Robertson Word Pictures - Revelation 17:3 - 17:3

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Robertson Word Pictures - Revelation 17:3 - 17:3


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

He carried me away (apēnegken me). Second aorist active indicative of apopherō, to bear away, prophetic aorist. This verb is used of angels at death (Luk 16:22) or in an ecstasy (Rev 21:10 and here).

In the Spirit (en pneumati). Probably his own spirit, though the Holy Spirit is possible (Rev 1:10; Rev 4:2; Rev 21:10), without Paul’s uncertainty (2Co 12:2). Cf. Eze 3:14.; Eze 8:3; Eze 11:24.

Into a wilderness (eis erēmon). In Isa 21:1 there is to horama tēs erēmou (the vision of the deserted one, Babylon), and in Isa 14:23 Babylon is called erēmon. John may here picture this to be the fate of Rome or it may be that he himself, in the wilderness (desert) this side of Babylon, sees her fate. In Rev 21:10 he sees the New Jerusalem from a high mountain.

Sitting (kathēmenēn). Present middle participle of kathēmai as in Rev 17:1. “To manage and guide the beast” (Vincent).

Upon a scarlet-coloured beast (epi thērion kokkinon). Accusative with epi here, though genitive in Rev 17:1. Late adjective (from kokkos, a parasite of the ilex coccifera), a crimson tint for splendour, in Rev 17:3, Rev 17:4; Rev 18:12, Rev 18:16; Mat 27:28; Heb 9:19.

Full of names of blasphemy (gemonta onomata blasphēmias). See Rev 13:1 for “names of blasphemy” on the seven heads of the beast, but here they cover the whole body of the beast (the first beast of Rev 13:1; Rev 19:20). The harlot city (Rome) sits astride this beast with seven heads and ten horns (Roman world power). The beast is here personified with masculine participles instead of neuter, like thērion (gemonta accusative singular, echōn nominative singular, though some MSS. read echonta), construction according to sense in both instances. The verb gemō always has the genitive after it in the Apocalypse (Rev 4:6, Rev 4:8; Rev 5:8; Rev 15:7; Rev 17:4; Rev 21:9) save here and apparently once in Rev 17:4.