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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Revelation 3:4 - 3:4
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Thou hast a few names
The best texts insert ἀλλὰ but between these words and the close of the preceding verse. So Rev. But, notwithstanding the general apathy of the Church, thou hast a few, etc. Compare Rev 3:1, thou hast a name, and see on Rev 11:13. Names is equivalent to persons, a few who may be rightly named as exceptions to the general conception.
Even in Sardis
Omit καὶ even.
Defiled (ἐμόλυναν)
See on 1Pe 1:4.
Garments
See the same figure, Jud 1:23. The meaning is, have not sullied the purity of their Christian life.
In white (ἐν λευκοῖς)
With ἱματίοις garments understood. See on Rev 2:17, and compare Zec 3:3, Zec 3:5. “White colors are suitable to the gods” (Plato, “Laws,” xii., 956). So Virgil, of the tenants of Elysium:
“Lo, priests of holy life and chaste while they in life had part;
Lo, god-loved poets, men who spake things worthy Phoebus' heart:
And they who bettered life on earth by new-found mastery;
And they whose good deeds left a tale for men to name them by:
And all they had their brows about with snowy fillets bound.”
“Aeneid,” vi., 661-665
The same shall be clothed (οὗτος περιβαλεῖται)
For οὗτος this, or the same, read οὕτως thus: “shall thus be arrayed.” so Rev. The verb denotes a solemn investiture, and means literally to throw or put around.