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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadBob Utley You Can Understand the Bible - Revelation 19:17 - 19:18
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Rev_19:17-18
17Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in midheaven, "Come, assemble for the great supper of God, 18so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great."
Rev_19:17 "to all the birds" This gruesome paragraph is an allusion to two OT passages which deal with battle scenes. This context is the same battle discussed in Rev_16:12-16, called Armageddon. The predatory birds are described as drawn to battlefields as in 1Sa_17:46 (cf. Mat_24:28; Luk_17:37) and Eze_39:17-20, which is the end-time battle of Gog and Magog. John often uses the OT imagery in new ways. In chapter 20 the battle of Gog and Magog deals with Satan after the millennium, whereas the battle in chapter 19 occurs before the millennium and deals with the wild beast and his false prophet.
▣ "Come, assemble for the great supper of God" The word translated "come" is an adverb used as an aorist active imperative plural which matches the second word, "assemble," which is an aorist passive imperative plural. This is an antithesis to the Lamb's banquet mentioned in Rev_19:7; Rev_19:9. The Lamb invites lost people to come and be saved and join His wedding feast. But the angel invites the birds of prey to come to the feast of dead bodies (and dead souls) at the great end-time battle (cf. Jer_12:9; Eze_39:17). God's wrath is real and symbolized as a feast, on the flesh of His enemies (cf. Isa_34:6; Jer_12:12; Jer_46:10; Zep_1:7).
Rev_19:18 This goes back to Rev_6:15, which is also an eschatological setting where these same general categories of mankind were also mentioned. The horror of being unburied was especially shocking to the people of the Ancient Near East.
The victorious return of Jesus occurs at the end of each judgment cycle: seals, Rev_6:12-17; trumpets, Rev_11:15-18; and bowls, Rev_19:1-21.