Rev 19:14-21 | JFB | STEP | 14. the armies . . . in heaven —Compare "the horse bridles," . The glorified saints whom God "will bring with" Christ at His advent; compare , "they that are with Him, called, chosen, faithful"; as also "His mighty angels." white and clean — Greek, "pure." A, B, Vulgate, Syriac, and CYPRIAN omit "and," which ORIGEN and ANDREAS retain, as English Version.

Revelation of John 19:14-21

14. the armies . . . in heaven—Compare "the horse bridles," Re 14:20. The glorified saints whom God "will bring with" Christ at His advent; compare Re 17:14, "they that are with Him, called, chosen, faithful"; as also "His mighty angels."

white and clean—Greek, "pure." A, B, Vulgate, Syriac, and CYPRIAN omit "and," which ORIGEN and ANDREAS retain, as English Version.

15. out of his mouth . . . sword— (Re 1:16; 2:12, 16). Here in its avenging power, 2Th 2:8, "consume with the Spirit of His mouth" (Isa 11:4, to which there is allusion here); not in its convicting and converting efficacy (Eph 6:17; Heb 4:12, 13, where also the judicial keenness of the sword-like word is included). The Father commits the judgment to the Son.

he shall rule—The HE is emphatic, He and none other, in contrast to the usurpers who have misruled on earth. "Rule," literally, "tend as a shepherd"; but here in a punitive sense. He, who would have shepherded them with pastoral rod and with the golden scepter of His love, shall dash them in pieces, as refractory rebels, with "a rod of iron."

treadeth . . . wine-press— (Isa 63:3).

of the fierceness and wrath—So ANDREAS reads. But A, B, Vulgate, Coptic, and ORIGEN read, "of the fierceness (or boiling indignation) of the wrath," omitting "and."

Almighty—The fierceness of Christ's wrath against His foes will be executed with the resources of omnipotence.

16. "His name written on His vesture and on His thigh," was written partly on the vesture, partly on the thigh itself, at the part where in an equestrian figure the robe drops from the thigh. The thigh symbolizes Christ's humanity as having come, after the flesh, from the loins of David, and now appearing as the glorified "Son of man." On the other hand, His incommunicable divine name, "which no man knew," is on His head (Re 19:12), [MENOCHIUS].

KING OF KINGS—Compare Re 17:14, in contrast with Re 19:17, the beast being in attempted usurpation a king of kings, the ten kings delivering their kingdom to him.

17. an—Greek, "one."

in the sun—so as to be conspicuous in sight of the whole world.

to all the fowls— (Eze 39:17-20).

and gather yourselves—A, B, Vulgate, Syriac, Coptic, and ANDREAS read, "be gathered," omitting "and."

of the great God—A, B, Vulgate, Syriac, Coptic, and ANDREAS read, "the great supper (that is, banquet) of God."

18. Contrast with this "supper," Re 19:17, 18, the marriage supper of the Lamb, Re 19:9.

captains—Greek, "captains of thousands," that is, chief captains. The "kings" are "the ten" who "give their power unto the beast."

free and bond—specified in Re 13:16, as "receiving the mark of the beast." The repetition of flesh (in the Greek it is plural: masses of flesh) five times in this verse, marks the gross carnality of the followers of the beast. Again, the giving of their flesh to the fowls to eat, is a righteous retribution for their not suffering the dead bodies of Christ's witnesses to be put in graves.

19. gathered together—at Armageddon, under the sixth vial. For "their armies" in B and ANDREAS, there is found "His armies" in A.

war—so ANDREAS. But A and B read, "the war," namely, that foretold, Re 16:14; 17:4.

20. and with him the false prophet—A reads, "and those with him." B reads, "and he who was with him, the false prophet."

miracles—Greek, "the miracles" (literally, "signs") recorded already (Re 13:14) as wrought by the second beast before (literally, 'in sight of') the first beast. Hence it follows the second beast is identical with the false prophet. Many expositors represent the first beast to be the secular, the second beast to be the ecclesiastical power of Rome; and account for the change of title for the latter from the "other beast" to the "false prophet," is because by the judgment on the harlot, the ecclesiastical power will then retain nothing of its former character save the power to deceive. I think it not unlikely that the false prophet will be the successor of the spiritual pretensions of the papacy; while the beast in its last form as the fully revealed Antichrist will be the secular representative and embodiment of the fourth world kingdom, Rome, in its last form of intensified opposition to God. Compare with this prophecy, Eze 38:1-39:29; Da 2:34, 35, 44; 11:44, 45; 12:1; Joe 3:9-17; Zec 12:1-14:21. Daniel (Da 7:8) makes no mention of the second beast, or false prophet, but mentions that "the little horn" has "the eyes of a man," that is, cunning and intellectual culture; this is not a feature of the first beast in the thirteenth chapter, but is expressed by the Apocalyptic "false prophet," the embodiment of man's unsanctified knowledge, and the subtlety of the old serpent. The first beast is a political power; the second is a spiritual power—the power of ideas. But both are beasts, the worldly Antichristian wisdom serving the worldly Antichristian power. The dragon is both lion and serpent. As the first law in God's moral government is that "judgment should begin at the house of God," and be executed on the harlot, the faithless Church, by the world power with which she had committed spiritual adultery, so it is a second law that the world power, after having served as God's instrument of punishment, is itself punished. As the harlot is judged by the beast and the ten kings, so these are destroyed by the Lord Himself coming in person. So Zep 1:1-18 compared with Zep 2:1-15. And Jeremiah, after denouncing Jerusalem's judgment by Babylon, ends with denouncing Babylon's own doom. Between the judgment on the harlot and the Lord's destruction of the beast, will intervene that season in which earthly-mindedness will reach its culmination, and Antichristianity triumph for its short three and a half days during which the two witnesses lie dead. Then shall the Church be ripe for her glorification, the Antichristian world for destruction. The world at the highest development of its material and spiritual power is but a decorated carcass round which the eagles gather. It is characteristic that Antichrist and his kings, in their blindness, imagine that they can wage war against the King of heaven with earthly hosts; herein is shown the extreme folly of Babylonian confusion. The Lord's mere appearance, without any actual encounter, shows Antichrist his nothingness; compare the effect of Jesus' appearance even in His humiliation, Joh 18:6 [AUBERLEN].

had received—rather as Greek, "received," once for all.

them; that worshipped—literally, "them worshipping" not an act once for all done, as the "received" implies, but those in the habit of "worshipping."

These both were cast . . . into a lake—Greek, ". . . the lake of fire," Gehenna. Satan is subsequently cast into it, at the close of the outbreak which succeeds the millennium (Re 20:10). Then Death and Hell, as well those not found at the general judgment "written in the book of life"; this constitutes "the second death."

alive—a living death; not mere annihilation. "Their worm dieth not, their fire is not quenched."

21. the remnant—Greek, "the rest," that is, "the kings and their armies" (Re 19:19) classed together in one indiscriminate mass. A solemn confirmation of the warning in Ps 2:10.