Churches”), who says: “The Nicolaitans are the Balaamites; no sect bearing the one name or the other; but those who, in the new dispensation, repeated the sin of Balaam in the old, and sought to overcome or destroy the people of God by the same temptations whereby Balaam had sought to overcome them before.” The names, however, are by no means parallel: conqueror of the people not being the same as corrupter of the people. Besides, in ver. 14, the Balaamites are evidently dis- tinguished from the Nicolaitans.
Alford remarks: “ There is no sort of reason for interpreting the name otherwise than historically. It occurs in a passage indicating simple matters of historical fact, just as the name Antipas does in ver. 13.”
7. He that hath an ear, etc. Compare Matt. xi. 15; Mark iv. 9. The phrase is not found in John’s Gospel. It is used always of radical truths, great principles and promises.
To him that overcometh (7 vix@vrr). A formula common to all these Epistles. The verb is used absolutely without any object expressed. It is characteristic of John, occurring once in the Gospel, six times in the First Epistle, sixteen times in the Apocalypse, and elsewhere only Luke xi. 22; Rom. iii. 4; xii. 21.
Willl give. This phrase has a place in every one of these Epistles. The verb is John’s habitual word for the privileges and functions of the Son, whether as bestowed upon Him by the Father, or dispensed by Him to His followers. See John iii. 85; v. 22, 27, 386; vi. 65; xiii. 3; xvii. 6. Compare Apoc. il. 23; iii. 8; vi. 4; xi. 3.
Of the tree (é« EvAov). The preposition é« out of occurs one hundred and twenty-seven times in the Apocalypse, and its proper signification is almost universally out of; but this ren- dering in many of the passages would be so strange and unidiom- atic, that the New Testament Revisers have felt themselves able to adopt it only forty-one times out of all that number,