Seana at the end of the world, an expectation
of which we have another variant appar- ently in xix. 11 f. Probably the prophet inserts the episode here in order to re- peat, in a graphic and archaic, although somewhat incongruous fashion, the final doom of which he has just been speak- ing and to which he is about to lead up (xv.-xx.) through a fresh series of catas- trophes. ‘If one might venture to wish. to discard as an interpolation any part of the attested text of the Apocalypse, it would be this passage. Howcan it be understood of anything but the final judgment? Yet it comes here as any- thing but final. . . . The earth goes on just as before” (Simcox). But here, as often elsewhere, the clue lies partly in the vivid inconsequence of dream- pictures, partly in the preacher’s desire: to impress his hearers, and partly in the poetic, imaginative freedom of his own mind.
Ver. 14. This royal, judicial figure is. evidently the messiah (drawn from Dan.. vii. 13, which had been already inter preted thus in En. xxxvii.-lxxi. and «
14—18.
h
, A ~ lol στέφανον χρυσοῦν καὶ ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ δρέπανον ὀξύ.
441
15. καὶ h xix. 14.
» ales = i . = a P * 1 χι. 19 ἄλλος ἄγγελος ἐξῆλθεν ' ἐκ τοῦ ναοῦ, κράζων ἐν φωνῇ µεγάλῃ τῷ (heavenly
καθηµένῳ " ἐπὶ τῆς νεφέλης,
“Πέμψον ᾽τὸ δρέπανόν σου καὶ θέρισον,
ὅτι ἦλθε ™ ὥρα ” θερίσαι,
τος ὅτι ἐξηράνθη ὁ θερισμὸς τῆς γῆς. 16. καὶ ἔβαλεν 6 καθήµενος ἐπὶ τῆς νεφέλης τὸ δρέπανον αὐτοῦ
ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν, καὶ ἐθερίσθη ἡ yi.
17. καὶ ἄλλος ἄγγελος ἐξῆλθεν ἐκ τοῦ ναοῦ τοῦ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ,
” \ Cu , 36) ἔχων καὶ αὐτὸς δρέπανον ὀξύ.
τοῦ " θυσιαστηρίου, ὁ ἔχων 1 ἐξουσίαν ° Φωνῇ µεγάλῃ τῷ ἔχοντι τὸ δρέπανον τὸ ὀξὺ λέγων,
18. καὶ ἄλλος ἄγγελος ἐξῆλθεν
temple). k Cf. Dalm.
6, cf. Mark xiii 28 ρατ].
> NViii. 3-5: ΕΚ prayers of
> a martyrs? ἐπὶ τοῦ πυρός, καὶ ἐφώνησε ο Angels of
1 Before εχων Lach., Al., Tr. (marg.), Ws. [WH], [Sw.] add the ο of AC, vg.,
Syr., S.
Esd. xiii.). The crown (omitted in i. 13 f.) was a familiar appurtenance of deity in Phrygia (e.g., of Apollo); for the cloud as the seat of deity, cf. Verg. Aen. ix. 638-640, etc.
Ver. 15. ἄλλος ἄγγελος, as in ver. 6. The alternatives are (a) to translate
“another, an angel” ον. MN) which might be the sense of the Greek (cf. Od. i. 132, Clem. Protrept. ix. 87. 3) but is harsh, or (ϐ) to take the figure of ver. 14 aS an angel (Porter) and not as the messiah at all (which, in the face of i. 13, is difficult). The subordinate and colourless character of the messiah is certainly puzzling, and tells against the Christian authorship of the passage. Messiah is summoned to his task by an angel, and even his task is followed up by another angel’s more decisive inter- ference. He seems an angelic figure (cf. on xix. 17), perhaps primus inter pares among the angels (so En. xlvi. 1: “and I saw another being [ζ.ε., the Son of Man] whose countenance had the ap- pearance of a man, and his face was full of graciousness, like one of the holy angels”). The conception was incon- sistent with John’s high Christology, but he may have retained it, like so much else, for its poetic effect, or as part of a time-honoured apocalyptic tradition. That the messiah should receive divine instructions through one of his comrades (Heb. i. 6, 9; cf. Zech. ii. 3, 4) was perhaps not stranger than that he should require an angel in order to communicate with men (i. 1). πέµμψον κ.τ.. The double
figure of judgment (harvest and vintage) is copied from the poetic parallelism of Joel iii. 13 ; the independent rendering of
ίσον by πέµψον and ἔβαλεν, and the change of agent from messiah (14-16) to an angel (17-20, so Mark xiii. 39 f.), show that the writer is using the Hebrew of that passage (where God does the reaping).