Apocalypse 5:4

Louis Segond

Et je pleurai beaucoup de ce que personne ne fut trouvé digne d'ouvrir le livre ni de le regarder.

Parallel Translations

La Bible David Martin (1744)
Et je pleurais fort, parce que personne n'�tait trouv� digne d'ouvrir le Livre, ni de le lire, ni de le regarder.

La Bible Ostervald (1996)
Et moi, je pleurai beaucoup, de ce que personne n'avait �t� trouv� digne d'ouvrir le livre, ni de le lire, ni de le regarder.

Darby's French Translation
Et moi, je pleurais fort, parce que nul n'�tait trouv� digne d'ouvrir le livre ni de le regarder.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

because: Revelation 4:1, Daniel 12:8, Daniel 12:9

Reciprocal: Isaiah 30:19 - thou shalt

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And I wept much,.... Not so much on his own account, because he feared his curiosity would not be gratified, and that strong desire answered, which were raised in him upon sight of the book, and increased by the angel's proclamation; but for the sake of the church of God, whose representative he was, and to whom the knowledge of this book, and the things contained in it, he judged must be very useful and profitable. The Ethiopic version reads, "and many wept"; many of those that were about the throne, as well as John:

because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book,

neither to look thereon; because there was no creature in heaven, earth, or under it, that were of dignity and authority, as well as of ability, to open the book by unsealing it; and read and deliver out the prophecies in it upon the taking off of every seal; and so not to look into it, and foresee and foretell what was hereafter to come to pass, in the church and world: the phrase of being worthy to look on it seems to be Jewish; of the book of the generation of Adam, Genesis 5:1, the Jews say e that

"it descended to the first man, and by it he knew the wisdom which is above; and this book came to the sons of God, the wise men of the age, מאן דזכי לאשגחא ביה, "whoever is worthy to look in it", knows by it the wisdom which is from above.''

The whole verse is left out in the Alexandrian copy; and the phrase, "to read", is neither in the Vulgate Latin, nor in any of the Oriental versions.

e Zohar in Gen. fol. 28. 2.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And I wept much, because no man was found worthy ... - Greek, as in Revelation 5:3, no one. It would seem as if there was a pause to see if there were any response to the proclamation of the angel. There being none, John gave way to his deep emotions in a flood of tears. The tears of the apostle here may be regarded as an illustration of two things which are occurring constantly in the minds of people:

(1) The strong desire to penetrate the future; to lift the mysterious veil which shrouds what is to come; to find some way to pierce the dark wall which seems to stand up before us, and which shuts from our view what is to be hereafter. There have been no more earnest efforts made by people than those which have been made to read the scaled volume which contains the record of what is yet to come. By dreams, and omens, and auguries, and astrology, and the flight of birds, and necromancy, people have sought anxiously to ascertain what is to be hereafter. Compare, for an expression of that intense desire, Foster’s Life and Correspondence, vol. i. p. 111, and vol. ii. pp. 237, 238.

(2) The weeping of the apostle may be regarded as an instance of the deep grief which people often experience when all efforts to penetrate the future fail, and they feel that after all they are left completely in the dark. Often is the soul overpowered with grief, and often are the eyes filled with sadness at the reflection that there is an absolute limit to the human powers; that all that man can arrive at by his own efforts is uncertain conjecture, and that there is no way possible by which he can make nature speak out and disclose what is to come. Nowhere does man find himself more fettered and limited in his powers than here; nowhere does he feel that there is such an intense disproportion between his desires and his attainments. In nothing do we feel that we are more absolutely in need of divine help than in our attempts to unveil the future; and were it not for revelation man might weep in despair.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Revelation 5:4. I wept much — Because the world and the Church were likely to be deprived of the knowledge of the contents of the book.