Vincent Word Studies - Revelation 2:20 - 2:20

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Vincent Word Studies - Revelation 2:20 - 2:20


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

A few things

Omit.

Thou sufferest (ἐᾶς)

Used absolutely. Toleratest.

That woman

Rev., the woman. Some translate thy wife.

Jezebel

Used symbolically, but with reference to the notorious historic Jezebel. She was the daughter of Ethbaal, king of Sidon (1Ki 16:31), formerly a priest of Astarte, and who had made his way to the throne by the murder of his predecessor Pheles. Ahab's marriage with her was the first instance of a marriage with a heathen princess of a king of the northern kingdom of Israel. This alliance was a turning-point in the moral history of the kingdom. From the times of David and Solomon many treaties had been concluded between Phoenicia and Israel; but it was at the same time the special business of the kingdom of the ten tribes to restore the ancient rigidness of the nationality of Israel. Jezebel looked down with perverse pride upon a people whose religion she neither understood nor respected. Though the ten tribes had yielded to idolatry in the worship of the calves, the true God was still worshipped and the law of Moses acknowledged. From the time of Ahab's marriage the apostasy of Israel became more decided and deadly. She was “a woman in whom, with the reckless and licentious habits of an Oriental queen, were united the fiercest and sternest qualities inherent in the old Semitic race. Her husband, in whom generous and gentle feelings were not wanting, was yet of a weak and yielding character which soon made him a tool in her hands.... The wild license of her life and the magical fascination of her arts or her character became a proverb in the nation. Round her and from her, in different degrees of nearness, is evolved the awful drama of the most eventful crisis of this portion of the Israelite history” (Stanley, “Jewish Church”). She sought to exterminate the prophets of Jehovah (1Ki 18:13), and inaugurated the worship of Baal the Sun-God on a magnificent scale. Two sanctuaries were established, one for each of the great Phoenician deities, at each of the two new capitals of the kingdom, Samaria and Jezreel. The sanctuary of Astarte or Ashtaroth (the Phoenician Venus) at Jezreel was under Jezebel's special sanction, and there is reason to suppose that she ministered as a priestess in that licentious worship. Four hundred priests or prophets were attached to this sanctuary and were supported at her table. The sanctuary to Baal at Samaria was large enough to contain all the worshippers of the northern kingdom. Its staff consisted of four hundred and fifty priests, and the interior contained representations of the Sun-God on small pillars, while a large statue of the same deity was set up in front. At these sanctuaries Ahab in person offered sacrifices.

Expositors are divided as to the symbolic import of the name in this passage, some referring it to a single person - “some single wicked woman in the Church of Thyatira inheriting this name of infamy in the Church of God,” giving herself out as a prophetess, and seducing the servants of Christ to commit fornication and to eat things offered to idols. Others interpret the name as designating an influential heretical party in the Church: but, as Alford remarks, “the real solution must lie hidden until all that is hidden shall be known.” It is clear, at any rate, that Thyatira, like the Church of old, had sinned by her alliance with a corrupt faith and practice.

To teach and to seduce (διδάσκειν καὶ πλανᾶσθαι)

The best texts read καὶ διδάσκει and she teacheth and seduceth. So Rev. For seduceth see on err, Mar 12:24, and see on deceiver and error, Mat 27:63, Mat 27:64. The word πλανᾶν to seduce is found oftener in Revelation than elsewhere in the New Testament. It never means mere error as such, but fundamental departure from the truth.

To commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed to idols

Both sins of the historical Jezebel. See 2Ki 9:22, 2Ki 9:30; Jer 4:30; Nah 3:4.