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we read that He or His name was known : Ps. lxxvi. 1, lxxxiii. 18 ; Isa. lii. 6 ; Ezek. xxxix. 7.
§ 28. Therefore in the time of Moses He called Himself as it were afresh, nViK, I will be. He does not say, I will be what I was , I icill be what I am ; but PPriK *it?K HVIK, I will be what I will be : where there is implied the declaration of a benefit to be almost im- mediately bestowed. That is, I will be to the Israelites the charac- ter which , by the very fact, I will be in regard to their fathers, both what I said to them I would be, and what it behoves Me to be to them, namely, by now at length fulfilling the promise which I for- merly gave. And thus the meaning of the future prevailed in n\nK, including both a recapitulation of the revelations and promises of God, which had been given to the fathers, and a declaration of the event now to be exhibited, by the bringing the people out of Egypt.
§ 29. The name nviN, afterwards swelling out into the name miT, transmitted at the same time the same meaning of the future to the name nirv, so that in the very form of the name the future might be conspicuous, and from thence there might be an advance to the present wdth the past.
§ 30. mrp is the same precisely as 6 Ipybfizvog xui 6 &v xal 6 h. So suitable was the language of the Old Testament. But in the Apocalypse the order is inverted by an elegance of construction not to be despised, except by the supercilious ; and in ch. iv. 8 He is said to be 6 ?jv xa/ o ojv xui 6 spyofievog, where, in the natural order of the times, the four beasts celebrate the praises of the Lord in a summary form of expression, as He has exhibited Himself, and does, and will exhibit Himself. But here, ch. i. 4, 8, both by the pen of John, and by His owm mouth, He is styled o obv xa/' o xa/' 6 Ipyjfjj'vog ; and so by a fresh idiom, but one which is founded on the Divine nature itself, the uh, as the principal and radical wrord, is placed first, with a remarkable prelude and token of that change, by which subsequently both the spyopevog and the rj v, as we have noticed, § 20, betake themselves to [pass into] the u)v.
9. ’Ei/ rjj 0A/’v|/s /, in tribulation) This book has most relish for the faithful in tribulation.1 The Asiatic Church, especially since its most flourishing time under Constantine, set too little value upon this book. You can scarcely find any trace of a quotation from the Apocalypse in the doctors of Constantinople : where it is quoted in the works of Chrysostom, this very fact is a proof of interpolation.
1 Comp. not. Gnom. on the phrase & lu yivtaOoti, ver. 1. — E. B.
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