, critical and practical, from Genesis to Revelation. ## 912. Revelation · 18 of 33 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/912/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/912/#p-N [¶0] war in heaven--What a seeming contradiction in terms, yet true! Contrast the blessed result of Christ's triumph, [Lu 19:38], "peace in heaven." [Col 1:20], "made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; whether ... things in earth, or things in heaven." [¶1] Michael and his angels ... the dragon ... and his angels--It was fittingly ordered that, as the rebellion arose from unfaithful angels and their leader, so they should be encountered and overcome by faithful angels and their archangel, in heaven. On earth they are fittingly encountered, and shall be overcome, as represented by the beast and false prophet, by the Son of man and His armies of human saints ([Re 19:14-21]). The conflict on earth, as in [Da 10:13], has its correspondent conflict of angels in heaven. Michael is peculiarly the prince, or presiding angel, of the Jewish nation. The conflict in heaven, though judicially decided already against Satan from the time of Christ's resurrection and ascension, receives its actual completion in the execution of judgment by the angels who cast out Satan from heaven. From Christ's ascension he has no standing-ground judicially against the believing elect. [Lu 10:18], "I beheld (in the earnest of the future full fulfilment given in the subjection of the demons to the disciples) Satan as lightning fall from heaven." As Michael fought before with Satan about the body of the mediator of the old covenant (Jude 9), so now the mediator of the new covenant, by offering His sinless body in sacrifice, arms Michael with power to renew and finish the conflict by a complete victory. That Satan is not yet actually and finally cast out of heaven, though the judicial sentence to that effect received its ratification at Christ's ascension, appears from [Ep 6:12], "spiritual wickedness in high (Greek, 'heavenly') places." This is the primary Church-historical sense here. But, through Israel's unbelief, Satan has had ground against that, the elect nation, appearing before God as its accuser. At the eve of its restoration, in the ulterior sense, his standing-ground in heaven against Israel, too, shall be taken from him, "the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem" rebuking him, and casting him out from heaven actually and for ever by Michael, the prince, or presiding angel of the Jews. Thus [Zec 3:1-9] is strictly parallel, Joshua, the high priest, being representative of his nation Israel, and Satan standing at God's fight hand as adversary to resist Israel's justification. Then, and not till then, fully ([Re 12:10], "NOW," &c.) shall ALL things be reconciled unto Christ IN HEAVEN ([Col 1:20]), and there shall be peace in heaven ([Lu 19:38]). [¶2] against--A, B, and C read, "with." [¶3] 8. prevailed not--A and Coptic read, "He prevailed not." But B and C read as English Version. [¶4] neither--A, B, and C read, "not even" (Greek, "oude"): a climax. Not only did they not prevail, but not even their place was found any more in heaven. There are four gradations in the ever deeper downfall of Satan: (1) He is deprived of his heavenly excellency, though having still access to heaven as man's accuser, up to Christ's first coming. As heaven was not fully yet opened to man ([Joh 3:13]), so it was not yet shut against Satan and his demons. The Old Testament dispensation could not overcome him. (2) From Christ, down to the millennium, he is judicially cast out of heaven as the accuser of the elect, and shortly before the millennium loses his power against Israel, and has sentence of expulsion fully executed on him and his by Michael. His rage on earth is consequently the greater, his power being concentrated on it, especially towards the end, when "he knoweth that he hath but a short time" ([Re 12:12]). () He is bound during the millennium ([Re 20:1-3). (4]) After having been loosed for a while, he is cast for ever into the lake of fire. [¶5] 9. that old serpent--alluding to [Ge 3:1], . [¶6] Devil--the Greek, for "accuser," or "slanderer." [¶7] Satan--the Hebrew for "adversary," especially in a court of justice. The twofold designation, Greek and Hebrew, marks the twofold objects of his accusations and temptations, the elect Gentiles and the elect Jews. [¶8] world--Greek, "habitable world." [¶9] 10. Now--Now that Satan has been cast out of heaven. Primarily fulfilled in part at Jesus' resurrection and ascension, when He said ([Mt 28:18]), "All power [Greek, 'exousia,' 'authority,' as here; see below] is given unto Me in heaven and in earth"; connected with [Re 12:5], "Her child was caught up unto God and to His throne." In the ulterior sense, it refers to the eve of Christ's second coming, when Israel is about to be restored as mother-church of Christendom, Satan, who had resisted her restoration on the ground of her unworthiness, having been cast out by the instrumentality of Michael, Israel's angelic prince (see on [Re 12:7]). Thus this is parallel, and the necessary preliminary to the glorious event similarly expressed, [Re 11:15], "The kingdom of this world is become (the very word here, Greek, 'egeneto,' 'is come,' 'hath come to pass') our Lord's and His Christ's," the result of Israel's resuming her place. [¶10] salvation, &c.--Greek, "the salvation (namely, fully, finally, and victoriously accomplished, [He 9:28]; compare [Lu 3:6], yet future; hence, not till now do the blessed raise the fullest hallelujah for salvation to the Lamb, [Re 7:10]; ) the power (Greek, 'dunamis'), and the authority (Greek, 'exousia'; 'legitimate power'; see above) of His Christ." [¶11] accused them before our God day and night--Hence the need that the oppressed Church, God's own elect (like the widow, continually coming, so as even to weary the unjust judge), should cry day and night unto Him. [¶12] 11. they--emphatic in the Greek. "They" in particular. They and they alone. They were the persons who overcame. [¶13] overcame--([Ro 8:33], 34, 37; ). [¶14] him--([1Jo 2:14], ). It is the same victory (a peculiarly Johannean phrase) over Satan and the world which the Gospel of John describes in the life of Jesus, his Epistle in the life of each believer, and his Apocalypse in the life of the Church. [¶15] by, &c.--Greek (dia to haima; accusative, not genitive case, as English Version would require, compare [He 9:12]), "on account of (on the ground of) the blood of the Lamb"; "because of"; on account of and by virtue of its having been shed. Had that blood not been shed, Satan's accusations would have been unanswerable; as it is, that blood meets every charge. Schottgen mentions the Rabbinical tradition that Satan accuses men all days of the year, except the day of atonement. Tittmann takes the Greek "dia," as it often means, out of regard to the blood of the Lamb; this was the impelling cause which induced them to undertake the contest for the sake of it; but the view given above is good Greek, and more in accordance with the general sense of Scripture. [¶16] by the word of their testimony--Greek, "on account of the word of their testimony." On the ground of their faithful testimony, even unto death, they are constituted victors. Their testimony evinced their victory over him by virtue of the blood of the Lamb. Hereby they confess themselves worshippers of the slain Lamb and overcome the beast, Satan's representative; an anticipation of [Re 15:2], "them that had gotten the victory over the beast" (compare [Re 13:15], ). [¶17] unto--Greek, "achri," "even as far as." They carried their not-love of life as far as even unto death. [¶18] 12. Therefore--because Satan is cast out of heaven ([Re 12:9]). [¶19] dwell--literally, "tabernacle." Not only angels and the souls of the just with God, but also the faithful militant on earth, who already in spirit tabernacle in heaven, having their home and citizenship there, rejoice that Satan is cast out of their home. "Tabernacle" for dwell is used to mark that, though still on the earth, they in spirit are hidden "in the secret of God's tabernacle." They belong not to the world, and, therefore, exult in judgment having been passed on the prince of this world. [¶20] the inhabiters of--So Andreas reads. But A, B, and C omit. The words probably, were inserted from [Re 8:13]. [¶21] is come down--rather as Greek, "catebee," "is gone down"; John regarding the heaven as his standing-point of view whence he looks down on the earth. [¶22] unto you--earth and sea, with their inhabitants; those who lean upon, and essentially belong to, the earth (contrast [Joh 3:7], Margin, with [Joh 3:31]; ; 1Jo+4:5; [Php 3:19], John 4:5) and its sea-like troubled politics. Furious at his expulsion from heaven, and knowing that his time on earth is short until he shall be cast down lower, when Christ shall come to set up His kingdom ([Re 20:1], 2), Satan concentrates all his power to destroy as many souls as he can. Though no longer able to accuse the elect in heaven, he can tempt and persecute on earth. The more light becomes victorious, the greater will be the struggles of the powers of darkness; whence, at the last crisis, Antichrist will manifest himself with an intensity of iniquity greater than ever before. [¶23] short time--Greek, "kairon," "season": opportunity for his assaults. [¶24] 13. Resuming from [Re 12:6] the thread of the discourse, which had been interrupted by the episode, [Re 12:7-12] (giving in the invisible world the ground of the corresponding conflict between light and darkness in the visible world), this verse accounts for her flight into the wilderness ([Re 12:6]). [¶25] 14. were given--by God's determinate appointment, not by human chances ([Ac 9:11]). [¶26] two--Greek, "the two wings of the great eagle." Alluding to [Ex 19:4]: proving that the Old Testament Church, as well as the New Testament Church, is included in "the woman." All believers are included ([Is 40:30], ). The great eagle is the world power; in [Eze 17:3], , Babylon and Egypt: in early Church history, Rome, whose standard was the eagle, turned by God's providence from being hostile into a protector of the Christian Church. As "wings" express remote parts of the earth, the two wings may here mean the east and west divisions of the Roman empire. [¶27] wilderness--the land of the heathen, the Gentiles: in contrast to Canaan, the pleasant and glorious land. God dwells in the glorious land; demons (the rulers of the heathen world, [Re 9:20]; [1Co 10:20]), in the wilderness. Hence Babylon is called the desert of the sea, [Is 21:1-10] (referred to also in [Re 14:8]; ). Heathendom, in its essential nature, being without God, is a desolate wilderness. Thus, the woman's flight into the wilderness is the passing of the kingdom of God from the Jews to be among the Gentiles (typified by Mary's flight with her child from Judea into Egypt). The eagle flight is from Egypt into the wilderness. The Egypt meant is virtually stated ([Re 11:8]) to be Jerusalem, which has become spiritually so by crucifying our Lord. Out of her the New Testament Church flees, as the Old Testament Church out of the literal Egypt; and as the true Church subsequently is called to flee out of Babylon (the woman become an harlot, that is, the Church become apostate) [Auberlen]. [¶28] her place--the chief seat of the then world empire, Rome. The Acts of the Apostles describe the passing of the Church from Jerusalem to Rome. The Roman protection was the eagle wing which often shielded Paul, the great instrument of this transmigration, and Christianity, from Jewish opponents who stirred up the heathen mobs. By degrees the Church had "her place" more and more secure, until, under Constantine, the empire became Christian. Still, all this Church-historical period is regarded as a wilderness time, wherein the Church is in part protected, in part oppressed, by the world power, until just before the end the enmity of the world power under Satan shall break out against the Church worse than ever. As Israel was in the wilderness forty years, and had forty-two stages in her journey, so the Church for forty-two months, three and a half years or times [literally, seasons, used for years in Hellenistic Greek (Moeris, the Atticist), Greek, "kairous," [Da 7:25]; ], or 1260 days ([Re 12:6]) between the overthrow of Jerusalem and the coming again of Christ, shall be a wilderness sojourner before she reaches her millennial rest (answering to Canaan of old). It is possible that, besides this Church-historical fulfilment, there may be also an ulterior and narrower fulfilment in the restoration of Israel to Palestine, Antichrist for seven times (short periods analogical to the longer ones) having power there, for the former three and a half times keeping covenant with the Jews, then breaking it in the midst of the week, and the mass of the nation fleeing by a second Exodus into the wilderness, while a remnant remains in the land exposed to a fearful persecution (the "144,000 sealed of Israel," Re 7:1-8; 14:1, standing with the Lamb, after the conflict is over, on Mount Zion: "the first-fruits" of a large company to be gathered to Him) [De Burgh]. These details are very conjectural. In [Da 7:25]; , the subject, as perhaps here, is the time of Israel's calamity. That seven times do not necessarily mean seven years, in which each day is a year, that is, 2520 years, appears from Nebuchadnezzar's seven times ([Da 4:23]), answering to Antichrist, the beast's duration. [¶29] 15-16. flood--Greek, "river" (compare [Ex 2:3]; [Mt 2:20]; and especially [Ex 14:1-31]). The flood, or river, is the stream of Germanic tribes which, pouring on Rome, threatened to destroy Christianity. But the earth helped the woman, by swallowing up the flood. The earth, as contradistinguished from water, is the world consolidated and civilized. The German masses were brought under the influence of Roman civilization and Christianity [Auberlen]. Perhaps it includes also, generally, the help given by earthly powers (those least likely, yet led by God's overruling providence to give help) to the Church against persecutions and also heresies, by which she has been at various times assailed. [¶30] 17. wroth with--Greek, "at." [¶31] went--Greek, "went away." [¶32] the remnant of her seed--distinct in some sense from the woman herself. Satan's first effort was to root out the Christian Church, so that there should be no visible profession of Christianity. Foiled in this, he wars ([Re 11:7]; ) against the invisible Church, namely, "those who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus" (A, B, and C omit "Christ"). These are "the remnant," or rest of her seed, as distinguished from her seed, "the man-child" ([Re 12:5]), on one hand, and from mere professors on the other. The Church, in her beauty and unity (Israel at the head of Christendom, the whole forming one perfect Church), is now not manifested, but awaiting the manifestations of the sons of God at Christ's coming. Unable to destroy Christianity and the Church as a whole, Satan directs his enmity against true Christians, the elect remnant: the others he leaves unmolested. ### Chapter 13 ### Re 13:1-18. Vision of the Beast that Came Out of the Sea: The Second Beast, Out of the Earth, Exercising the Power of the First Beast, and Causing the Earth to Worship Him [¶35] 1. I stood--So B, Aleph, and Coptic read. But A, C, Vulgate, and Syriac, "He stood." Standing on the sand of the sea, HE gave his power to the beast that rose out of the sea. [¶36] upon the sand of the sea--where the four winds were to be seen striving upon the great sea ([Da 7:2]). [¶37] beast--Greek, "wild beast." Man becomes "brutish" when he severs himself from God, the archetype and true ideal, in whose image he was first made, which ideal is realized by the man Christ Jesus. Hence, the world powers seeking their own glory, and not God's, are represented as beasts; and Nebuchadnezzar, when in self-deification he forgot that "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men," was driven among the beasts. In [Da 7:4-7] there are four beasts: here the one beast expresses the sum-total of the God-opposed world power viewed in its universal development, not restricted to one manifestation alone, as Rome. This first beast expresses the world power attacking the Church more from without; the second, which is a revival of, and minister to, the first, is the world power as the false prophet corrupting and destroying the Church from within. [¶38] out of the sea--([Da 7:3]; compare Note, see on [Re 8:8]); out of the troubled waves of peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues. The earth ([Re 13:11]), on the other hand, means the consolidated, ordered world of nations, with its culture and learning. [¶39] seven heads and ten horns--A, B, and C transpose, "ten horns and seven heads." The ten horns are now put first (contrast the order, [Re 12:3]) because they are crowned. They shall not be so till the last stage of the fourth kingdom (the Roman), which shall continue until the fifth kingdom, Christ's, shall supplant it and destroy it utterly; this last stage is marked by the ten toes of the two feet of the image in [Da 2:33], 41, 42. The seven implies the world power setting up itself as God, and caricaturing the seven Spirits of God; yet its true character as God-opposed is detected by the number ten accompanying the seven. Dragon and beast both wear crowns, but the former on the heads, the latter on the horns ([Re 12:3]; ). Therefore, both heads and horns refer to kingdoms; compare [Re 17:7], 10, 12, "kings" representing the kingdoms whose heads they are. The seven kings, as peculiarly powerful--the great powers of the world--are distinguished from the ten, represented by the horns (simply called "kings," [Re 17:12]). In Daniel, the ten mean the last phase of the world power, the fourth kingdom divided into ten parts. They are connected with the seventh head ([Re 17:12]), and are as yet future [Auberlen]. The mistake of those who interpret the beast to be Rome exclusively, and the ten horns to mean kingdoms which have taken the place of Rome in Europe already, is, the fourth kingdom in the image has TWO legs, representing the eastern as well as the western empire; the ten toes are not upon the one foot (the west), as these interpretations require, but on the two (east and west) together, so that any theory which makes the ten kingdoms belong to the west alone must err. If the ten kingdoms meant were those which sprung up on the overthrow of Rome, the ten would be accurately known, whereas twenty-eight different lists are given by so many interpreters, making in all sixty-five kingdoms! [Tyso in De Burgh]. The seven heads are the seven world monarchies, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, the Germanic empire, under the last of which we live [Auberlen], and which devolved for a time on Napoleon, after Francis, emperor of Germany and king of Rome, had resigned the title in 1806. Faber explains the healing of the deadly wound to be the revival of the Napoleonic dynasty after its overthrow at Waterloo. That secular dynasty, in alliance with the ecclesiastical power, the Papacy ([Re 13:11], &c.), being "the eighth head," and yet "of the seven" ([Re 17:11]), will temporarily triumph over the saints, until destroyed in Armageddon ([Re 19:17-21]). A Napoleon, in this view, will be the Antichrist, restoring the Jews to Palestine, and accepted as their Messiah at first, and afterwards fearfully oppressing them. Antichrist, the summing up and concentration of all the world evil that preceded, is the eighth, but yet one of the seven ([Re 17:11]). [¶40] crowns--Greek, "diadems." [¶41] name of blasphemy--So C, Coptic, and Andreas. A, B, and Vulgate read, "names of blasphemy," namely, a name on each of the heads; blasphemously arrogating attributes belonging to God alone (compare Note, see on [Re 17:3]). A characteristic of the little horn in [Da 7:8], 20, 21; [2Th 2:4]. [¶42] 2. leopard ... bear ... lion--This beast unites in itself the God-opposed characteristics of the three preceding kingdoms, resembling respectively the leopard, bear, and lion. It rises up out of the sea, as Daniel's four beasts, and has ten horns, as Daniel's fourth beast, and seven heads, as Daniel's four beasts had in all, namely, one on the first, one on the second, four on the third, and one on the fourth. Thus it represents comprehensively in one figure the world power (which in Daniel is represented by four) of all times and places, not merely of one period and one locality, viewed as opposed to God; just as the woman is the Church of all ages. This view is favored also by the fact, that the beast is the vicarious representative of Satan, who similarly has seven heads and ten horns: a general description of his universal power in all ages and places of the world. Satan appears as a serpent, as being the archetype of the beast nature ([Re 12:9]). "If the seven heads meant merely seven Roman emperors, one cannot understand why they alone should be mentioned in the original image of Satan, whereas it is perfectly intelligible if we suppose them to represent Satan's power on earth viewed collectively" [Auberlen]. [¶43] 3. One of--literally, "from among." [¶44] wounded ... healed--twice again repeated emphatically ([Re 13:12], ); compare [Re 17:8], , "the beast that was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit" (compare [Re 13:11]); the Germanic empire, the seventh head (revived in the eighth), as yet future in John's time ([Re 17:10]). Contrast the change whereby Nebuchadnezzar, being humbled from his self-deifying pride, was converted from his beast-like form and character to MAN'S form and true position towards God; symbolized by his eagle wings being plucked, and himself made to stand upon his feet as a man ([Da 7:4]). Here, on the contrary, the beast's head is not changed into a human head, but receives a deadly wound, that is, the world kingdom which this head represents does not truly turn to God, but for a time its God-opposed character remains paralyzed ("as it were slain"; the very words marking the beast's outward resemblance to the Lamb, "as it were slain," see on [Re 5:6]. Compare also the second beast's resemblance to the Lamb, [Re 13:11]). Though seemingly slain (Greek for "wounded"), it remains the beast still, to rise again in another form ([Re 13:11]). The first six heads were heathenish, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome; the new seventh world power (the pagan German hordes pouring down on Christianized Rome), whereby Satan had hoped to stifle Christianity ([Re 11:15], ), became itself Christianized (answering to the beast's, as it were, deadly wound: it was slain, and it is not, [Re 17:11]). Its ascent out of the bottomless pit answers to the healing of its deadly wound ([Re 17:8]). No essential change is noticed in Daniel as effected by Christianity upon the fourth kingdom; it remains essentially God-opposed to the last. The beast, healed of its temporary and external wound, now returns, not only from the sea, but from the bottomless pit, whence it draws new Antichristian strength of hell ([Re 13:3], [11, 12], ; [Re 11:7]; ). Compare the seven evil spirits taken into the temporarily dispossessed, and the last state worse than the first, [Mt 12:43-45]. A new and worse heathenism breaks in upon the Christianized world, more devilish than the old one of the first heads of the beast. The latter was an apostasy only from the general revelation of God in nature and conscience; but this new one is from God's revelation of love in His Son. It culminates in Antichrist, the man of sin, the son of perdition (compare [Re 17:11]); [2Th 2:3]; compare [2Ti 3:1-4], the very characteristics of old heathenism ([Ro 1:29-32]) [Auberlen]. More than one wound seems to me to be meant, for example, that under Constantine (when the pagan worship of the emperor's image gave way to Christianity), followed by the healing, when image worship and the other papal errors were introduced into the Church; again, that at the Reformation, followed by the lethargic form of godliness without the power, and about to end in the last great apostasy, which I identify with the second beast ([Re 13:11]), Antichrist, the same seventh world power in another form.