3:10. “…which shall come upon all the world, to try those who dwell upon the earth/[land]…” (See also 2:26, ‘nations.’)
The phrase ‘all the world’ speaks of the whole Roman empire as the phrase is used in Matt. 4:8; Luke 2:1, and 4:5. [2:86]
The immediate reference for the word ‘earth/land’ is the land of Israel in the time the Book was written. Jewish traditions distinguish between ‘the land of Israel’ and ‘without the land’, just as they distinguish ‘Israelites’ from ‘those that are without’ meaning the heathen, or Gentiles. In the New Testament, those who rejected the Gospel were considered ‘the nations’ or, that is, ‘Gentiles’. When Jesus sent the twelve and the seventy exclusively to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel”, he commanded them to “shake off the dust that is on your feet for a testimony against them”, (who refused to hear them, Matt. 10:14; Mark 6:11; Luke 9:5; 10:11.) In Rabbinic terms, they were not to associate with Gentiles, but if they were required for some reason to enter a Gentile City, they were to be careful to shake the dust of that City from off their feet so that they would not be contaminated by it. The term “shake off the dust on your feet” against a city meant that city was considered to be Gentile, and thus contaminated. Jesus proceeded to pronounce curses upon those cities who rejected Him: (Luke: 10:12-16).
The ‘land of Israel’ was defined by two separate rules: (1) that which they possessed who went up out of Egypt and (2) that which they possessed who went up out of Babylon. According to their traditions, many details of their law could only be carried out ‘in the land’. The fine points of what constituted ‘the land’ was much discussed. In one view, it was considered to be three lands: Judea, the land beyond Jordan, and Galilee, with each of those having three countries. On another view, Palestine was considered to be divided into five countries: Idumea, Judea, Samaria, Galilee, and the country beyond Jordan. [1:6-7, 12]
The phrase “those who dwell upon the earth” is interpreted by the Rabbis as meaning ‘the Sanhedrim’. [Lightfoot, 2:188, quoting from Gloss on Bab.Sanhedrim. fol.97.1.] This phrase, or an equivalent variant, is also used in Revelation 6:10; 11:10; 12:12; 13:8, 14; 14:6; 17:2, 8.]
“…The people of the earth, in common phrase, opposed to … the disciples of the wise men, whom they call the holy people; but the former they call the accursed….”
[3:325]
“…That the destruction of Jerusalem is very frequently expressed in Scripture as if it were the destruction of the whole world, Deut. xxxii.22; …(the discourse there is about the wrath of God consuming that people; see ver. 20, 21), ‘and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.’ Jer.iv.23; ‘I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form and void; and the heavens, and they had no light,’ &c. The discourse there also is concerning the destruction of that nation, Isa. lxv.17; ….According to this sense, Christ speaks in this place; and Peter speaks in his Second Epistle, third chapter; and John, in the sixth of the Revelation; and Paul, 2 Cor. v. 17, &c…..” [2:318] [ See also 16:20. “And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.”]
“…In what sense (beside that which is most common and proper) the Jewish schools use the word …{kosmon, ‘world’}… we may see from these and such like instances:
“… The whole world hath forsaken the Misnas, and followed the Gemara. Where something may be noted in the story as well as in the grammar of it.
“So John xii.19: … Behold the world is gone after him.… We very often meet with … All the world confesseth, &c. and … The whole world doth not dissent, &c. By which kind of phrase, both amongst them and all other languages, is meant a very great number or multitude….
“…But it is principally worthy our observation, that they distinguish the whole world into … Israel, and … the nations of the world; the Israelites and the Gentiles. This distinction, by which they call the Gentiles the nations of the world, occurs almost in every leaf….
“…They further teach us, that the nations of the world are not only not to be redeemed, but to be wasted, destroyed, and trodden underfoot….
“I could be endless in passage of this nature out of these authors: but that which is very observable in all of them is this; That all those curses and dreadful judgments which God in his Holy writ threatens against wicked men, they post it off wholly from themselves and their own nation, as if not at all belonging to them, devolving all upon the Gentiles and the nations of the world….
“…They had taught amongst themselves, that God had no regard to the nations of the world, they were odious to him, and the Messiah, when he came, would destroy and condemn them: but the Truth saith, ‘God so loved the world, that he hath sent his Son not to condemn, but to save the world….” [3:267-9]
“…’Whosoever dwells in Babylon is as though he dwelt in the land of Israel.’ ‘All foreign land is called … heathen, except Babylon.’ Where by … Babylon they understand all those countries unto which the Babylonian captivity was carried and led away.
“And these passages they have of Syria. ‘In three respects Syria was like to the land of Israel. It was bound to tithes, and the seventh year; you might go thither in purity: and he that bought a farm in Syria was as though he bought one in the suburbs of Jerusalem.’ And again, ‘Syria as to some judgments is as the land of Israel.’ And again, ‘They bring out [the fruits of the seventh year] into Syria, but not without the land.’ Note, that Syria was not reputed ‘without the land,’ but in divers things to be united with Palestine. And many passages of that nature may be produced both of Syria and of Babylon.” [4:286-7]
3:12. “…a pillar in the Temple of my God….”
The overcomer in Christ was to replace the Sanhedrin council:
“…’The great council of Jerusalem was…(…the pillar and ground) the ground of the traditional law, and the pillar of doctrine….'” [2:290]
3:12. The Temple.
The Temple site, on Mount Moriah, was situated so that the city lay round about it as the seats of a theater around about a stage or platform. The Rabbis say that the courts of the Temple stood upon arches and pillars, that is, they were elevated, and the space beneath was hollow, to avoid contamination from any dead body, grave, or such like. [1:63-4]
This platform may have been considered another ‘mountain’, which was analogous to the spiritual ‘highest of mountains’.
[1:75] The Temple resembled the figure of a lion, broader on the front than at the rear.
[1:84] “They built a foot-causeway, or a foot-bridge, upheld with arches, from the mount of the Temple to the mount of Olives, upon which they led away the red cow (to be burned). In like manner, such a causeway they made, upon which they led away the scape-goat: both were built at the charges of the public treasure, which was in the Temple.” (Quoting Maimonides in Shekalim, cap.4.8.)
Concerning ‘Solomon’s Porch’ Lightfoot explains that the name given to it of ‘the King’s Gallery [Gate]’ was not the king Solomon, but the king Herod, who rebuilt and ‘beautified’ the temple. Quoting Josephus:
“‘At this time was the Temple finished’ [i.e. under Gessius Florus, the procurator of Judea about the eleventh or twelfth year of Nero]….’ Herod, as it should seem from Josephus, finished the Temple, and the Pronaon, the porch before it, and …the Royal Gallery. But what he finished further, about the courts and cloister-walks, it does not appear. It is manifest, indeed, that there was a great deal left unperfected by him; when the whole was not finished till the very latter end of Nero’s reign, and scarcely before that fatal war in which the Temple was burnt and buried in its own ruins: which observation will be of use when we come to John ii.20, ‘Forty and six years was this Temple in building.'” [1:370]
Lightfoot describes the second temple: “The Jews, upon their return from Babylon, at first made use of an altar without a Temple, till the Temple was finished under Darius the Second. And then they made use of the Temple without the ark, a priesthood without the Urim and Thummim, and sacrifices without fire from heaven….
“Under the Persian empire, they went on quietly with the Temple, little or nothing molested or incommoded by them….
“But under the Greeks happened the calamity of the Temple and nation; and all those dreadful things which are spoken concerning [Gog] by Ezekiel the prophet, were fulfilled in the tyranny of this empire….” (See 20-8 Gog.)
“….’Five things (say they) were wanting under the second Temple, which were under the first; namely, the fire from heaven, the ark, Urim and Thummim, the oil of anointing, and the Holy Spirit.'” [2:81]
“…’He that never saw the Temple of Herod never saw a fine building. What was it built of? Rabba saith, Of white and green marble. But some say, Of white, green and spotted marble….'” [2:308]
“…’In the second Temple there wanted the Fire from heaven, the Ark with the Propitiatory and Cherubims, Urim and Thummim, …the Divine glory, the Holy Ghost, and the anointing Oil.’
“These things were all in Solomon’s Temple, which therefore was accounted a full and plenary type of the Messiah: but so long as the second Temple had them not, it wanted what more particularly shadowed and represented him. {Jesus}
“I. There was indeed in the second Temple a certain ark in the Holy of Holies; but this was neither Moses‘s ark nor the ark of the covenant: which may not unfitly come to mind when we read that passage, Rev.xi.19, ‘The Temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his Temple the ark of his testament.’ It was not seen, nor indeed was it at all in the second Temple.
“The Jews have a tradition, that Josias hid the ark before the Babylonish captivity, lest it should fall into the hands of the enemy, as once it did amongst the Philistines; but there is no mention that it was ever found and restored again.
“II. In Moses‘ Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple the divine presence sat visibly over the Ark in the Propitiatory, in a cloud of glory: but when the destruction of that Temple drew near, it went up from the Propitiatory, Ezek.x.4, and never returned into the second Temple, where neither the Ark nor the Propitiatory was ever restored.
“III. The high priest, indeed, ministered in the second Temple as in the first, in eight several garments. Amongst these was the pectoral, or breastplate, wherein the precious stones were put (out of which the jasper chanced to fall and was lost): but the oracle by Urim and Thummim was never restored: see Ezra ii.63; Neh.vii.63. And if not restored in the days of Ezra or Nehemiah, much less certainly in the ages following, when the spirit of prophecy had forsaken and taken leave of that people. For that is a great truth amongst the Talmudists; ‘Things are not asked or inquired after now [by Urim and Thummim] by the high priest … because he doth not speak by the Holy Ghost, nor does there any divine afflatus breathe on him.’
“This, to omit other things, was the state of Zorobabel‘s Temple with respect to those things which were the peculiar glory of it. And these things being wanting, how much inferior must this needs be to that of Solomon’s!
“But there is one thing that degraded Herod‘s Temple still lower; and that was the person of Herod himself, to whom it is ascribed. It was not without scruple, even amongst the Jews themselves, that it was built and repaired by such a one: (and who knew not what Herod was?) and they dispute whether by right such a person ought to have meddled with it; and invent arguments for their own satisfaction as to the lawfulness of the thing.
“They object first, … It is not permitted to any one to demolish one synagogue till he hath built another: much less to demolish the Temple. But Herod demolished the Temple before he had built another. Ergo,
“They answer, ‘Baba Ben Buta gave Herod that counsel, that he should pull it down.’ Now this Baba was reckoned amongst the wise men, and he did not rashly move Herod to such a work; … for he saw such clefts and breaches in the Temple that threatened its ruin.
“They object, secondly, concerning the person of Herod, that he was a servant to the Asmonean family, that he rose up against his masters and killed them, and had killed the Sanhedrim.
“They answer, We were under his power, and could not resist it. And if those hands stained with blood would be building, it was not in their power to hinder it.
“These and other things they apologize for their Temple; adding this invention for the greater honour of the thing–that all that space of time wherein it was a building, it never once rained by day, that the work might not be interrupted.
“The Rabbins take a great deal of pains, but to no purpose, upon those words, Hagg.ii.9, ‘The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former.’ ‘R. Jochanan and R. Eliezer say; one, that it was greater for the fabric; the other, that it was greater for the duration.’ As if the glory of the Temple consisted in any mathematical reasons of space, dimension, or duration; as if it lay in walls, gilding, or ornament. The glory of the first Temple was the Ark, the divine cloud over the Ark, the Urim and the Thummim, &c. Now where or in what can consist the greater glory of the second Temple when these are gone?
“Herein it is indeed that the Lord of the Temple was himself present in his Temple: he himself was present … in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, Coloss.ii.9; as the divine glory of old was over the ark … typically, or by way of shadow only.
“This is the glory, when he himself is present who is the great High Priest and the Prophet; who, answerably to the Urim and Thummim of old, reveals the counsels and will of God; he who is the true and living Temple, whom that Temple shadowed out. ‘This Temple of yours, O ye Jews, does not answer its first pattern and exemplar: there are wanting in that, what were the chief glory of the former; which very defect intimates that there is another Temple to be expected, that in all things may fall in with its first type, as it is necessary the antitype should do. And this is the Temple of my body.’ ….” [3:259-61]
It was in the traditions of the Jewish writers that ‘the tabernacle {temple} of David’ was none other than the Messiah:
“…‘I will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down….’ {Amos 9:11.} ‘Rab. Nachman said to R. Isaac, … Whence art thou taught when Bar Naphli will come? He saith unto him, … Who is this Bar Naphli? The other replied ‘It is the Messiah.’ ‘Dost thou then call the Messias Bar Naphli?’ ‘Yes,’ saith he, ‘for it is written, In that day I will build again the tabernacle of David … hannopheleth, falling down.”” [4:126]
3:14: “… the beginning of the creation of God;…”
Davies, [40-1]: “… all the Synoptists in their descriptions of the End refer to certain physical phenomena which clearly imply the cosmic significance of Jesus…. We conclude from all this that the ascription of Messiahship to Jesus implied from the first that He had cosmic significance, and that for Christians His Advent was a new creation.”
Davies, [335]: Passages from SIFRE on Num. and Deut.: On Deut. 11.10, ¶37 “…. The Torah, because it was loved more than all things, was created before all, as it is said, ‘The Lord created me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.'”
John is saying that Christ is the true Torah, the Word.
3:14. “…the angel of the church of the Laodiceans…”
The Talmud mentions ‘Laodicea’ in regard to a certain incident in which some men were slain for the murder of the king’s daughter. The explanation in the gloss, however, is that ‘Laodicea’ is Lydda.
According to Lightfoot, the town of Lydda in Judea was sometimes called ‘Laodicea’ by the Rabbis, probably because of its wickedness.
Lightfoot believes that Lydda was one and the same place as Lod, the difference in the names being that one was Hebrew and one was Greek. The message to the “Church at Laodicea” may have this view in mind as a referent. [1:38-9]
3:14. “…the faithful witness…”
When Jesus used the words: “Verily, verily, I say unto you…” He was speaking according to the custom of the nation and in opposition to the Rabbis who used such a phrase to claim divine authority for their sayings: “By this asseveration he doth well oppose his divine oracles against the insolent madness of the traditional doctors, who did often vent their blasphemous and frivolous tales under this seal…They speak in truth: and ‘wheresoever this is said (say they), it is…a tradition of Moses from Sinai.'” [2:100]
3:17; 16:15. “…lest he walk naked….”
Lightfoot, [1:133], shows that the Rabbis believed a person was not to speak of the law while naked.
3:18. “…I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich….”
Commenting on 1 Cor. 3:12, “… That the apostle is speaking of doctrines, is plain from the context…. By the several kinds of these things, ‘gold, silver, wood, hay, stubble,’ we may understand not only the different manner of teaching, but even the different kinds of doctrines taught…. the very doctrines were different: and some were such as could endure the trial of the fire, and others which could not….
“…fire shall prove doctrines, whether they are evangelical or no. If any one’s work or doctrine will endure the trial of that fire, he shall receive the reward of sound doctrine: if the doctrine of any will not endure it, but be consumed, he shall receive the damage of his pains and labour lost, but he himself shall be saved; but this, as he is proved by fire.“ [4:178-9]
3:21. “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
To ‘sit down’ was expressed of one that teaches. [4:116]