Rev 21-'''-'' : ' And the nations shall walk .amidst the light thereof ; and the kings of the earth do bring their glory into it. And the gates thereof shall in no wise be shut by day (for there shall be no night there) : and they shall bring the glory and the honour of the nations into it : and there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketli an abomination and a lie : but only they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.' The traits are all found in Isaiah: 'And nations shall come to thy light, and kings to the
KEW MOON
NEW MOON
8S
brightness of thy rising ' (60') ; ' Thy gates also shall be open continually ; they shall not be shut da}' nor niglit ; that men may bring unto thee the wealtli of the nations, and their kings led with them ' (v.") ; ' henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircunicised and the unclean' (r)2').
The description closes in Kev 22'"? : v."-: 'And he shewed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of Go<l and of the Lamb, in the midst of the street thereof. And on this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits, yield- ing its fruit every month : and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.' The old Jerusalem had been in a waterless region, but already Ezekiel saw ' waters ' issuing out ' from under the tlireshold of the house eastward,' and falling into the Kedron valley, and finally making their way to the Dead Sea (cf. Ezk 47'"'-) ; and in Zee 14' there is the expectation that, when the day of the Lord cometh, ' living waters shall go out from Jerusalem ; half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the western sea : in summer and in winter shall it be.' In the New Jerusalem the source of the river is in the throne of God and the Lamb, and on its banks is the tree of life, the generic singular here going back to Gn 2^, tliough the representation has its origin in Ezk 47'^ : ' And by the river upon the bank there- of, on this side and on that side, shall grow every tree for meat, whose leaf shall not wither, neither shall the fruit thereof fail : it shall bring forth new fruit every month, because the waters thereof issue out of the sanctuary : and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for healing.' A fragrant tree is mentioned in Enoch, xxv. 4f., which 'no mortal is permitted to touch till the great judgement, when he shall take vengeance on all and bring (everything) to its consummation for ever. It shall then be given to the righteous and holy. Its fruit shall be for food to the elect : it shall be transplanted to the holy place, to the temple of the Lord, the Eternal King.' For the Christian Seer, tlie river flows through the heavenly city and the leaves of the trees on its banks serve to heal the nations.
Yy 3-5 . < j^nd there shall be no curse any more : and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein : and his servants shall do him service ; and they shall see his face ; and his name shall be on their foi-eheads. And there shall be night no more ; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun ; for the Lord God shall give them light : and they shall reign for ever and ever.' The throne of God and of the Lamb takes the place of the Temple; there is nothing needed to symbolize the Divine Presence in the Heavenly City, for that Presence itself is visible. Nowhere else do we find it stated that there will be no temple in the New City. It is the climax of the Christian hope. The faithful shall see His face and abide with the Christ for ever.
The whole descrii>tion is in some respects still a material one, like the Jewish descriptions we have cited, but it soars above its Jewish basis and presents us with the ancient hope of the people of God glorified and transformed by the Christian Seer.
Literature. — R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepi' grapha of the OT in EnrjUsh, 2 vols., Oxford, 1913, Eschatology , Hehrpw, Jewish, and Christian-, London, 1913 ; W. Bousset, Die Ofenbarttnff Johanni.-'-'^ (Meyer's Eommentar zum NT, xvi.), Gottinjien, 1906; H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse ofSt.John\ London, 1907; J. Moffatt, EG'l\ 'Revelation,' do., 1910.
J. RoBERT.soN Buchanan. NEW MOON. — The term i>eop.Tjvla or vovfi-i^vla (' new moon ') as the name of a festal season occurs only once in the NT — Col 2". It is not used as a purely chronological term.
TheVulff.j it maybe observed, uses a simple transliteratior {neomenitii in the passage named, as also in some other placet (y.g. Is 11^, Jlh 8''), whilst elsewhere it uses calt-ndtje asr^ ' new moon ' {e.g. in 1 S 20). The usage is not altogether consistetit, hut a rough distinction is perhaps intended between ' new moon ' OS denoting a festival and as simply a note of time. In ancient times the beginning of the month was proclaimed amongst the Jews by the high j>riest or president of the Sanhe- drin wlien two witnesses had satisfactorily testilietl to the appear- ance of the new moon. The Romans had a parallel custom in the proclamation of the month by the Pontifex Maxinius. Hence in this respect catenda', the Itonmn name for the first day of the month (the day of proclaniatiun), was a good Lat. equiv aient for the Hebrew rOsh-hd-hudesh, or 'new moon.' Note also Tertullian's use of neome-nia when referring to the new moon as a festival (rfe Idol. 14). ' In later usage vovfirivia signifies generally the first day of the month, even when, according to the calendar employed, the months did not begin with the new moon * (Schiirer, RJP u. i. 377).