Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - Revelation 11:4 - 11:4
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Rev 11:4. Αἱ δύο ἔλαιαι καὶ αἱ δύο λυχνίαι αἱ ἐνώπιον τοῦ Κυρίου τῆς γῆς ἑστῶτες) See App. Crit. Ed. ii. In Rev 11:13 He is called the God of heaven, and Isa 54:5, the God of the earth; Gen 24:3, the God of heaven and the God of the earth; but in this passage He is called the Lord of the earth, as in the parallel passage, Zec 4:14.-ἑστῶτες altogether agrees with grammatical rules and the taste of many, and still more so does αἱ ἑστῶσαι;[110] nor should I refuse to regard αἱ ἑστῶτες as a fault of the copyists, if this were the only instance of such a construction. But because the Apocalypse abounds in figurative expressions, as we have everywhere shown, in any passage where there is a variety of reading, I take it for granted, I admit, that the reading which is contrary to that which we should have expected is the true one, and that it has been simply and faithfully handed down by less perverse copyists; and I think that the others have been altered and conformed to the common rule by more recent copyists. In the present instance that הומדים is expressed from Zechariah, the passage quoted above, although the construction is easier in Hebrew than in Greek, as lately in לאמר, λέγων, Rev 11:1. The article is necessary in this place for the connection of the discourse, as ה in העמדים. No book has οἱ: therefore αἱ remains. The Greek article is much, more flexible than our custom admits: as τῷ τὸν φόρον, ὁ τὸ πολὺ, οἱ μακρὰν, κ.τ.λ. Therefore αἱ-ἑστῶτες, if it pleases you, is said, as though it were said, αἵ-εἰσὶν ἑστῶτες, where αἱ as the subject, and ἑστῶτες as the predicate, are not ill agreed. There is a disparity of genders not unlike this, ch. Rev 14:19. See also Notes on Chrys. de Sacerd. p. 504. If any one is positive that John could not have thus written, let him follow the reading which he judges that he wrote.
[110] Ἑστῶτες, ABC Vulg. But ἑστῶσαι, Rec. Text, with h.-E.