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Rev_12:10-12. A loud voice in heaven[3113] celebrates the victory which has just occurred before the eye of the seer, over the adversary of Christ and his kingdom (Rev_12:10-12 a), as one in which believers also are to participate, Rev_12:10; but this voice proclaims, also, woe to the whole earth, because the dragon cast out upon it will make use of the short time given him for his wrath (Rev_12:12 b).
ἄρτι , “now,” since the victory over the dragon, Rev_12:8 sq., as also the conclusion from Rev_12:10, ὅτι ἐβλ ., κ . τ . λ ., once again expressly emphasizes.
ἘΓΈΝΕΤΟ Ἡ ΣΩΤΗΡΊΑ , Κ . Τ . Λ . Incorrectly, Hofm.: “God and his Anointed have established their salvation and their power.” Also De Wette, who properly refers to Rev_11:15, is incorrect in his remark: There is with respect to the ΣΩΤΗΡΊΑ a sort of zeugma or mingling of thoughts; the sentence, “Salvation is God,” Rev_7:10, Rev_19:1, becomes in this connection: “Now it is shown that the salvation is God’s.” De Wette, as also those who have wished to change the meaning of Ἡ ΣΩΤΗΡΊΑ , has correctly felt that it is just the idea of the ΣΩΤΗΡΊΑ whereby the mode of statement in this passage appears more difficult than in the entirely similar passage, Rev_11:15. But precisely as the ΔὙΝΑΜΙς and the ΒΑΣΙΛΕΊΑ , so also the ΣΩΤΗΡΊΑ , i.e., salvation in the specific Christian sense,—not “victory,”[3114] which ΣΩΤΗΡΊΑ does not mean,—is beheld with complete objectivity. The salvation, like the kingdom, the strength, and the power, has now become our God’s, since the dragon in heaven has been overcome; now his salvation, his power, his kingdom, are no longer attacked and injured by the violence of the dragon up to this time unbroken, and his power not yet overcome. This is the precise mode of the presentation, along with which the other view also co-exists, that it is essentially and alone God’s salvation, power, and kingdom which God seizes,[3115] or which becomes God’s. The individual ideas are very significant; ἡ σωτηρία is the salvation, not only inasmuch as saints are thereby delivered,[3116]—this reference is necessary, nevertheless is too narrow,—but[3117] the sum total of all righteousness, blessedness, and holiness, as they have been prepared for the creature by God through his Christ, the ΣΩΤΉΟ , but have been prevented from reaching the same by the dragon, the antichrist. The ΔΎΝΑΜΙς , the power of God, has been manifested in his victory over the dragon;[3118] the ΒΑΣΙΛΕΊΑ , “where God’s majesty shows itself,”[3119] is the royal glory of God,[3120] which is peculiar to him as the possessor of unconditioned power, and which he displays especially in creation and the imparting of salvation.[3121] The ἘΞΟΥΣΊΑ is ascribed to God’s Christ, because it is the definite, supreme power[3122] peculiar to God’s Christ as such.[3123] The reason for the ascription of praise, ἌΡΤΙ ἘΓΈΝΕΤΟ , Κ . Τ . Λ ., lies in what is reported in Rev_12:8-9; for the entire undertaking of the dragon[3124] was nothing else than the truly antichristian attempt to frustrate the ΣΩΤΗΡΊΑ , to bid defiance to the ΔΎΝΑΜΙς of God, to oppose his ΒΑΣΙΛΕΊΑ , and to bring to naught the ἘΞΟΥΣΊΑ of Christ, ay, Christ himself. From a new side, not at all touched in Rev_12:3 sqq., and also very remote from that presentation, is the overcome adversary designated by the appellation Ὁ ΚΑΤΉΓΩΡ Τ . ἈΔΕΛΦ . ἩΜ ., Κ . Τ . Λ . The form of the word is Hebraistic: ÷èéâåø . Precisely analogous is the rabbinical designation of Michael as the ñáéâåã , the ΣΥΝΉΓΩΡ , i.e., ΣΥΝΉΓΟΡΟς , advocate, of the godly.[3125] In the later Greek there is also the analogous form ΔΙΆΚΩΝ for ΔΙΆΚΟΝΟς .[3126]
ΤῶΝ ἈΔΕΛΦῶΝ ἩΜῶΝ . The brethren of those by whom, in a loud voice, the song of praise is raised, are undoubtedly believers in the earthly life, for only they could be exposed to the accusation on the part of Satan; but an inference as to the designation of the heavenly persons who speak of believing men as their brethren is not to be made: it can in no way be decided as to whether the adoring voice proceeds from the angels,[3127] or from the twenty-four elders,[3128] or perhaps from the already perfected saints,[3129]—who, however, would not be regarded as saints only of the O. T.[3130] The idea of a perpetual[3131] accusation of the godly on the part of Satan,[3132] which occurs neither in the N. nor the O. T. as an express doctrinal article, is derived and formulated by Jewish theology from Zechariah 3 and Job 1, 2.[3133] The N. T. contains an allusion to that conception only so far as the names ordinarily used in the N. T., ὁ διάβολος and ό σατανᾶς , also ὁ ἀντικείμενος , according to their original significance, point back to the same. In the latter circumstance, sufficient scriptural ground for receiving the accusing activity of Satan in dogmatical seriousness can be acknowledged only if the Scriptures were elsewhere to show expressly that they advocate such definite sense for that name already firmly fixed. But this occurs neither in Job 1, 2, nor in Zechariah 3; for the former mythically fashioned passage does not treat at all of a peculiar accusation, while, according to the nature of the subject, objective reality does not pertain to the vision of the prophet. Scripture, therefore, does not give us a doctrinal article, which would be just as incomprehensible to Christian thought, as the idea of an actual abode of the devil and his angels in heaven.[3134] But as there, so also here, every allegorizing interpretation of the text is to be rejected,[3135] and it is to be decided, according to the analogy of Scripture, that the idea of a perpetual accusation of believers by Satan, derived in its concrete formation from Jewish theology, makes no claim of objective truth, but is to be regarded as a point of the prophetic conception founded in the individuality of John.
[3113] Cf. Rev_11:15; Rev_11:12.
[3114] Eichh., Ew. ii.
[3115] Cf. (Rev_11:17) the τ . δύν . σου in connection with the εἴληφας .
[3116] Beng. Cf. Hengstenb., Ebrard.
[3117] Cf. the similar passages Rev_7:10, Rev_19:1.
[3118] Cf. Beng.
[3119] Beng.
[3120] Rev_11:15; Rev_11:17.
[3121] Cf. Rev_1:6, Rev_5:10.
[3122] Cf. Rev_13:2, where ἐξ . stands for the definite supreme power existent in a commission, office, etc.
[3123] Cf. Rev_13:2, where ἐξ . is with δύναμις ; Rev_6:8, Rev_9:3, Rev_11:6, Rev_14:18, Rev_17:18, Rev_20:6, where ἐξ . is used with respect to definite supreme authority lying in a commission, office, etc.
[3124] Rev_12:3 sqq.
[3125] Cf. Schöttg.
[3126] Cf. Wetst.
[3127] Beda, etc.
[3128] Ew. i., etc.
[3129] Ew. ii., according to Rev_6:4 sqq., Rev_7:9 sqq
[3130] Beng.
[3131] ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτός . Cf. Rev_4:8.
[3132] Sohar Levit., p. 43: “He always stands as accuser before the king of Israel” (in Schöttg.).
[3133] Cf. examples in Schöttg.
[3134] Cf. Rev_12:7 sqq.
[3135] Against Beda: “He suggests both that they abuse prosperity, and in adversity do not have patience.” De Wette: “Satan is at the same time wicked lust and the bad conscience.”