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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - Revelation 17:16 - 17:16
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Rev 17:16. Κέρατα, horns) The mention of the ten horns before the beast teaches, that the prevailing party in this most hostile laying waste of the harlot shall be parts of the horns: for even αὐτῶν, of them, Rev 17:17. has reference to the horns rather than to the beast.-καὶ τὸ θηρίον[192]) Erasmus edited, ἐπὶ τὸ θηρίω, and the editors who usually follow him, follow him here also; although Andreas of Cæsareia even by himself refutes this reading, which is made up from Latin copies of an inferior character. See App. Crit. Ed. ii. on this passage. This sentence indeed,-And the ten horns which thou sawest, καὶ, and [not ἐπὶ, upon, as in Engl. Vers.], the beast, these shall hate the whore,-is very plain, comprising, as it does, the horns and the beast by the word οὗτοι, these; and it is most accommodated to that most weighty sense, which it and it alone conveys, namely, that not only the ten horns, but even the beast himself (by which view Protestants are freed from the most invidious suspicion of sounding the trumpet against Rome), are about to hate the whore. It was provided by Divine government, that the Apocalypse should be published at Complutum, in the midst of Spain, before the Reformation, in a very genuine form, especially in the strictures, which attack Rome. And in this passage the Complutensian Edition both exhibits the reading, καὶ τὸ θηρίον, and marks it with a point, as a sign of approbation. And almost all the copies agree. The collation of so many MSS. would be useless, if the true reading even of such passages were indefinitely postponed, or at least left in doubt. By this one thing Wolf confirms my opinion in almost all the passages, in which he dissents from me.-τὴν πόρνην, the whore) A question arises, whether the beast, ascending out of the bottomless pit, first carries on war against the two witnesses (comp. Erkl. Offenb. p. 546), or lays waste Babylon. He first, as it seems, destroys Babylon, when the kingdom has as yet scarcely been given to him by the ten horns; then, having left that station, he pours out his whole fury upon the sacred city, and soon afterwards with his followers incurs final destruction. For both upon the ascent of the two witnesses into heaven, when the multitude repented after the earthquake [ch. Rev 11:13], the mystery of GOD is fulfilled: and the ten horns give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of GOD are fulfilled.-καὶ αὐτὴν, and herself) This is emphatic, in antithesis to the flesh, and the resources of the whore.
[192] So AB Vulg. h Memph. Syr. But Rec. Test, ἐπὶ τὸ θήριον, without good authority.-E.