2:10. “….Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.”
Davies, [271]”… R. Meir ( AD 140-65) taught: ‘The dead ones of the Gentiles are dead, those of the Israelites are not dead, for through their merit the living exist; an instance for this is, when Israel did that deed, had Moses not mentioned the merits of the Fathers they surely would have perished from the world.'”4 [Note 4: “… cf. Tanhuma Wayyera, ¶9, pp. 90-1″]
2:10. “…ye shall have tribulation ten days….”
Jesus foretold to His disciples that before the final end of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation they would suffer intense persecution, (Matt. 24:9.) Peter in his first Epistle says that the time had come for “judgment to begin at the house of God,” i.e., the Church. Lightfoot says:
“…These words denote that persecution which the Jews, now near their ruin, stirred up almost everywhere against the professors of the gospel. They had indeed oppressed them hitherto on all sides, as far as they could, with slanders, rapines, whippings, stripes, &c. which these and such like places testify; I Thess. ii.14, 15; Heb. x. 33, &c. But there was something that put a rub in their way, that, as yet, they could not proceed to the utmost cruelty; ‘And now ye know what withholdeth;’ which, I suppose, is to be understood of Claudius enraged at and curbing in the Jews. Who being taken out of the way, and Nero, after his first five years, suffering all things to be tuned topsy turvy, the Jews now breathing their last (and Satan therefore breathing his last effect in them, because their time was short), they broke out into slaughter beyond measure, and into a most bloody persecution: which I wonder is not set in the front of the ten persecutions by ecclesiastical writers. This is called by Peter (who himself also at last suffered in it)…a fiery trial; by Christ, dictating the epistles to the seven churches…tribulation for ten days, and…the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world of Christians. And this is ‘the revelation of that wicked one’ St. Paul speaks of, now in lively, that is, in bloody colours, openly declaring himself AntiChrist, the enemy of Christ. In that persecution James suffered at Jerusalem, Peter in Babylon, and Antipas at Pergamus, and others, as it is probable, in not a few other places. Hence, Rev. vi. 11, 12 (where the state of the Jewish nation is delivered under the type of six seals), they are slain, who were to be slain for the testimony of the gospel under the fifth seal; and immediately under the sixth, followed the ruin of the nation.” [2:312]
“…They shall put you out of the synagogue.] This, I presume, must be understood of a casting out from the whole congregation of Israel, because I know the Jews always proceeded in that manner against the Samaritans; and certainly the disciples of Jesus were full as hateful to them as the Samaritans could be. Nay, they often call the Christians by the name of … Cuthites, as well as those.
“Those that were cast out of the church they despoiled of all their goods, according to Ezra x.8: which they also did to those that were shammatized. Whence it may be a question, whether shammatizing did not cast out of the whole congregation: and again, whether one cast out of the whole congregation might be ever readmitted….”
Concerning Christ‘s words “Will think that he doeth God service” … “the zealots, of whom we have mention in Sanhedrin … the zealots kill him. Gloss: ‘These are those good men who are endued with zeal in the cause of God.’ Such who with their own hands immediately slew the transgressor, not staying for the judgment of the Sanhedrim. So in the place before quoted, ‘The priest that ministers at the altar in his uncleanness, they do not bring before the Sanhedrim; but they bring him out into the court, and there brain him with the pieces of wood’ provided to maintain the fire upon the altar….
“From such kind of villains as these the disciples of Christ could have little safeguard: indeed, they were greatly endangered upon a threefold account: I. From the stroke of excommunication, by which they were spoiled of their goods and estates, Heb. x.34. II. From the sentence of the Sanhedrim, dooming them either to be scourged or slain. III. From these assassins….” [3:405-7]
2:17. “…To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna…”
The Jews expected their Messiah to bring all manner of dainty foods, but especially manna, (John 6:31):
“…’Many affirm that the hope of Israel is, that Messiah shall come and raise the dead; and they shall be gathered together in the garden of Eden, and shall eat and drink, and satiate themselves all the days of the world….and that there are houses built of precious stones, beds of silk, and rivers flowing with wine and spicy oil.’ ‘He made manna to descend for them, in which were all manner of tastes and every Israelite found in it what his palate was chiefly pleased with. If he desired fat in it, he had it. In it the young men tasted bread, the old men honey, and the children oil….So it shall be in the world to come [the days of the Messias]: he shall give Israel peace, and they shall sit down and eat in the garden of Eden; and all nations shall behold their condition; as it is said, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry, Isa.lxv.13.’….” [3:304-5]
2:18. “…the Son of God….”
Jesus, as ‘the Son of Man’, was the fulfillment of the promise to Adam that there would be a Seed that should bruise the serpent’s head. He came as ‘the Son of Man’, in the Flesh, in order to destroy the works of Satan and to condemn Sin in the Flesh.
In His resurrected Body and His ascension to the right hand of the Father, He appears as ‘the Son of God’. (Revelation 2:18). In this role, He is not merely subduing earthly kingdoms, but the very Kingdom of Satan. In Revelation 20:10, He casts Satan into the lake of fire. The Jews expected and desired a Messias that would subdue the earthly, political kingdoms that were oppressing them. They failed to see the larger picture that all of these kingdoms and their oppressions were only manifestations of the larger problem of the rule of Satan over the principalities and powers of the air. (See Lightfoot, [2:233])
“…R. Solomon…: ‘One like the Son of man, … this is the King, the Messiah.’ R. Saadias, … this is the Messiah our righteousness. When our Saviour declared before the Sanhedrim, ‘Ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds;’ they all said, ‘Art thou Christ, the Son of the blessed God?’ by which they imply, that the ‘Son of God’ and ‘Christ’ are convertible terms: as also are ‘Christ’ and the Son of man. And it plainly shews that their eyes were intent upon this place: ‘Art thou that Son of man spoken of in Daniel, who is the Son of God, the Messiah?’ So did Christ in these words look that way.” [3:300]
2:20. “… that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols”.
“… There was a certain fornication amongst the Jews that seemed to them lawful, and had some colour of legitimation: this was polygamy, Hos.iv.10; … They shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase: so the Chaldee and Syriac and our own translation render it well. But now fornication, as it denotes whoredom, doth not wish or expect any offspring, but the contrary rather: but the words relate to bigamy or polygamy. For in case of the wife’s barrenness, it was a common thing for them to take to them another woman, or more, for propagation’s sake: and this it is that God brands with the reproachful name of fornication; ‘they commit fornication, but do not multiply.’ Whatever else is understood by this word, I would certainly understand this; namely, that the apostles prescribed against polygamy, a thing esteemed indifferent amongst the Jews (as fornication was amongst the Gentiles)….
“… There was another fornication ordinarily so reckoned also in the opinion of the Jews themselves (for they did not account the having many wives to be fornication); and that was, besides what they call simple fornication, their marrying within the prohibited degrees, that which they commonly called … nakedness. These marriages they were so adverse to, that to some of them they allotted ‘death,’ to all of them … or cutting off….” [4:131-2]
2:23. “…And I will kill her children with death…”
Commenting on Matt. 5:22, Lightfoot says: “These words of our Saviour, perhaps, we shall more truly understand by comparing some more phrases and doctrines, very usual in the Jewish schools. Such as these,…Absolved from the judgment of men, but guilty in the judgment of Heaven, that is, of God….Death by the Sanhedrim, and death by the hand of Heaven.'” [2:111]
Thus we see that this passage in Revelation 2:23 was speaking of death by the hand of heaven.
2:24. “…as many as have not this doctrine….”
“… ‘A disciple corrupting his food publicly, … as did Jesus of Nazareth.’ ‘To corrupt their food publicly,’ is a phrase amongst the Rabbins to denote a mingling of true doctrine with heresy, and the true worship of God with idolatry…. Aruch recites this passage of the Talmud more cautiously; for instead of as Jesus of Nazareth did, he hath it, as Jeroboam did.” [3:209]
2:26; “…I will give him power over the nations…{ethnos}” (See also 12:5; 21:24-26.)
These verses all speak of Christ and His Bride as ruling the nations. See also 11:15, ‘kingdom’ and 3:10, ‘world.’
In discussing the nations of Canaan that were to be conquered and driven out by Israel when it entered the promised land, he says that the Rabbis do not agree about these nations but mostly agree that they would be completely subdued in “the days of the Messias.”
“‘These nations were not delivered to Israel in this age; but they shall be delivered in the days of the Messias.'”
“‘In the days of the Messias they shall add three other cities of refuge. But whence? From the cities of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, and the Cadmonites. Concerning whom God gave a promise to our father Abraham; but they are not as yet subdued.'” [1:283]
“…The nations of the world, … is a very common form of speech amongst the Jews, by which they express the Gentiles, or all other nations beside themselves. …{kosmos} and … {aion} have a peculiar propriety in sacred writ, which they have not in profane authors: so that … {aion} hath relation only to the Jewish ages, and … {kosmos} to the nations that are not Jewish. Hence …, Matt. xxiv. 3, is meant the end of the Jewish age, or world. And …, Tit. i.2, is before the Jewish world began. And hence it is that the world very often in the New Testament is to be understood only of the Gentile world.” [3:135]
“… After the same manner that the Jews called all Gentiles Greeks, so the Greeks called all other nations but their own barbarians.” [4:149]
“… But let this be taken notice of by the way, that wherever any thing occurs in the Holy Scripture that is either terrifying or disgraceful or threatening the Jews commonly apply it to the Gentiles, as by numberless instances might be confirmed….”
Concerning Rom. 3:12, Lightfoot paraphrases: “You Jews expound these things of the Gentiles only, as if they did not in the least belong to yourselves. And with the same design likewise have your interpreters multiplied this heap of quotations, having their eye on them: but ye must know that whatever things the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law.” [4:155-6]
“’The Jewish offspring in Babylon is more valuable than that among the Greeks, even purer than that in Judea itself.’ Whence for a Palestine Jew to go to the Babylonish dispersion, was to go to a people and country equal, if not superior, to his own: but to go to the dispersion among the Greeks, was to go into unclean regions, where the very dust of the land defiled them: it was to go to an inferior race of Jews, and more impure in their blood; it was to go into nations most heathenized.”
When Jesus instructed His Disciples to go to the Cities of israel and Preach the Gospel, he said they should shake off the dust of those cities that refused to accept Christ. That meant that they were to be considered as Gentile, defiled, nations. [3:318-9]
2:27. “…shall rule them with a rod of iron….”
From the Jewish writings Lightfoot quotes: “…’This seems to be the sense: The rod of the exactor shall not depart from Judah, until his Son shall come to whom belongs the subduing and breaking of the people; for he shall vanquish them all with the edge of his sword.’ So saith Rambam upon that passage in Gen.xlix….” [3:268] {This interpretation perverts the sense of ‘the rod’ as ‘the staff of authority’ to the sense of ‘the rod of the exactor.’)