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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Revelation 2:7 - 2:7
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7. ὁ ἔχων οὖς ἀκουσάτω. A repetition, with a merely verbal alteration, of one of our Lord’s characteristic phrases in His teaching while on earth: St Mat 11:15, &c.
τί τὸ πνεῦμα λέγει. The Seer is in the Spirit and the Lord speaks to him, and through him to the Churches, by the Spirit; in the Gospel (Rev 14:18) the coming of the Comforter is the coming of Christ.
τῷ νικῶντι δώσω αὐτῷ. The redundant pronoun after a participle is probably to be explained on the analogy of the redundant pronoun after a relative, Rev 3:8, &c., which, though a natural colloquialism in Greek, or non-literary English, is probably due to the influence of Hebrew, where the relative is indeclinable and the pronoun therefore not superfluous. Cf. Language of the New Testament i. 59, ii. 84. A promise thus expressed, and an invitation to attention like that preceding it, are found at the end of each of these Seven Epistles—the invitation standing first in the first three, and the promise in the last four. From this change in the order, it appears that attention is invited, not to the final promise only, but to the whole Epistle to each Church, as the Spirit’s message.
ἐκ τοῦ ξύλου τῆς ζωῆς. Throughout the book the Seer speaks of the wood of life, though Rev 7:1; Rev 7:3, Rev 8:7, Rev 9:4 he uses δένδρον of earthly trees. Cf. Gen 2:9, as well as Rev 22:2; Rev 22:14; Rev 22:19. The Tree of Life appears, though not under that name, in Enoch xxiv, where we are told that there shall be no power to touch it until the period of the great judgement.
ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ. The reading of Text. Rec[109], ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ παραδείσου, is no doubt from Gen 2:9. “Paradise,” a Persian word, adopted in both Greek and Hebrew, means simply a park or pleasure-ground, and hence is used in the LXX. (not the Hebrew) of the garden of Eden: in 2Co 12:4, Luk 23:43, we have it used of a region of the spiritual world, inhabited by the blessed dead. Whether the Paradise of God, where the Tree of Life is now, is identical either with the earthly Paradise where it grew of old, or with the New Jerusalem, where it shall grow in the new earth under the new heaven, it would be rash to speculate, though St Irenæus reports, v. 36, 1, upon the authority of the Elders, that Paradise will be a special degree of glory between the New Jerusalem and Heaven.
[109] Rec. Textus Receptus as printed by Scrivener.
τοῦ θεοῦ. So τοῦ παραδείσου τοῦ θεοῦ in Eze 28:13; Eze 31:8, ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ τοῦ θεοῦ and τοῦ παραδείσου τῆς τρυφῆς τοῦ θεοῦ ib. 9, ὁ παράδεισος τοῦ θεοῦ in Gen 13:10; ὡς παράδεισον κυρίου Isa 51:3. Some read τοῦ θεοῦ μου as in Rev 3:12, but on the whole the omission has more authority, and the exact O.T. phrase seems likelier.