Revelation 22:16

I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(16) I Jesus have sent mine angel . . .—The warning is followed by the voice of our Lord Himself testifying to the truth of the revelation made, I Jesus sent (not “have sent,” as in the English version) my angel to testify to you these things to the churches. But it is not merely a message, or the confirmation of a message that we have—we have also stated what Christ is—the root and pledge of hope to all. I am the root and offspring of David, and the star, the bright, the morning (star). He is David’s Lord and David’s Son, possessing David’s throne (Matthew 22:42-45; Luke 1:32); He is the bright star which leads up the dawn of everlasting day (Malachi 4:2; 2Peter 1:19).

Benson Commentary

Revelation 22:16. I Jesus have sent mine angel — It was not thought sufficient to represent the angel as speaking in the person of Christ, but Christ himself also is here introduced speaking in his own person, and confirming the divine authority of this book, and attesting it to be properly his revelation; to testify unto you these things — Primarily to you, the seven angels of the churches; then to those churches, and afterward to all other churches in succeeding ages. I, as God, am the root — And source; and, as man, the offspring of David — And his family; and the bright and morning star — Who wear a glory exceeding that of the most brilliant and celestial luminary, and who put an end to the night of ignorance, sin, and sorrow, and usher in an eternal day of light, purity, and joy.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

22:6-19 The Lord Jesus spake by the angel, solemnly confirming the contents of this book, particularly of this last vision. He is the Lord God faithful and true. Also by his messengers; the holy angels showed them to holy men of God. They are things that must shortly be done; Christ will come quickly, and put all things out of doubt. And by the integrity of that angel who had been the apostle's interpreter. He refused to accept religious worship from John, and reproved him for offering it. This presents another testimony against idolatrous worship of saints and angels. God calls every one to witness to the declarations here made. This book, thus kept open, will have effect upon men; the filthy and unjust will be more so, but it will confirm, strengthen, and further sanctify those who are upright with God. Never let us think that a dead or disobedient faith will save us, for the First and the Last has declared that those alone are blessed who do his commandments. It is a book that shuts out form heaven all wicked and unrighteous persons, particularly those who love and make lies, therefore cannot itself be a lie. There is no middle place or condition. Jesus, who is the Spirit of prophecy, has given his churches this morning-light of prophecy, to assure them of the light of the perfect day approaching. All is confirmed by an open and general invitation to mankind, to come and partake freely of the promises and of the privileges of the gospel. The Spirit, by the sacred word, and by convictions and influence in the sinner's conscience, says, Come to Christ for salvation; and the bride, or the whole church, on earth and in heaven, says, Come and share our happiness. Lest any should hesitate, it is added, Let whosoever will, or, is willing, come and take of the water of life freely. May every one who hears or reads these words, desire at once to accept the gracious invitation. All are condemned who should dare to corrupt or change the word of God, either by adding to it, or taking from it.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I Jesus - Here the Saviour appears expressly as the speaker - ratifying and confirming all that had been communicated by the instrumentality of the angel.

Have sent mine angel - See the notes on Revelation 1:1.

To testify unto you - That is, to be a witness for me in communicating these things to you.

In the churches - Directly and immediately to the seven churches in Asia Minor Revelation 2:3; remotely and ultimately to all churches to the end of time. Compare the notes on Revelation 1:11.

I am the root - Not the root in the sense that David sprang from him, as a tree does from a root, but in the sense that he was the "root-shoot" of David, or that he himself sprang from him, as a sprout starts up from a decayed and fallen tree - as of the oak, the willow, the chestnut, etc. See this explained in the notes on Isaiah 11:1. The meaning then is, not that he was the ancestor of David, or that David sprang from him, but that he was the offspring of David, according to the promise in the Scripture, that the Messiah should be descended from him. No argument, then, can be derived from this passage in proof of the pre-existence, or the divinity of Christ.

And the offspring - The descendant; the progeny of David; "the seed of David according to the flesh." See the notes on Romans 1:3. It is not unusual to employ two words in close connection to express the same idea with some slight shade of difference.

And the bright and morning star - See the notes on Revelation 2:28. It is not uncommon to compare a prince, a leader, a teacher, with that bright and beautiful star which at some seasons of the year precedes the rising of the sun, and leads on the day. Compare the notes on Isaiah 14:12. The reference here is to that star as the harbinger of day; and the meaning of the Saviour is, that he sustains a relation to a dark world similar to this beautiful star. At one time he is indeed compared with the sun itself in giving light to the world; here he is compared with that morning star rather with reference to its beauty than its light. May it not also have been one object in this comparison to lead us, when we look on that star, to think of the Saviour? It is perhaps the most beautiful object in nature; it succeeds the darkness of the night; it brings on the day - and as it mingles with the first rays of the morning, it seems to be so joyous, cheerful, exulting, bright, that nothing can be better adapted to remind us of Him who came to lead on eternal day. Its place - the first thing that arrests the eye in the morning - might serve to remind us that the Saviour should be the first object that should draw the eye and the heart on the return of each day. In each trial - each scene of sorrow - let us think of the bright star of the morning as it rises on the darkness of the night - emblem of the Saviour rising on our sorrow and our gloom.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16. mine angel—for Jesus is Lord of the angels.

unto you—ministers and people in the seven representative churches, and, through you, to testify to Christians of all times and places.

root … offspring of David—appropriate title here where assuring His Church of "the sure mercies of David," secured to Israel first, and through Israel to the Gentiles. Root of David, as being Jehovah; the offspring of David as man. David's Lord, yet David's son (Mt 22:42-45).

the morning star—that ushered in the day of grace in the beginning of this dispensation and that shall usher in the everlasting day of glory at its close.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Poole on "Revelation 22:13"

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I Jesus have sent mine angel,.... As John, the writer of this book, sets down his own name, who was an eye and ear witness of the things contained in it, that they might be more surely believed, Revelation 22:8 so Christ, the author of it, puts his name Jesus to it, to engage the greater attention to hear and read, and keep the words of it, as well as to make it plain and manifest, who is the person speaking of his coming, Revelation 22:7 and who that has any value for Jesus the Saviour, but will give credit, and pay a regard to this revelation of his, which he sent by his angel, one of his ministering spirits, made by him, and under his command, he being the Creator, Lord, and head of angels: this expresses the dignity of his person, and is no inconsiderable proof of his deity: and this was done, in order

to testify, to bear witness to the truth of the things contained in it; to signify and show them, to set them forth in emblems and visions:

unto you these things in the churches; to the servants of the Lord, Revelation 22:6 to John, and by him to others, to the pastors of the seven churches, who were "over" the churches, as it may be rendered, and to the members of the churches, to all that were in them; for the Alexandrian copy, the Vulgate Latin and Arabic versions read "in"; the Syriac version renders it, "before the churches". What John saw he wrote in a book, and sent it to these churches, Revelation 1:11. The words may be rendered, "concerning the churches"; and then the sense is, that the angel was sent to show to John, and by him to others, even to all the saints in all ages, the things relating to the church of Christ, in the several periods of time, represented in succession by the seven churches of Asia. Christ gives a further account of himself, for the greater confirmation of the faith of his people, in the certain accomplishment of the things herein written, by saying,

I am the root and the offspring of David. The former of these is mentioned in the note; see Gill on Revelation 5:5; and the meaning of it is, either that Christ, as God, is David's Lord and head, from whom he had his being, both in a temporal and spiritual sense, and by whom he was supported and sustained; or that, as man, he sprung from the root of David, or descended from him; and so it falls in with the latter, which may be explanative of it, "the offspring of David"; that is, the soft of David, according to the flesh, a frequent name of the Messiah; See Gill on Matthew 1:1. God promised that the Messiah should be of the seed of David, and according to his promise he raised up unto Israel of his seed, a Saviour Jesus, the same person here speaking, Acts 13:23 who adds,

and the bright and morning star; Christ is compared to a "star", as in Numbers 24:17 for its light, the light of nature, and of grace, and of the new Jerusalem state being from him; and for its glory, his glory being the glory of the only begotten of the Father, and he having a glory, as Mediator, which his saints will ever behold, and be delighted with; and for its influence, all the blessings of grace, life, and righteousness, being from him; and to a "bright" star, because he is the brightness of his Father's glory, and so splendid, shining, and illustrious, that he is light itself, and in him is no darkness at all; and to a bright "morning" star, which shows the night is going off and the day is coming on, and is the phosphorus, or bringer of light; as Christ by his first coming, who was then the dayspring from on high, put an end to the night of Jewish darkness, and sprung the great Gospel day, so often spoken of by the prophets, and brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel, and showed the way to eternal life by himself; so by his second coming, to which this character refers, he will put an end to the night of antichristian darkness, Pagan, Papal, and Mahometan; so that there shall be no more night, and shall make an everlasting day, and bring such light into the holy city, that it shall need no candle, nor light of the sun or moon. The dawn of light at the Reformation was a presage of this, Revelation 2:28 called there the morning star. With great propriety and pertinence are these titles here assumed by Christ, as "the root and offspring of David", or David's son, when he was about to sit on the throne of his father David, and possess his kingdom in the most visible and glorious manner; and "the bright and morning star", when he was going to usher in such light into the new Jerusalem, as would make all other light unnecessary. Aijeleth Shahar, in the title of Psalm 22:1 which is a psalm that belongs to the Messiah, is, by some Jewish writers (l), interpreted, , "the morning star", the title of Christ here.

(l) Apud Kimchi in loc.

Geneva Study Bible

{8} I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

(8) The second passage of confirmation (as I said) is the speech of Christ ratifying the vocation of John, and the authority of his calling and testimony, both from the condition of his own person being God and man, in whom all the promises of God are Yea and Amen; 2Co 1:20 and also from the testimony of other people, by the acclamation of the Holy Spirit, who here is an honourable assistant of the marriage of the Church as the spouse: and of each of the godly as members; and finally from the thing present, that of their own knowledge and accord, they are called forth to the participation of the good things of God; Ge 22:17.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Jesus in person now speaks in the colloquy (Revelation 22:16; Revelation 22:13; Revelation 22:12) to ratify what has just been said. This apocalypse is not an individual fantasy (2 Peter 1:21). For the contemporary need of such accrediting, cf. Herm. Sim. ix. 22 and Ascension. Isa. 3:30, 31 (where in the last days “everyone will say what is pleasing in his own eyes. And they will make of none effect the prophecy of the prophets which were before me, and these my visions also will they make of none effect, in order to speak after the impulse of their own hearts.”)—ἄγγελον, not John (Weiss, Wellh.) but the angelus interpres (cf. on Revelation 1:2; Revelation 1:20).—ὑμῖν, the plural here and in Revelation 22:6 (cf. Revelation 1:1) might suggest that John’s apocalypse incorporated some visions of other members belonging to the prophets in the Asiatic circle or school (cf. the tradition about the co-operative origin of the Fourth gospel, in the Muratorian canon). But while any Jewish Christian sources may have been drawn from this quarter, the final authorship and authority is claimed by (or, for) John himself (cf. Revelation 22:8).—Δαυείδ. Like most early Christians, John attached more weight to the Davidic descent of Jesus as messiah (Baldensperger, 82 f.), than Jesus himself allowed. Here Christ’s authority in revelation is bound up with his legitimate claim to be messiah, and thus to inaugurate the new and eternal day of God. As ἀνατολή (the dawn = צֶמַח) was already a messianic symbol, and employed in LXX (Jeremiah 23:5, Zechariah 3:8; Zechariah 6:12) to denote the messianic branch or stem, this double usage explains the imagery here (so Justin, Apol. i. 32). Jesus has not only the historic preparation of Israel behind him but the infinite future before him. In one sense he was the climax of Hebrew expectation; in another, he is of world-wide significance. In connexion with the heavenly Jerusalem it was natural that Jesus should be hailed as the scion of the David who had founded the first Jerusalem. The star-metaphor reflects the significance of the morning-star which meant the beginning of a new day for toilers in the Levant; but its eschatological outlook was taken ultimately from Babylonian astro-theology, where Nebo-Mercury (nebî = prophet), the morning-star, announced the new era, or from Egyptian theology where (cf. E. B. D. p. cxliii.) Pepi the dead king “goeth forth into heaven among the Stars which never perish, and his guide the Morning-Star leadeth him to Sekhet-Hetep [the fields of peace]”. The phraselogy brings out the conviction of the early church that the present trial was only the cold, dark hour before the dawn. Their faith in Jesus assured them that an eternal prospect of bliss awaited them, and that this vista of hope was hound up with the person of the risen Jesus (cf. Revelation 22:13). The watchword was, sunrise and morning-star (cf. Expos. Dec. 1902, 424–441). Christianity was not some ephemeral Oriental cult, which had had its day; the cosmic overthrow meant a new era for its adherents. The Apocalypse thus closes, as it began (Revelation 1:5-6) with a note of ringing emphasis upon the eternal significance of Christ in the divine plan and purpose.

Revelation 22:13 Gathers up the double thought of 16 and of 12. As the Christian ἔργα (Revelation 2:2; Revelation 2:5; Revelation 2:19, etc.) are done within the sphere of faith, their recompense is a religious as well as a thoroughly moral conception (cf. Hastings’ D. B. iii. 82, and Montefiore’s Hibbert Lectures, p. 538). To the day’s work, the day’s wage. For the origin of this feeling on Syrian or Semitic soil, where the fellahin’s work “was scrutinised before the wages were paid” by one who was “at once the paymaster of his dependents and their judge,” cf. Hatch’s Hibb. Lectures, pp. 224 f. and Dalman, i. § viii. 3. The reward, like the new Jerusalem, was safely stored in heaven. No fear of inadequate moral appreciation in the next world, at any rated

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

16. I Jesus] Here only does our Lord reveal His Name, though from Revelation 1:13; Revelation 1:18 onwards, it has been obvious that He is the revealer; as was expressed in the title, Revelation 1:1. Whether He is personally present, however, is doubtful: the words are His, but it is probably still the angel that speaks them.

mine angel] Would our Lord say this of any angel of the Lord, because “all things that the Father hath are His.” Or has our Lord, as Man, an angel of His own in the same way that His saints have? St Luke 22:43 seems as if He needed and had, in the days of His flesh, such angelic guardianship as is implied in St Matthew 18:10 : and this passage is at least consistent with the view, that His angel appears in His form, as St Peter’s was supposed to do, Acts 12:15. It is very ably argued by St Augustine (de Cura pro Mortuis), that if any apparitions after death or at the moment of death are really objective and supernatural, they must be ascribed to angels, not to the spirits of the dead. But we must remember that our Lord’s state is not the same as that of His departed servants. He is already in the body of the Resurrection, and so conceivably visible. And there can be no doubt that He appeared in His own risen body to St Paul, and probably to St Stephen. It may be, therefore, that He now appears personally to St John, at once superseding and authenticating the previous ministry of the angel.

the root and the offspring of David] He bears the former title in Revelation 5:5, where see note. The latter is substantially the same as the familiar one, “the Son of David.”

and the bright and morning star] Both “and”s should be omitted. There may be a reference to Numbers 24:17, or to the title of “the Day-spring,” St Luke 1:78, and perhaps Zechariah 3:8; Zechariah 6:12. In Revelation 2:28, though the words are more nearly the same as here, the sense is different: see note there.

Bengel's Gnomen

Revelation 22:16. Ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις) The genuine reading,[248] to which, as not being understood, one has prefixed ἘΝ, another ἘΠΊ. If either particle had been originally written, the copyists would not so easily either have changed or omitted it. But, as Wolf well reminds us, they who are intended by the particle you, are distinguished from the churches. For ὑμῖν is the dative, and ΤΑῖς ἘΚΚΛΗΣΊΑΙς the ablative, as ch. Revelation 8:3-4. The seven churches in Asia altogether are witnesses to the individual churches, and these to their individual angels and hearers.—Ὁ ἈΣΤῊΡ Ὁ ΛΑΜΠΡῸς Ὁ ΠΡΩΪΝΌς) He does not say ἙΩΣΦΌΡΟς, nor ΦΩΣΦΌΡΟς, but uses a new appellation, Ὁ ἈΣΤῊΡ Ὁ ΛΑΜΠΡῸς Ὁ ΠΡΩΪΝΌς. This greatly increases the force of the signification.

[248] A Vulg. prefix ἐν: so Lachm. Rec. Text has ἐπί, with B; Tisch., with minor authorities, omits the preposition.—E.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 16. - I Jesus have sent mine angel. Here our Lord himself asserts what was at the very beginning set forth (Revelation 1:1). The revelation proper being now ended, the epistolary form in which the book opens is now resumed. Either our Lord himself is here the speaker, or the angel speaks in his name (cf. vers. 9, 10, 12, etc.). To testify unto you these things in the Churches (ἐπὶ ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις). The Revised Version translates, for [margin. or over] the Churches (cf. the expression in Matthew 24:33). Probably this preposition is used as expressing the idea of motion towards, especially from above, which is contained in the fact that the message is from heaven to the Churches. Dusterdieck, Hengstenberg, and others would translate, "concerning the Churches." Ἐν, "in," is found in A and some other manuscripts. Some cursives omit the preposition entirely. This gives another possible reading: "to testify these things unto you, the Churches." I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the Bright and Morning Star. Omit the second "and." (On "Root," see on Revelation 5:5; for "Morning Star," cf. Revelation 2:28.) At the word "David," the manuscript 1, from which Erasmus compiled the Textus Receptus, ends. In order to supply the remainder, which is deficient, Erasmus retranslated the Vulgate Version into Greek. The Greek, therefore, of the Textus Receptus from this point onwards is the Greek of Erasmus. Revelation 22:16

Vincent's Word Studies

The root

Compare Isaiah 11:1, Isaiah 11:10. See on Nazarene, Matthew 2:23.

The morning-star

See on Revelation 2:28.