15-17. ΥΠΙ. 1-2. ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ 401 καὶ ᾿ ἐξαλείψει 6 Θεὸς πᾶν '' δάκρυον ἐκ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν | Isa. xxv. 8. Aaa m Form (cf.
αυτων. ; XXi. 4) cf
ε) ” 9 - ‘ c , hey, nom.
VIII. 1. ΚΑΙ ὅταν "ἤνοιξε τὴν oppayida τὴν ἑβδόμην, ἐγένετο peculiar
bd AS A > mu ie ς , 9 9 N ec eae , to Apoc. σιγὴ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ὡς ἡμιώρον. 2. Kat εἶδον τοὺς "ἑπτὰ ἀγγέ- in Ν.Τ. a ὅταν τες. equiv. for
ὅτε (Blass, § 65, 9): indic. with ὅταν (iv. 9, Mark ii. 20, Luke xiii. 28); a relative clause conditional
in form but definite in force (Burton, 316). c En. xx., Luke i. 19, etc.
realm of the good Shepherd-King Yima, Iranian belief saw neither hunger nor thirst for the faithful, and found no place for death (cf. Apoc. xxi. 4) or falsehood (Apoc. xxi. 8) of any kind (passages and parallels in Béklen, 133 f.).—é68nyjoe, a touch of local colour for Asiatic Chris- tians, since sheep and shepherds were a common feature in the Lycos valley (C. B. P. i. 40-42); but the heaven of the Apo- calypse is, in Semitic fashion, pastoral or Civic, with touches of Babylonian splen- dour, unlike some later apocalypses, e.g., that of Peter (15 f.) where the Hellenic conception of Gods garden in the next world predominates (Dieterich, το f.).— Briggs explains the variants σκηνώσει ἐπ᾽ αὐτούς (vii. 15) and ox. pet’ αὐτῶν (xxi. 3), ἀπὸ τῶν ὀφθ. (xxi. 4) and ἐκ τῶν ὀφθ. (vii. 17) as variant translations of
Jw OAT and OMPPy ; but, like ἐπὶ τὸ µέτωπον (xiii. 16), ἐπὶ τῶν µετώπ. (vii. 3, etc.), these are probably nothing more than rhetorical variations. Unlike the synoptic tradition (e.g., Matt. ii. 6) and the fourth Gospel (x. 1, 18), the Apocalypse confines Christ’s shepherding to the future life (see also ii. 26, 27). In Isa, liii. 6, 7, the wayward roving habits of sheep express the temper of God’s people, whilst the patient submissiveness of a lamb for sacrifice denotes the func- tion of God’s servant; in the Apocalypse, the latter (not the former) occurs. The saints are God’s flock in heaven, not on earth (contrast 1 Peter ii, 25, v. 2 f.).
Whatever elements have been em- ployed in the following series (viii.-xi.) of trumpet-visions, no adequate data exist to prove that John has edited a Jewish or Jewish-Christian source here any more than in vi. The vision, which forms the result of the breaking of the seventh seal (viii. I, 2), opens, after a prelude (2-5), in viii. 6 and does not close till xi. 19 (cf. νι, 5).
CuapTer VIII.—Ver. 1. The opening of the seventh seal is followed by half an hour’s silence in heaven: ‘‘he opened” looks back to vi. 12, the absence of sub- ject showing that vii. is a parenthesis
Ὁ 4 Esd. vii. 29 f., Zech. ii. 13 (17), Hab. ii. 20.
foreign to the seal-series in its original shape. Probably this series, like each of the others, was originally a separate oracle upon the latter days. When woven by the author into his large work, they suffered a literary treatment which has interrupted but ‘not altogether ob- literated their original form and sequence. The book of destiny is now open; what follows (viii. 6 f.) is the course of the future, which naturally corresponds at some points to the predictions already sketched proleptically in chap. vi. A brief interval, not of exhaustion but of expectation, of breathless suspense (a pause in the ecstasy, LXX of Dan. iv. 16), ushers in a preliminary series of judicial plagues heralded by seven tru npet-blasts (viii. 2-xi. 19). Half an hour (ἡμ., cf. Win. § 5, 22 a for form) may have been an ominous period; Josephus (B. χ. vi. 5, § 3) describes a portent at the siege of Jerusalem which consisted of a bright light shining at twilight for half an hour, and the collocation of silence with rever- ence is illustrated by the LXX version (εὐλαβείσθω πᾶσα σάρξ) of Zech. xii. 13 and Zeph.i.7f. The following trumpet- series has been woven into the frame of the work by the device of making it take the place of the climax which (after vi. 17, Vii. I, 2) one would naturally expect to occur at this point. .When the dé- nouement should take place, nothing happens; the judgment is adjourned. Ver. 2. ‘‘ The sevenangels who stand before God” are introduced as familiar figures (cf.Lueken 36 f., R.¥. 319 f.); they belonged to pre-Christian Judaism (Tobit xii. 15, ‘‘I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels, which present the prayers of the saints, and go in before the glory of the Holy One”), and are associated with trumpets (1 Thess. iv. 16). Accord- ing to the Targ. on 2 Chron. xxxiii. 13