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Rev 1:17. [Ὡς νεκρὸς, as dead) Great contrition of nature usually precedes a large bestowing of spiritual gifts.-V. g.]-ὁ πρῶτος καὶ ὁ ἔσχατος, the first and the last) A most glorious title. In Hebrew ראשון אחרון, Isa 44:6; Isa 48:12; where the Septuagint renders it, ἐγὼ πρῶτος καὶ ἐγὼ μετὰ ταῦτα, πλὴν ἐμοῦ οὐκ ἔστι Θεός: and again, ἐγώ εἰμι πρῶτος, καὶ ἐγώ εἰμι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα. In both passages the translators appear to have considered the word ἔσχατος as insufficient to express the dignity of the speaker, and yet in fact it answered admirably to the Hebrew. Isa 41:4, Ἐγὼ Θεὸς πρῶτος, καὶ εἰς τὰ ἐπερχόμενα (את אחרנים) ἐγώ εἰμι. The Messiah is speaking of Himself. Comp. Isa 48:16. Hence in the Apocalypse the Lord Jesus applies this description to Himself, and explains it by the words which follow. Let the Form be observed:
I am the First, and the Last:
and the Living One: and I became dead, and
behold, I am alive, etc.
The immediate construction, The first and the Last, declares, that His Life, by the brief intervention of death, was interrupted in such a manner, that it ought not even to be considered as interrupted at all. Artemonius, in his treatise de Init. Evang. Joh., interprets the First and the Last as the most excellent and the most abject, p. 248; but if this were the meaning, the order of the events would require to be inverted, and that it should be written, The Last and the First. It is plainly a title of Divine glory, the First and the Last, in Isaiah; and in his writings Artemonius in vain endeavours so to bend the same title, that it may denote the Beginning and the End: p. 249, and the following.