Bible Commentaries
Revelation 4

Verses 1-11

PART A The Apocalypse of the Future: (IV:1-XI:17).

A (1) A Double Preparatory Vision (remaining as an unchanged background to all that follows).

(a) Ch 4. The everlasting worship of God by all Creation —1-11. John sees the Throne of God, and the Universe from heaven’s point of view. 1. ’I saw’ (aorist) ’a door lying wide open’ (perfect). The fact is always there; but only those whose eyes are ’enlightened’ see it. John hears the first voice and sees the door (already a spiritual communication), but forthwith ’became in the Spirit’ (a yet deeper ecstacy).

2. ’A Throne was set’—built; decked. The Enthroned is not, as in Ezechiel, human-wise described or even named.

3. He is ’like the jasper and sardius to look upon’ and surrounded by a rainbow ’like an emerald’. (John emphasizes ’like’, ’as it were’: he can find no better translation of what he sees.) The stones are probably green and red: but why a rainbow? and why ’emerald’? A symbol, since the flood, of enduring covenanted mercy: ’upon us is established his mercy: The loyalty of the Lord endurcth for ever’ (Ps 116:2). Andrew of Caesarca (6th-7th cent.?) says: ’The divine Nature is ever green and flowering’—sµa?a?d????sa— participle: a tremulous play of green.

4. The Throne is surrounded by 24 Elders, also enthroned: a spiritual court or senate (cf.Is 24:23; Dan 7:10). Why 24? Not a normal symbolical number. But surely, no reference to the 24 courses of priests (1 Par 24:7 ff.); still less, to the 24 Babylonian gods north and south of the Zodiac! Surely, the ’Church’, the Elect, from ’beginning to end’—the 12 Patriarchs and the 12 Apostles—the ideal Church, as in God’s mind. It were over-logical to ask how John can bow down to Apostles of whom he is one; or how he sees the Church before the Book is opened which relates its history (ch 5). These 24 are triumphant (white robes, royal and priestly crowns, cf. 4:10; 5:11). 5. ’Thunders, voices and lightnings’: traditional in Theophanies. The Seven Lamps, the Seven Spirits of God (see above 1:4): the Holy Spirit, symbolized, as often, by the multiplicity-totality of his gifts or energizing: septiformis munere.6a. The crystal Sea ’in front of’, i.e. all round the Throne. The Hebrew visualized the earth as flat, with waters ’under’ it; and above it, the solid vault of the ’firmament’ supporting the ’ upper waters’ on which rested the Throne of God (cf.Gen 1; Ex 24:10). But since John never uses any detail as merely decorative but always as symbolic, this Sea may well figure the absolute inaccessibility, the ’otherness’, of the Enthroned. 6b. ’In the midst of the Throne and around the Throne, 4 Beings’—how translate ??+?a? Not ’animals’ merely. ’Creatures?’ Inadequate; half contemptuous to our ears. ’Living Beings’. Accurate, but clumsy. We resign ourselves to ’Beings’. They are either at the four corners of the Throne if it is square; or at the ends of its diameters if it is visualized as circular. I think one ’Being’ fronted John; one was seen from behind; the other two, in profile. But did John visualize details? How, for example, could he see (8) that these Beings were interiorly ’full of eyes’? 7b. Tradition (Ez 1-15 ff. and many apocryphal books) placed four mysterious Beings usually under God’s chariot or throne. Ezechiel derived his plastic imagery from the composite Babylonian figures (originally astronomical figures), and equipped each Being with all four faces, human, lion, bull, eagle. John simplifies Ezechiel’s Cherubs but joins to them the six-winged Seraphs of Isaias (ch 6) and also their triple Sanctus: and possibly the ’Watchers’ (the eyes) of apocryphal tradition. But what are these Beings? Irenaeus ( Adv. Haer., iii, 11, 8) is the first we know to have applied them to the 4 Evangelists—simply because they are 4: there are 4 regions of the earth; 4 main winds; and the Maker of the World gives us his Gospel accordingly as fourfold. But their innumerable ’eyes’ signify consciousness—unsleeping, universal. It is in accord with traditional symbolism to see in them the whole of Nature which, even if inanimate, is, ’after its kind’, giving glory to God. Thus the whole of Creation— pure spirits; supernaturalized mankind; Nature as God knows it—joins in giving him that praise which is the true end of its existence.

9. ’When’ should be ’whensoever’, and the following verbs in the future. John, aware of what his document will contain, foresees a whole series of such acclamations.