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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Revelation 4:4 - 4:4
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Throne (θρόνου)
A seat or chair. In Homer, an armchair with high back and footstool. Cushions were laid upon the seat, and over both seat and back carpets were spread. A royal throne. Used of the oracular seat of the priestess of Apollo. Apollo, in the “Eumenides” of Aeschylus, says: “Never, when I sat in the diviner's seat (μαντικοῖσιν ἐν θρόνοις) did I speak aught else than Zeus the father of the Olympians bade me” (616-618). Plato uses it of a teacher's seat. “I saw Hippias the Elean sitting in the opposite portico in a chair (ἐν θρόνῳ). Others were seated round him on benches (ἐπὶ βάθρων),” questioning him, “and he ex cathedreâ (ἐν θρόνῳ καθήμενος, lit., sitting in the chair) was determining their several questions to them, and discoursing of them” (“Protagoras,” 315). Also used of a judge's bench, and a bishop's seat.
Seats (θρόνοι)
Rev., rightly, thrones. The word is the same as the last.
I saw
Omit.
Elders (πρεσβυτέρους)
See on Act 14:23. The twenty-four elders are usually taken to represent the one Church of Christ, as at once the Church of the old and of the new Covenant, figured by the twelve patriarchs and the twelve apostles.
“Then saw I people, as behind their leaders,
Coming behind them, garmented in white,
And such a whiteness never was on earth
.....
Under so fair a heaven as I describe
The four and twenty-elders, two by two,
Came on incoronate with flower-de-luce.”
Dante, “Purgatorio,” xxix., 64-84.
Clothed (περιβεβλημένους)
Rev., arrayed. Better, as indicating a more solemn investiture. See on Rev 3:5.
They had
Omit.
Crowns (στεφάνους)
See on 1Pe 5:4; see on Jam 1:12. Στέφανος with the epithet golden is found only in Revelation. Compare Rev 9:7; Rev 14:14. The natural inference from this epithet and from the fact that the symbolism of Revelation is Hebrew, and that the Jews had the greatest detestation of the Greek games, would be that στέφανος is here used of the royal crown, especially since the Church is here represented as triumphant- a kingdom and priests. On the other hand, in the three passages of Revelation where John evidently refers to the kingly crown, he uses διάδημα (Rev 12:3; Rev 13:1; compare Rev 17:9, Rev 17:10; Rev 19:12). Trench (“Synonyms of the New Testament”) claims that the crown in this passage is the crown, not of kinghood, but of glory and immortality. The golden crown (στέφανος) of the Son of Man (Rev 14:14) is the conqueror's crown.
It must be frankly admitted, however, that the somewhat doubtful meaning here, and such passages of the Septuagint as 2Sa 12:30; 1Ch 20:2; Psa 20:3; Eze 21:26; Zec 6:11,Zec 6:14, give some warrant for the remark of Professor Thayer (“New Testament Lexicon”) that it is doubtful whether the distinction between στέφανος and διάδημα (the victor's wreath and the kingly crown) was strictly observed in Hellenistic Greek. The crown of thorns (στέφανος) placed on our Lord's head, was indeed woven, but it was the caricature of a royal crown.