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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Revelation 1:13 - 1:13
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13. ὅμοιον υἱῷ ἀνθρώπου. It might be better with Tischendorf and Westcott and Hort to read ὅμοιον υἱὸν here and at Rev 14:14; if so the writer makes juxtaposition do the work of construction, as sup. 16, see n. In the title of our Lord in the Gospels (except Joh 5:27) and in Act 7:56 both words have the article. The absence of the article here proves not that our Lord is not intended, but that the title is taken not from His own use of it but direct from the Greek of Dan 7:13, where also both words are without the article. There the human figure which succeeds the bestial shapes symbolizes the kingdom of the saints of the Most High more certainly than the personal King, the Head of the mystical Body. Here it is a question of taste rather than of grammar whether we are to translate “a son of man”: the words themselves mean no more than “I saw a human figure,” but their associations would make it plain to all readers of the Book of Daniel that it was a superhuman Being in human form; and to a Christian of St John’s day as of our own, Who that Being was.
ποδήοη. Certainly a garment of dignity (as Sir 27:8; Dan 10:5, LXX. where Theodotion gives the Hebrew in Greek letters βαδδιν; Eze 9:2; Eze 9:11), probably especially of priestly dignity, as Exo 25:6; Exo 28:4; Exo 28:31 (where the next verse suggests comparison with Joh 19:23). The same word is used in the so-called Epistle of Barnabas (c. 7) of the scarlet robe in which the Lord will appear when coming to judgement; some suppose that the writer had in his mind this passage and perhaps Rev 19:13.
πρὸς τοῖς μασθοῖς. So Rev 15:6 of angels. In Dan 10:5 and Eze 9:2 (LXX.) angels wear the girdles of gold or gems in the ordinary human way, on their loins. The Seer like the Prophets draws his images from earthly pomp which in his days had grown more splendid. The girdle is probably crossed upon the breast, as in the figure of Darius in the great mosaic of the Museo Borbonico and in statues of the kings of Greek tragedy: anyway it visibly serves not to brace the wearer for labour but simply to keep his stately robe duly arranged.