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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Revelation 2:12 - 2:12
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In Pergamum (en Pergamōi). In a north-easterly direction from Smyrna in the Caicus Valley, some fifty-five miles away, in Mysia, on a lofty hill, a great political and religious centre. Ramsay (Op. cit., p. 281) calls it “the royal city, the city of authority.” Eumenes II (b.c. 197-159) extended it and embellished it with many great buildings, including a library with 200,000 volumes, second only to Alexandria. The Kingdom of Pergamum became a Roman province b.c. 130. Pliny termed it the most illustrious city of Asia. Parchment (charta Pergamena) derived its name from Pergamum. It was a rival of Ephesus in the temples to Zeus, Athena, Dionysos, in the great grove Nicephorium (the glory of the city). Next to this was the grove and temple of Asklepios, the god of healing, called the god of Pergamum, with a university for medical study. Pergamum was the first city in Asia (a.d. 29) with a temple for the worship of Augustus (Octavius Caesar). Hence in the Apocalypse Pergamum is a very centre of emperor-worship “where Satan dwells” (Rev 2:13). Here also the Nicolaitans flourished (Rev 2:15) as in Ephesus (Rev 2:6) and in Thyatira (Rev 2:20.). Like Ephesus this city is called temple-sweeper (neōkoros) for the gods.
The sharp two-edged sword (tēn romphaian tēn distomon tēn oxeian). This item repeated from Rev 1:16 in the same order of words with the article three times (the sword the two-mouthed the sharp) singling out each point.