Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Revelation 6:16 - 6:16

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Revelation 6:16 - 6:16


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

16. καὶ λέγουσιν. The present after ἔκρυψαν suggests that ἔκρυψαν like καὶ ἐτελέσθη Rev 10:7 is an Hebraistic equivalent to the future.

τοῖς ὄρεσιν. Hos 10:8 : adopted by our Lord, Luk 23:30. In that passage, it is entirely natural to understand Him to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem only: and therefore, though we are not meant to suppose that everything revealed further on in the Book comes between the Sixth Seal and the End, it does not seem necessary to understand this vision as implying that the Last Judgement is immediately to come. A judgement of the Lord has now been prepared for, by all the signs that He foretold of it: His disciples, no doubt, will “look up and lift up their heads,” while the world which does not “love His appearing” is terrified. And we see in the next chapter that the faith of those is not unrewarded: but the dread of these is not immediately realised. In fact, the last “Day of the Lord” will come “when they shall say, ‘Peace and safety’ ” (1Th 5:3)—not therefore, apparently, preceded by terrors like those among the ungodly, but rather by an unbelief (not so uncommon now) that has outlived such alarms, and asks, “Where is the promise of His Coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”

ἀπὸ προσώπον τοῦ καθημένου. All judgement is committed to the Son, Joh 5:22, but this does not exclude the special presence and Revelation of the Father in the final manifestation of the Divine Righteousness. See Mat 16:27 and parallels, which are to be taken into account in the interpretation of Tit 2:13, and of chap. 22 in this Book.

ἀπὸ τῆς ὀργῆς τοῦ ἀρνίου. It is scarcely necessary to point out the paradoxical character of the words and their deep significance. The phrase is unique; if αὐτοῦ be read in the next verse it cannot refer, as it would in ordinary Greek, to τοῦ ἀρνίου. The great day of His wrath is something familiar and known.