Revelation 11:15 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Revelation 11:15
And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
to cause to be ("gen"-erate) · verb — second aorist middle deponent indicative, 3rd person singular
our
ἡμῶνhēmōn
G2257
of (or from) us
Lord
κυρίουkuriou
G2962
supreme in authority · noun — genitive singular masculine, a title
and
καὶkai
G2532
and · conjunction
his
αὐτοῦ,autou
G846
the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — genitive singular masculine
Christ
χριστοῦchristou
G5547
anointed · noun — genitive singular masculine, a title
and
καὶkai
G2532
and · conjunction
reign
βασιλεύσειbasileusei
G936
to rule (literally or figuratively) · verb — future active indicative, 3rd person singular
for
εἰςeis
G1519
to or into (indicating the point reached or entered) · preposition
ever
αἰῶναςaiōnas
G165
properly · noun — accusative plural masculine
ever
αἰώνων.¶aiōnōn
G165
properly · noun — genitive plural masculine
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Daniel 7:14 And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an ev…
Daniel 7:27 And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the mos…
Revelation 12:10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for…
Revelation 10:7 But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared…
Revelation 19:1 And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto t…
Zechariah 14:9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.
Luke 1:33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
Exodus 15:18 The LORD shall reign for ever and ever.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Revelation 11:14–end
We have here the sounding of the seventh and last trumpet, which is ushered in by the usual warning and demand of attention: The second woe is past, and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly. Then the seventh angel sounded. This had been suspended for some time, till the apostle had been made acquainted with some intervening occurrences of very great moment, and worthy of his notice and observation. But what he before expected he now heard - the seventh angel sounding. Here observe the effects and consequences of this trumpet, thus sounded.
I. Here were loud and joyful acclamations of the saints and angels in heaven. Observe, 1. The manner of their adorations: they rose from their seats, and…
sounded--with his trumpet. Evidently "the LAST trumpet." Six is close to seven, but does not reach it. The world judgments are complete in six, but by the fulfilment of seven the world kingdoms become Christ's. Six is the number of the world given over to judgment. It is half of twelve, the Church's number, as three and a half is half of seven, the divine number for completeness. BENGEL thinks the angel here to have been Gabriel, which name is compounded of El, GOD, and Geber, MIGHTY MAN (Rev 10:1). Gabriel therefore appropriately announced to Mary the advent of the mighty God-man: compare the account of the man-child's birth which follows (Rev 12:1-6), to which this forms the transition tho…
There were great voices in heaven - All the heavenly host - angels and redeemed human spirits, joined together to magnify God; that he had utterly discomfited his enemies and rendered his friends glorious. This will be truly the case when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of God and of his Christ, But when shall this be? Some say, that is meant by these words has already taken place in the destruction of the Jewish state, and sending the Gospel throughout the Gentile world. Others say that it refers to the millennium, and to the consummation of all things.
The Church Fathers
And the seventh angel sounded his trumpet, etc. The first six trumpets, compared to the ages of this present world, announced various conflicts of wars for the Church. But the seventh, the herald of eternal Sabbath, proclaims only the victory and dominion of the true king.
And the seventh sounded the trumpet: and there were great voices in heaven. This seventh angel sounds the trumpet as the Lord appears for the judgment. By this angel we understand the Church, no longer preaching, but singing mercy and judgment for the Lord. This is why the angel standing upon the earth and the sea swears that time shall be no longer but the end will come with the seventh trumpet. The great voices in heaven, that is in the Church, are thanksgivings; and it is right to call them great, because a great desire is arising concerning great things. John shows where these voices come from, adding, saying: The kingdom of this world— that is the kingdom in which the old enemy used to reign — is become God's and his Christ's, and they shall reign for ever and ever. In them, that is the Father and the Son, the Trinity is understood.
As a detour, the vision recounts the matters concerning the two witnesses, who are identified as prophets, and elaborates on all that pertains to them, focusing on their origin and where they have come from. They have come forth from the holy restitution of the future, and that the number of those from the nations surpasses that of Israel, and that those who have pleased God in the New Covenant exceed those in the Old. And it states that when the seventh angel sounded his trumpet, voices were heard in heaven proclaiming that the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of God and of His Christ. God always reigns, and He neither began nor will cease to reign over heaven and earth and all things visible and invisible within them, but He is the Ruler and Lord of all things without beginning and without end. Since men also became kings on earth, God had a certain way of sharing kingship with them; but when the earthly kingdom of men is dissolved at the end of the present age, only God will reign. Therefore, it has been said that the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of God and of His Christ, with the men who ruled on earth and the tyrannical demons having been destroyed and ceased.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Christ, The King · Has an universal kingdom — Has an universal kingdom
Gentiles · CONVERSION OF — CONVERSION OF
Second Coming Of Christ, The · The purposes of, are to: Reign — The purposes of, are to: Reign
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Gill on Revelation 11:15
And the seventh angel sounded,.... The last of the seven angels, who had trumpets given them to sound, Revelation 8:2. The days of the voice of this angel, as in Revelation 10:7, cannot refer to the times of Constantine; for though there was then a strange turn of affairs in favour of the kingdom of Christ, when there was a great spread of the Gospel, and large conversions in many places, and many churches were raised and formed in several countries, and the whole empire became Christian; yet this, as we have seen, came to pass under the sixth seal, before any of the trumpets were sounded, and much less this seventh and last; nor do they belong to the times of the Reformation in Germany. Bri…
The seventh trumpet (“the third terror,” 11:14; see also 9:12) presents a scene of final judgment and the eternal Kingdom. As in 7:9-17, this scene provides a dramatic window into the ultimate Christian hope with God. In the midst of a picture of judgment, the reader is reminded of eternity with God.
11:15 Loud voices in the court of heaven sing a victory hymn; the earth has been transformed into the realm of our Lord and his Christ, who is enthroned as king forever.
