1:10. “I…heard…a great voice….”
“You find not a voice sent from heaven between the giving of the law and the baptism of Christ. What things the Jews relate of Bath Kol, {i.e. a voice from heaven}, they must pardon me if I esteem them, partly, for Jewish fables,–partly, for devilish witchcrafts. They hold it for a tradition: ‘After the death of the last prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi….the Holy Spirit departed from Israel [which was most true]…but they used thenceforth the Bath Kol.’ ‘The Bath Kol was this:…When a voice (or thunder) came out of heaven, another voice came out from it.'”
“…If I may speak plainly what I think, I should reduce those numberless stories of the Bath Kol which occur everywhere under these two heads; namely, that very many are mere fables, invented for this purpose, that hence the worth of this or that Rabbin or story may be illustrated: the rest are mere magical and diabolical delusions….
“Behold! reader, a people very well contented to be deceived with a new kind of Bath Kol….let two things only be observed: 1. That the nation, under the second Temple was given to magical arts beyond measure. And, 2. That it was given to an easiness of believing all manner of delusions beyond measure. And one may safely suspect, that those voices which they thought to be from heaven, and noted with the name of Bath Kol, were either formed by the devil in the air to deceive the people, or by magicians by devilish art to promote their own affairs. Hence the apostle Peter saith with good reason, that ‘the word of prophecy was surer than a voice from heaven;’ 2 Pet.i.19.” [2:81-3]
Davies, [209] “For the Rabbinic view we quote: ‘When the last prophets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi died the holy spirit ceased out of Israel; but nevertheless it was granted them to hear (communications from God) by means of a Bath Qol.’ [Note 4:”b. Yoma 9b; b. Sotah 48b; b. Sanh.11a; M. Sotah 9.12; Tosefta Sotah 13.2,p.318.”
[214] “The sources make it abundantly clear that no deliverance of a bath qol could supersede the authority of the Torah.”
1:10. “…the Lord’s Day….” {or “Day of the Lord”}
“The first day of the week, which is now changed into the sabbath or Lord’s day, the Talmudists call…the Christians’, or the Christian day:…On the Christians’ day it is always forbidden for a Jew to traffic with a Christian. Where the Gloss saith thus:…A Nazarene or Christian is he who followeth the error of the man who commanded them…to make the first day of the week a festival day to him: and according to the words of Ismael, it is always unlawful to traffic with them three days before that day and three days after; that is, not at all the week through.'” [2:376]
It seems that the Jewish priesthood had so failed of their duties in keeping the calendar that they were not at all sure whether they were keeping the proper day for the Sabbath. They discussed how to prove which day was the Sabbath. One suggestion was that they observe the Sabbatic river which, some said, flowed six days and ceased to flow on the seventh. Pliny reports this same phenomenon. Josephus, however, says that it flowed only on the Sabbath and ceased the other six days. The conflicting records and opinions indicate that it was only an invention, and not an actual river.
The Talmudists suggest other ways to determine which day is truly the Sabbath, including magic and witchcraft. They suggest that “‘He that hath a python, or a familiar spirit, will prove this.’ For a python ascendeth not on the sabbath-day. And the sepulchre of Turnus Rufus, all the days of the year, sent forth a smoke; because he was judged and delivered to fire. But transgressors in hell rest on the sabbath-day.’ Therefore his sepulchre sent not forth a smoke on the sabbath day.”
Lightfoot suggests that these stories were invented because: “…when the brightness of the Christian sabbath was now risen, and increased every day, they had recourse to these monsters either of magic or of fables, whereby the glory of our sabbath might be obscured, and that of the Jews exalted.” [1:250-1]
“It is worthy observation, that of 2 Thess.ii.3: ‘The day of the Lord shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed.’ The day of the Lord here spoken of was that wherein Christ should come and reveal himself in that remarkable vengeance against Jerusalem and the Jewish nation, of which kind of expression we shall say more on chap. xxi.22. The ‘apostasy’ or ‘falling away,’ and revelation of ‘the man of sin,’ was to precede that day: which might be easily made out by a history of those times, if I were to do the business either of a historian or a chronologer.” [3:406] Lightfoot here suggests what I have attempted to do in my article “Kings and Priests” and also “Ten Kings”, that is, that the great apostasy and the man of sin are discernable in the histories that we have of that era.
“…The day, the time, and the manner of the execution of this vengeance upon this people, {i.e. the Jews, their state and religion}, are called, ‘the day of the Lord,’ ‘the day of Christ,’ ‘his coming in the clouds, in his glory, in his kingdom.’ Nor is this without reason; for from hence doth this form and mode of speaking take its rise:
I, therefore, contend that “the Lord’s Day” in 1:10 should be understood as “the Day of the Lord.”
“Christ had not as yet appeared but in a state of humility; contemned, blasphemed, and at length murdered by the Jews: his gospel rejected, laughed at, and trampled under foot: his followers pursued with extreme hatred, persecution, and death itself. At length, therefore, he displays himself in his glory, his kingdom, and power; and calls for those cruel enemies of his, that they may be slain before him.
“Acts ii.20: ‘Before that great and notable day of the Lord come.’ Let us take notice how St. Peter applies that prophecy of Joel to those very times; and it will be clear enough, without any commentary, what that ‘day of the Lord’ is.
“2 Thess.ii.2: ‘As that the day of Christ is at hand,’ &c. To this also do those passages belong, Heb.x.37, ‘Yet a little while, and he that shall come will come:’ James v. 9; ‘Behold, the judge standeth before the door:’ Rev.i.7; ‘He cometh with clouds:’ and xxii.12; ‘Behold, I come quickly.’ With many other passages of that nature, all which must be understood of Christ’s coming in judgment and vengeance against that wicked nation: and in this very sense must the words now before us be taken, {i.e. John 21:24}, and no otherwise, ‘I will that he tarry till I come:’ ‘For thy part, Peter, thou shalt suffer death by thy countrymen the Jews: but as for him, I will that he shall tarry till I come and avenge myself upon this generation: and if I will so, what is that to thee?’ The story that is told of both these apostles confirms this exposition; for it is taken for granted by all that St. Peter had his crown of martyrdom before Jerusalem fell; and St. John survived the ruins of it.” [3:453-4]
Commenting on 1 Cor. 3:13, “… For the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire.] Two things shall discover every man’s work, the day and the fire. Both which you may not understand amiss of the word of God manifesting and proving all things. For the light of the gospel is very frequently called the day, and the law of God called fire, Deut.xxxiii.2.
“But I had rather in this place understand by the day, the day of the Lord that was shortly coming, and by fire, the fire of divine indignation to be poured out upon the Jewish nation. And I am the more inclined to this interpretation, because there is so frequent remembrance of that day and fire in the Holy Scriptures.” [4:179]
Lightfoot states that there is no mention of the first day of the week as being the sabbath, except in the story of the resurrection, until the scene is transferred to the Gentiles. [4:277]
Davies, [332]: J. Yebamoth 15.14d: “…. ‘In the day of battle’ [Ps. 140.8] {140:7 KJV) … another interpretation is — on the day when two ages kiss one another; this age making its exit and the Age to Come entering.'”
[296] “… Paul clearly connects the Parousia of Christ with the day of judgement for the world…. [1 Cor.1.7-8; 2 Cor.1.14; Phil.1.6; 1.10; 2.16.]
1:10. “…in the Spirit”
The following quotes will help to show that John’s visions recorded in the Book of Revelation were experienced while in the altered state of consciousness called “in the Spirit”: The Holy Spirit was active in the Church but not in Judaism.
Davies [209]: [One Rabbinic view of the cessation of the Holy Spirit was] “…that the Holy Spirit had ceased with the death of the last prophets…. On the other hand, however, attention has been drawn to passages in the Rabbinic sources which suggest that the Holy Spirit was still active in ‘Israel‘. The relevant passages are:
1. …. R. Aha (c. A.D.300) said: ‘He who learns in order to do is worthy to receive the Holy Spirit.’ [Note 5: Lev. Rabba 35.7.] 2. Words of R. Yudan (c. AD 350): ‘Whosoever openly makes known the words of Torah, he is worthy of the Holy Spirit. [Note 6: Song of Songs, Rabbah, 1.8] 3. R. Nehemiah ( AD 140-65) says: ‘Whosoever taketh upon himself one precept in faith is worthy that the Holy Spirit should rest upon him!’ [Note 7: Mekilta Beshallah 7.] ….”
[211] “…. [Marmorstein] pointed out that many of the Rabbis were pneumatic in the sense that they could exercise the gift of prediction. He refers to the High Priest John, John Hyrkanos (130-135 B.C.) [Note 3: Tosefta Sotah 13.5. The לוק תב foretells a victory of Jewish forces at Antioch; cf. Josephus, Antiquities, 13.4.] R. Johanan B. Zakkai ( AD 10-80),
[Note 4: b. Gittin 56a] R. Eliezer B. Hyrkanos ( AD 80-120) [Note 5: b. Sanh.68a.] as such. There were others of whom it was said that they saw in the Holy Spirit, e.g. R. Gamaliel II ( AD 80-120), [Note 6: Tos.Pes. 1.27; b. `Erub.64b.] R. Akiba ( AD 120-40), [Note 7: Pesikta 176b.] R. Simeon b. Yohai ( AD 140-65), [Note 8: Pesikta 90a.…] In addition certain of the Rabbis, chief among whom was Rabbi Haninah b. Dosa ( AD 10-80), possessed gifts of healing. [Note 9: A. Marmorstein, Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, pp. 295f.].
[211-12], continued) “Thirdly, Marmorstein has referred to the belief in the Shekinah as evidence that Rabbinic Judaism knew the active presence of the Holy Spirit. He insists on the close parallelism between the two conceptions of the HolySpirit and the Shekinah. Both expressions were used as metonymies for God; the sins that drove away the HolySpirit also drove away the Shekinah; the virtues that qualify one for the Holy Spirit also qualify for the Shekinah. A religion that cherished the conception of the Shekinah cannot, so it is implied, have been devoid of the experience of the Holy Spirit.”
“Finally, both in the life of the schools and in the experience of individuals the mind of God was still being revealed to Israel by the bath qol, which therefore fulfilled the function of the Holy Spirit…. Such utterances of the bath qol, which Marmorstein compares with the voices heard by Jesus at His baptism and by Stephen at his martyrdom, were due, so he holds, to the activity of the Holy Spirit.”
[213] “It is doubtful if mere prediction such as ascribed to R. Zadok, R. Johanan b. Zakkai, etc., would be taken to imply any profound prophetic gifts. We know that Rabbinic Judaism came to frown upon those who ‘calculated the times’ and prediction would scarcely differ from such calculation.” [Note 2: “… b. Sanh.97b.”]
[215] “The weight of the evidence suggests that that activity [i.e. of the Holy Spirit] was regarded as a past phenomenon in Israel‘s history, a phenomenon which had indeed given to Israel its Torah, its prophets and the whole of its Scriptures, but which had ceased when the prophetic office ended…. it was the Torah given on Mount Sinai in a past age that was regulative for all life…. Rabbinic piety was essentially nomistic…. we may assume that Paul was reared within a Judaism which, to use very moderate language, tended to relegate the activity of the Holy Spirit to the past…. however, that it was also a Judaism which cherished a strong expectation of the coming of the Holy Spirit in the future….”
[216] “… we are probably justified in assuming that many Rabbinic references to the Holy Spirit have suffered conscious suppression because of the pneumatic emphasis of Christianity. We know that some Rabbis took a sarcastic attitude towards those who claimed possession of the Spirit1 and such an attitude would doubtless lead to the exclusion of many pneumatic references from our Rabbinic sources.” [Note 1: “b. Baba Bathra 12a.” Note 4: “Num. Rabba 15.25.”]
[216-7] “In becoming a Christian Paul entered a new community and in the pneumatic phenomena that marked the life of that community, in its enthusiasm and power he saw proof of the advent of the Age to Come. The active presence of the Spirit in power was a mark of the Endzeit, {end-Time} and, in the words of Gunkel, ‘the legitimization of the Gospel‘…. What lent reality to the Messianic claims of Jesus was the presence of the Spirit, the advent of the power of the Age to Come, and Dr. Dodd has made us familiar with the way in which this fits in with the life and thought of the early Church in his work on ‘Realized Eschatology‘.3….
“The Pauline doctrine of the Spirit, then, is only fully comprehensible in the light of Rabbinic expectations of the Age to Come as an Age of the Spirit and of the community of the Spirit. But … what was meant by an Age of the Spirit?…. Christ is the Second Adam, who has become life-giving Spirit…. The Spirit is essentially creative, life-giving, and it is a familiar fact that for Paul the whole of the Christian life in its ethical no less than in its ‘ecstatic’ aspects is the expression of the activity of the Holy Spirit.” [Note 3: “The Apostolic Preaching and its Developments, pp. 133ff.”]
[221] “…. whereas in Paul the Holy Spirit is the result of Faith in Christ, in Rabbinic Judaism it is the reward of works. That too much can be made of this contrast, however, is clear.”
[223] “…. Paul found in Christ both Torah and Spirit.”
[224] “…for the Rabbis the Age to Come would be a period when Spirit and Law would be coincident and not opposed.”
1:10. “…a great voice, as of a trumpet.”
On the first day of the month Tisri, “…was the ‘blowing of trumpets,’ Lev. xxiii.24; and persons were sent out to give notice of the beginning of the year….” [3:311]