He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth [it.]
17. give to eat ] He shall receive the Bread of God (St Joh 6:32 sqq.) instead of communicating at the table of devils (1Co 10:21).
the hidden manna ] The reference is to the pot of manna kept in the Tabernacle, in or before the Ark (Exo 16:34; Heb 9:4), and therefore “hidden” in the unapproachable Sanctuary. The Jews appear to have cherished an opinion that the Ark of the Covenant, and other sacred objects which were wanting in the Second Temple, had not perished with the First, but were concealed before its destruction (see e.g. 2Ma 1:19 sqq., 2Ma 2:4 sqq.), and were preserved somewhere in earth or heaven, to be revealed in the days of the Messiah. But we are not to understand that this Book sanctions the first part of this belief, when Rev 21:22 contradicts the second: passages like Rev 11:19 do not imply that the earthly Temple or its contents have been removed to Heaven, but that, whether the earthly Temple stands or falls, there remains in Heaven the archetype from which it was copied, according to the revelations made to Moses and (through David) to Solomon. See Exo 25:40; Exo 26:30; 1Ch 28:12; Heb 8:5; Heb 9:23 sq.
a white stone, and in the stone a new name written ] Whatever be the precise meaning of this figure, the white stone and the new name are closely connected. This excludes the notion that the white stone is given as a token of acquittal because judges who voted to acquit the prisoner dropped a white stone, sometimes called the pebble of victory, into the urn, though the stone is white because that was the colour of innocence, of joy, of victory. The white stone is a gift in itself, not merely a vehicle of the new name, which it would be if the new name were the new name of Christ Himself, Rev 3:12 (which may be identical with His hidden Name, Rev 19:12), though this too is written upon those who overcome, as the Father’s Name is written on the hundred and forty and four thousand. The stone and the name are the separate possession of each to whom they are given. Most likely both are a token entitling the bearer to some further benefit. It is no objection to this that we do not find the technical Greek word for such tokens, for the ‘token’ might be described without being named. The Greeks had feasts to which every feaster brought a token as a pledge that he would pay his share of the cost. Such a token might also prove his right to join the company. If so, it may be meant that when they who are worthy are called to the Marriage Supper each is called by the new name which he only knows, as each hears and enters, the White stone with the new name is his passport at the door. This would require us to believe that the hidden manna is given to strengthen the elect on the way (1Ki 19:8; Joh 4:32). Possibly again the token gives the right to enter through the gates into the city (Rev 22:14) for the angels at the gates may suffer none to pass who cannot name themselves by the new name and shew the white stone. It appears from Aristophanes (Av. 1199 1224) that foreigners (at least in time of war) had no right to be at large in a strange city without some token from its authorities. The parallel though suggestive is too remote in place and time to be convincing. The contemporary parallels of tickets for stated doles or occasional largesses are not exact. These which might be thrown to be scrambled for were marked with the amount of the gifts they represented, not with the owner’s name. If the word used of a ‘stone’ could mean a gem as “Victorinus” supposes, the key to the passage might lie in Wetstein’s quotation from Joma 8 about the rain of pearls and precious stones which fell with the manna. The first readers of the Apocalypse had not to reflect with Bengel that they would know the meaning of the white stone and the new name if and when they overcame. Its symbolical language was plain at the time to those who had ears to hear. Perhaps the new and hidden name is a pledge that no enemy can have power upon him who receives it, for exorcists were supposed to have power over spirits good and evil by knowing their names, and this was only an instance of a widespread feeling which it is said led Csar to put a man to death for divulging the sacred secret name of Rome, which was Valentia. It is possible that some kindred mystery may attach to the names, Il. I. 403, XX. 74, which differ in the language of gods and men.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
He that hath an ear … – notes on Rev 2:7.
To him that overcometh – notes on Rev 2:7.
Will I give to eat of the hidden manna – The true spiritual food; the food that nourishes the soul. The idea is, that the souls of those who overcame, or who gained the victory in their conflict with sin, and in the persecutions and trials of the world, would be permitted to partake of that spiritual food which is laid up for the people of God, and by which they will be nourished forever. The Hebrews were supported by manna in the desert Exo. 16:16-35; a pot of that manna was laid up in the most holy place, to be preserved as a memorial Exo 16:32-34; it is called angels food Psa 78:25, and corn of heaven Psa 78:24; and it would seem to have been emblematical of that spiritual food by which the people of God are to be fed from heaven, in their journey through this world. By the word hidden, there would seem to be an allusion to what was laid up in the pot before the ark of the testimony, and the blessing which is promised here is that they would be nourished as if they were sustained by that manna thus laid up before the ark: by food from the immediate presence of God. The language thus explained would mean that they who overcome will be nourished through this life as if by that hidden manna; that is, that they will be supplied all along through the wilderness of this world by that food from the immediate presence of God which their souls require.
As the parallel places in the epistles to the churches, however, refer rather to the heavenly world, and to the rewards which they who are victors shall have there, it seems probable that this has immediate reference to that world also, and that the meaning is, that, as the most holy place was a type of heaven, they will be admitted into the immediate presence of God, and nourished forever by the food of heaven – what the angels have; what the soul will need to sustain it there. Even in this world their souls may be nourished with this hidden manna; in heaven it will be their constant food forever.
And will give him a white stone – There has been a great variety of opinion in regard to the meaning of this expression, and almost no two expositors agree. Illustrations of its meaning have been sought from Grecian, Hebrew, and Roman customs, but none of these have removed all difficulty from the expression. The general sense of the language seems plain, even though the allusion on which it is founded is obscure, or even unknown. It is, that the Saviour would give him who overcame a token of his favor which would have some word or name inscribed on it, and which would be of use to him alone, or intelligible to him only: that is, some secret token which would make him sure of the favor of his Redeemer, and which would be unknown to other people. The idea here would find a correspondence in the evidences of his favor granted to the soul of the Christian himself; in the pledge of heaven thus made to him, and which he would understand, but which no one else would understand,
The things, then, which we are to look for in the explanation of the emblem are two – what would thus be a token of his favor, and what would explain the fact that it would be intelligible to no one else. The question is, whether there is any known thing pertaining to ancient customs which would convey those ideas. The word rendered stone – psephon – means, properly, a small stone, as worn smooth by water – a gravel-stone, a pebble; then any polished stone, the stone of a gem, or ring (Robinsons Lexicon). Such a stone was used among the Greeks for various purposes, and the word came to have a signification corresponding to these uses. The following uses are enumerated by Dr. Robinson, Lexicon: the stones, or counters for reckoning; dice, lots, used in a kind of magic; a vote, spoken of the black and white stones or pebbles anciently used in voting – that is, the white for approval, and the black for condemning.
In regard to the use of the word here, some have supposed that the reference is to a custom of the Roman emperors, who, in the games and spectacles which they gave to the people in imitation of the Greeks, are said to have thrown among the populace dice or tokens inscribed with the words, Frumentum, vestes, etc.; that is, Corn, clothing, etc.; and whosoever obtained one of these received from the emperor whatever was marked upon it. Others suppose that allusion is made to the mode of casting lots, in which sometimes dice or tokens were used with names inscribed on them, and the lot fell to him whose name first came out. The white stone was a symbol of good fortune and prosperity; and it is a remarkable circumstance that, among the Greeks, persons of distinguished virtue were said to receive a psephon, stone, from the gods, that is, as an approving testimonial of their virtue.
See Robinsons Lexicon, and the authorities there referred to; Wetstein, New Testament, in loco, and Stuart, in leto. Prof. Stuart supposes that the allusion is to the fact that Christians are said to be kings and priests to God, and that as the Jewish high priest had a mitre or turban, on the front of which was a plate of gold inscribed Holiness to the Lord, so they who were kings and priests under the Christian dispensation would have that by which they would be known, but that, instead of a plate of gold, they would have a pellucid stone, on which the name of the Saviour would be engraved as a token of his favor. It is possible, in regard to the explanation of this phrase, that there has been too much effort to find all the circumstances alluded to in some ancient custom. Some well-understood fact or custom may have suggested the general thought, and then the filling up may have been applicable to this case alone. It is quite clear, I think, that none of the customs to which it has been supposed there is reference correspond fully with what is stated here, and that though there may have been a general allusion of that kind, yet something of the particularity in the circumstances may be regarded as unique to this alone. In accordance with this view, perhaps the following points will embody all that need be said:
(1) A white stone was regarded as a token of favor, prosperity, or success everywhere – whether considered as a vote, or as given to a victor, etc. As such, it would denote that the Christian to whom it is said to be given would meet with the favor of the Redeemer, and would have a token of his approval.
(2) The name written on this stone would be designed also as a token or pledge of his favor – as a name engraved on a signet or seal would be a pledge to him who received it of friendship. It would be not merely a white stone – emblematic of favor and approval – but it would be so marked as to indicate its origin, with the name of the giver on it. This would appropriately denote, when explained, that the victor Christian would receive a token of the Redeemers favor, as if his name were engraven on a stone, and given to him as a pledge of his friendship; that is, that he would be as certain of his favor as if he had such a stone. In other words, the victor would be assured from the Redeemer, who distributes rewards, that his welfare would be secure.
(3) This would be to him as if he should receive a stone so marked that its letters were invisible to all others, but apparent to him who received it. It is not needful to suppose that in the Olympic games, or in the prizes distributed by Roman emperors, or in any other custom, such a case had actually occurred, but it is conceivable that a name might be so engraved – with characters so small, or in letters so unknown to all others or with marks so unintelligible to others – that no other one into whose hands it might fall would understand it. The meaning then probably is, that to the true Christian – the victor over sin – there is given some pledge of the divine favor which has to him all the effect of assurance, and which others do not perceive or understand. This consists of favors shown directly to the soul – the evidence of pardoned sin; joy in the Holy Spirit; peace with God; clear views of the Saviour; the possession of a spirit which is properly that of Christ, and which is the gift of God to the soul. The true Christian understands this; the world perceives it not. The Christian receives it as a pledge of the divine favor, and as an evidence that he will be saved; to the world, that on which he relies seems to be enthusiasm, fanaticism, or delusion. The Christian bears it about with him as he would a precious stone given to him by his Redeemer, and on which the name of his Redeemer is engraved, as a pledge that he is accepted of God, and that the rewards of heaven shall be his; the world does not understand it, or attaches no value to it.
And in the stone a new name written – A name indicating a new relation, new hopes and triumphs. Probably the name here referred to is the name of the Redeemer, or the name Christian, or some such appellation. It would be some name which he would understand and appreciate, and which would be a pledge of acceptance.
Which no man knoweth, … – That is, no one would understand its import, as no one but the Christian estimates the value of that on which he relics as the pledge of his Redeemers love.
The Epistle to the Church at Thyatira
The contents of this epistle Rev 2:18-29 are as follows:
(1) A reference, as is usual in these epistles, to some attribute of the Saviour which demanded their particular attention, or which was especially appropriate to the nature of the message which he was about to send to them, Rev 2:18. The attributes which he fixes on here are, that his eyes are like a flame of fire – as if they would pierce and penetrate to the recesses of the heart; and that his feet are like fine brass – perhaps indicative of majesty as he moved among the churches.
(2) A statement, in the usual form, that he was entirely acquainted with the church, and that therefore the judgment which he was about to pronounce was founded on a thorough knowledge of what the church was; and a general commendation of them for their charity, service, faith, and patience, Rev 2:19.
(3) A severe reproof of the church, notwithstanding, for their tolerating a teacher of dangerous doctrine, whom he calls Jezebel, with the assurance that she and her children should not go unpunished, Rev 2:20-23.
(4) An assurance to all the rest in Thyatira that no other calamity or burden would come upon the church than what was inevitable in delivering it from the dangerous influence of these doctrines, and a solemn charge to them to hold fast all the truth which they had until he should come, Rev 2:24-25.(5) A promise, as usual, to those who should overcome, or who should be victorious, Rev 2:26-29. They would have power over the nations; they would be associated with the Redeemer in ruling them; they would have the morning star.
(6) A call, as usual, on all who had ears to hear, to attend to what the Spirit said to the churches.
Thyatira was a city of Asia Minor, on the northern border of Lydia, and commonly reckoned as belonging to Lydia. It was about twenty-seven miles from Sardis; about a days journey from Pergamos, and about the same distance from the seacoast. Its modern name is Ak-hissar, or the white castle. According to Pliny, it was known in earlier times by the name of Pelopia (Hist. Nat. v. 29). Strabo (xiii. p. 928) says that it was a Macedonian colony. The Roman road from Pergames to Sardis passed through it. It was noted for the art of dyeing Act 16:14, and Lukes account in the Acts has been confirmed by the discovery of an inscription in honor of Antonius Claudius Alphenus, which concludes with the words hoi bafeis – the dyers.
Pliny Fisk, the American missionary, who visited the city, thus describes it: Thyatira is situated near a small river, a branch of the Caicus, in the center of an extensive plain. At the distance of three or four miles it is almost completely surrounded by mountains. The houses are low; many of them made of mud or earth. Excepting the motsellims palace, there is scarcely a decent house in the place. The streets are narrow and dirty, and everything indicates poverty and degradation. We had a letter of introduction to Economo, the bishops procurator, and a principal man among the Greeks of this town … He says the Turks have destroyed all remnants of the ancient church; and even the place where it stood is now unknown. At present there are in the town one thousand houses, for which taxes are paid to the government (Memoir of P. Fisk; Boston, Mass., 1828).
The following description, by Mr. Schneider, missionary of the American Board, will give a correct view of Thyatira, as it existed in 1848: From Magnesia we proceeded to Thyatira, the site of one of the Apocalyptic churches, now called Ak-hissar. The population consists of about 700 Mussulman houses, 250 Greek houses, and 50 Armenian houses (circa 1850s). The town is located in a plain of considerable size, and is hardly visible on being approached, by reason of the profusion of foliage. The plain itself is bounded on all sides by mountains, and cotton and a kind of reddish root (madder), used for dyeing red, are raised abundantly. I observed that this root is extensively cultivated in all that region, and forms an important article of export to England, where it is used for dyeing purposes. In Act 16:14 we read of Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira. May not this root be the very article with which her purple was colored, which she was selling at Philippi, when the Lord opened her heart to attend to the things spoken by Paul? It seems to me probable. But, if it was so, this art of coloring appears to have been lost, for I could not find that it is now at all practiced in that place or that region.
The Christian traveler and missionary naturally looks for something interesting in a place where once existed a true church of Christ. But, alas! how sadly is he disappointed! The place presents an appearance in nothing different from other Turkish towns. Everything wears a Mussulman aspect. The houses, streets, dress, occupation, and language of the inhabitants all indicate a predominating Turkish influence. Christianity exists there in name, but it is the bare name. Its spirit has long since fled. The Greeks, especially, seem to be especially superstitious. I visited their church, and found it full of pictures and other marks of degenerate Christianity. A long string of these images, extending from one side of the church to the other, was suspended so low as to permit the worshipper to approach and kiss them; and so frequently had this adoration been bestowed on them, that all appeared soiled from the frequent contact of the lips. Over the entrance of the church I observed a representation of a grave old man, with a silvery beard, surrounded by angels. Suspecting the object designed to be shadowed forth, I inquired of a lad standing by what that figure meant. He instantly replied, It is God. I observed two similar representations of the Deity in the interior of the church. The churchyard is used as a burying-place; but only those whose friends are able to pay for the privilege of entombing their dead can enjoy it. Candles are lighted at the heads of the graves in the night, and incense is often burned. When the process of decay has proceeded so far as to leave nothing but the bones, these are taken up and thrown into a sealed vault, over which a chapel is suited up, in which mass is said over these relics of the dead for the benefit of their souls! A feeling of abhorrence came over me as I stood in the place where such abominations are committed.
The Armenians are far less superstitious. Comparatively only a few pictures are to be seen in their church, and three or four individuals are more or less enlightened, and in an inquiring state of mind. We had a long interview with one of them, the teacher, and left some books with him. I am not without hopes that a little gospel leaven has been deposited here, the effects of which will appear at some future day (Miss. Herald, Feb. 1848). The engraving in this volume will give a representation of this city as it now exists.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 17. The hidden manna] It was a constant tradition of the Jews that the ark of the covenant, the tables of stone, Aaron’s rod, the holy anointing oil, and the pot of manna, were hidden by King Josiah when Jerusalem was taken by the Chaldeans; and that these shall all be restored in the days of the Messiah. This manna was hidden, but Christ promises to give it to him that is conqueror. Jesus is the ark, the oil, the rod, the testimony, and the manna. He who is partaker of his grace has all those things in their spiritual meaning and perfection.
And will give him a white stone] I. It is supposed that by the white stone is meant pardon or acquittance, and the evidence of it; and that there is an allusion here to the custom observed by judges in ancient times, who were accustomed to give their suffrages by white and black pebbles; those who gave the former were for absolving the culprit, those who gave the latter were for his condemnation. This is mentioned by Ovid, Metam. lib. xv., ver. 41:
Mos erat antiquus, niveis atrisque lapillis,
His damnare reos, illis absolvere culpa.
Nunc quoque sic lata est sententia tristis.
“A custom was of old, and still remains,
Which life or death by suffrages ordains:
White stones and black within an urn are cast,
The first absolve, but fate is in the last.”
DRYDEN.
II. Others suppose there is an allusion here to conquerors in the public games, who were not only conducted with great pomp into the city to which they belonged, but had a white stone given to them, with their name inscribed on it; which badge entitled them, during their whole life, to be maintained at the public expense. See Pind., Olymp. vii. 159, and the Scholia there; and see the collections in Wetstein, and Rosenmuller’s note. These were called tesserae among the Romans, and of these there were several kinds.
1. Tesserae conviviales, which answered exactly to our cards of invitation, or tickets of admission to a public feast or banquet; when the person invited produced his tessera he was admitted. The mention of the hidden manna here may seem to intimate that there is a reference to these convivial tesserae, whether given to the victor in the public games, entitling him to be fed at the public expense, or to a particular friend, inviting him to a family meal or to a public banquet.
2. There were tesserae inscribed with different kinds of things, such as provisions, garments, gold or silver vessels, horses, mares, slaves, c. These were sometimes thrown by the Roman emperors among the crowd in the theatres, and he that could snatched one and on producing it he received that, the name of which was inscribed on it. But from Dio Cassius it appears that those tesserae were small wooden balls, whereas the tesserae in general were square, whence they had their name, as having four sides, angles, or corners. Illi , vel vocabant figuram quamvis quadratam, quae quatuor angulos haberet; and these were made of stone, marble, bone, or ivory, lead, brass, or other metal. See Pitiscus.
3. Tesserae frumentariae, or tickets to receive grain in the public distributions of corn; the name of the person who was to receive, and the quantum of grain; being both inscribed on this badge or ticket. Those who did not need this public provision for themselves were permitted to sell their ticket, and the bearer was entitled to the quantum of grain mentioned on it.
4. But the most remarkable of these instruments were the tesserae hospitales, which were given as badges of friendship and alliance, and on which some device was engraved, as a testimony that a contract of friendship had been made between the parties. A small oblong square piece of wood, bone, stone, or ivory, was taken and divided into two equal parts, on which each of the parties wrote his own name, and then interchanged it with the other. This was carefully preserved, and handed down even to posterity in the same family; and by producing this when they travelled, it gave a mutual claim to the bearers of kind reception and hospitable entertainment at each other’s houses.
It is to this custom that Plautus refers in his POENULUS, act. v., scen. 2, ver. 80, in the interview between Agorastocles, and his unknown uncle Hanno.
HANNO.-O mi popularis, salve!
AGORASTOCLES.-Et tu edepol, quisquis es.
Et si quid opus est, quaeso, die atque impera,
Popularitatis caussa.
HAN.-Habeo gratiam.
Verum ego hic hospitium habeo: Antidamae filium
Quaero; commonstra, si novisti, Agorastoclem.
Ecquem adolescentem tu hic novisti Agorastoclem?
AGOR.-Siquidem tu Antidamarchi quaeris adoptatitium,
Ego sum ipsus, quem tu quaeris.
HAN.—Hem! quid ego audio?
AGOR.-Antidamae gnatum me esse.
HAN.—–si ita est, tesseram
Conferre si vis hospitalem, eccam adtuli.
AGOR.-Agedum huc ostende; est par probe: nam habeo domi.
HAN.-O mi hospes, salve multum! nam mihi tuus pater,
Pater tuus ergo, hospes Antidamas fuit.
Haec mihi hospitalis tessera cum illo fuit.
AGOR.-Ergo hic apud me hospitium tibi praebebitur.
Nam haud repudio hospitium, neque Carthaginem:
Inde sum oriundus.
HAN.— Di dent tibi omnes quae velis.
HANNO.-Hail, my countryman!
AGORASTOCLES.-I hail thee also, in the name of Pollux, whosoever thou art. And if thou have need of any thing, speak, I beseech thee; and thou shalt obtain what thou askest, for civility’s sake.
HANNO.-I thank thee, but I have a lodging here; I seek the son of Antidamas. Tell me if thou knowest Agorastocles. Dost thou know in this place the young Agorastocles?
AGORASTOCLES.-If thou seek the adopted son of Antidamarchus, I am the person whom thou seekest.
HANNO.-Ha! What do I hear?
AGORASTOCLES.-Thou hearest that I am the son of Antidamas.
HANNO.-If it be so, compare, if thou pleasest, the hospitable tessera; here it is, I have brought it with me.
AGORASTOCLES.-Come then, reach it hither: it is the exact counterpart; I have the other at home.
HANNO.-O my friend, I am very glad to see thee, for thy father was my friend; therefore Antidamas thy father was my guest. I divided this hospitable tessera with him.
AGORASTOCLES.-Therefore, a lodging shall be provided for thee with me; I reverence hospitality, and I love Carthage, where I was born.
HANNO.-May all the gods grant thee whatsoever thou wishest!
The tessera taken in this sense, seems to have been a kind of tally; and the two parts were compared together to ascertain the truth. Now it is very probable that St. John may allude to this; for on this mode of interpretation every part of the verse is consistent. 1. The word does not necessarily signify a stone of any kind, but a suffrage, sentence, decisive vote; and in this place seems answerable to the tessera. The tessera which Hanno had, he tells us in his Punic language, was inscribed with the image or name of his god. “Sigillum hospitii mei est tabula sculpta, conjus sculptura est Deus meus. This is the interpretation of the Punic words at the beginning of the above 5th act of the Poenulus, as given by Bochart. 2. The person who held it had a right to entertainment in the house of him who originally gave it; for it was in reference to this that the friendly contract was made. 3. The names of the contracting persons, or some device, were written on the tessera, which commemorated the friendly contract; and as the parts were interchanged, none could know that name or device, or the reason of the contract, but he who received it. 4. This, when produced, gave the bearer a right to the offices of hospitality; he was accommodated with food, lodging, c., as far as these were necessary and to this the eating of the hidden manna may refer.
But what does this mean in the language of Christ? 1. That the person is taken into an intimate state of friendship with him. 2. That this contract is witnessed to the party by some especial token, sign, or seal, to which he may have recourse to support his claim, and identify his person. This is probably what is elsewhere called the earnest of the Spirit; See Clarke on Eph 1:14, and the places there referred to. He then who has received and retains the witness of the Spirit that he is adopted into the heavenly family, may humbly claim, in virtue of it, his support of the bread and water of life; the hidden manna-every grace of the Spirit of God; and the tree of life-immortality, or the final glorification of his body and soul throughout eternity. 3. By this state of grace into which he is brought he acquires a new name, the name of child of God; the earnest of the Spirit, the tessera, which he has received, shows him this new name. 4. And this name of child of God no man can know or understand, but he who has received the tessera or Divine witness. 5. As his Friend and Redeemer may be found everywhere, because he fills the heavens and the earth, everywhere he may, on retaining this tessera, claim direction, succour, support, grace, and glory; and therefore the privileges of him who overcometh are the greatest and most glorious that can be imagined.
For a farther account of the tessera of the ancients, as well as for engravings of several, see Graevii Thesaur.; Pitisci Lexic.; and Poleni Supplement; and the authors to whom these writers refer.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh: see the annotations on Rev 2:7.
Will I give to eat of the hidden manna; here is a manifest allusion to that bread from heaven, with which God fed his people in the wilderness, called angels food, Psa 78:25. The story of it we have, Exo 16:31,32; a pot of which God ordained to be kept in the ark, for a memorial of Gods mercy, Heb 9:4. It was a type of Christ, who was the true bread that came down from heaven, Joh 6:32,33. It here signifies Christ himself, with all the influences of his grace, whether for strength or comfort. As a feast was wont to follow a victory; so Christ promiseth to those that fought, and overcame in the spiritual fight, to feast them with himself and the influences of his Spirit.
And will give him a white stone: the use of stones anciently was so various, that it hath given a great liberty to interpreters to vary in their senses of the white stone here mentioned. They made use of them (as we since of counters) to count; they used them also in judgments, acquitting persons by white stones, on which their names were written, as they condemned others by black stones; they also used them in giving suffrages in elections, &c.; they also used them to mark happy or lucky days, and they used other stones to mark such days as they counted unlucky; and finally, they used them as rewards to those who conquered in their games. Hence interpreters vary in their opinions, whether this be a general promise of a reward, or a more particular promise of pardon and absolution; or, of the assurance of their election to life. It seems most properly to be interpreted of pardon, or the notification of pardon of sins, or more generally of a reward. By the new name, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it, the same thing seemeth to be signified, the Spirit witnessing with their spirits that they are the children of God. They say, that in those white stones (used in absolutions of persons, or in giving suffrages) the name of the person absolved or chosen was wont to be written, and none knew it but those that had it, unless they imparted it, to which custom this allusion is.
Those that make this church typical, say it typified the churches of the gospel during the times of popery, to the end of the persecutions of the Waldenses and Albigenses, when about one hundred thousand of them were destroyed by eight thousand papists; or, the time when antichrist first sat in the temple of God, as Rev 13:1-18, and the woman fled into the wilderness, Rev 12:1-17.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
17. to eatomitted in thethree oldest manuscripts.
the hidden mannatheheavenly food of Israel, in contrast to the idol-meats (Re2:14). A pot of manna was laid up in the holy place “beforethe testimony.” The allusion is here to this: probably also tothe Lord’s discourse (Joh6:31-35). Translate, “the manna which is hidden.” Asthe manna hidden in the sanctuary was by divine power preserved fromcorruption, so Christ in His incorruptible body has passed into theheavens, and is hidden there until the time of His appearing. ChristHimself is the manna “hidden” from the world, but revealedto the believer, so that he has already a foretaste of Hispreciousness. Compare as to Christ’s own hidden food on earth,Joh 4:32; Joh 4:34;Job 23:12. The full manifestationshall be at His coming. Believers are now hidden, even as their meatis hidden. As the manna in the sanctuary, unlike the other manna, wasincorruptible, so the spiritual feast offered to all who reject theworld’s dainties for Christ is everlasting: an incorruptible body andlife for ever in Christ at the resurrection.
white stone . . . new name .. . no man knoweth saving heTRENCH’Sexplanation seems best. White is the color and livery ofheaven. “New” implies something altogether renewed andheavenly. The white stone is a glistening diamond, the Urim borne bythe high priest within the choschen or breastplate ofjudgment, with the twelve tribes’ names on the twelve preciousstones, next the heart. The word Urim means “light,”answering to the color white. None but the high priest knewthe name written upon it, probably the incommunicable name of God,”Jehovah.” The high priest consulted it in some divinelyappointed way to get direction from God when needful. The “newname” is Christ’s (compare Re3:12, “I will write upon him My new name”): somenew revelation of Himself which shall hereafter be imparted to Hispeople, and which they alone are capable of receiving. The connectionwith the “hidden manna” will thus be clear, as none savethe high priest had access to the “manna hidden” in thesanctuary. Believers, as spiritual priests unto God, shall enjoy theheavenly antitypes to the hidden manna and the Urim stone. What theyhad peculiarly to contend against at Pergamos was the temptation toidol-meats, and fornication, put in their way byBalaamites. As Phinehas was rewarded with “an everlastingpriesthood” for his zeal against these very sins to which theOld Testament Balaam seduced Israel; so the heavenly high priesthoodis the reward promised here to those zealous against the NewTestament Balaamites tempting Christ’s people to the same sins.
receiveth itnamely,”the stone”; not “the new name”; see above. The”name that no man knew but Christ Himself,” He shallhereafter reveal to His people.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
He that hath an ear, let him hear,….
[See comments on Re 2:7].
To him that overcometh; the Balaamites and Nicolaitans, and do not give in to the doctrines and practices of the one, or of the other, whatever persecution and trouble he meets with, and endures on that account:
will I give to eat of the hidden manna; in opposition to eating things sacrificed to idols, refused by him. The allusion is to the manna which the Israelites ate of in the wilderness, which may be called “hidden”: either because they knew not what it was, when they first saw it; or because it was laid up in a golden pot, and put in the most holy place, where it was secret, and none but the high priest could see it, and who entered there but once a year: or rather, because it was at first, hidden under the dew; for according to the account the Jews give of it, a dew first fell upon the ground, then the manna upon that, and then another dew upon the manna; so that there was a dew under it, and a dew over it; insomuch that it was as if it was laid up, they say, in a box or chests l; and they supposed the manna had respect to things future m and do expect it in the times of the Messiah. They say n, as the first, so the last Redeemer will cause manna to descend from heaven; and the clouds are by them reckoned the mills which will grind manna for the righteous in the world to come o: yea, they speak p of
, “hidden manna”, as the food of the righteous, the very phrase here used. Now this being the food of the children of Israel in the wilderness, is very fitly mentioned here; since the church, in this period of time, in which antichrist arose, was obliged to flee into the wilderness, and there abide during his reign, and where she is nourished with this hidden manna; by which may be meant the Gospel, which is soul quickening, comforting, strengthening, and satisfying food, by which the saints are nourished up unto everlasting life, and which is hid to the world, which the men of it know nothing of; and especially Jesus Christ, the sum and substance of it, may be meant, and that secret spiritual consolation enjoyed in communion with him, and by eating him, or feeding by faith upon him; in what respects Christ may be compared to manna, [See comments on Joh 6:32]. And he may be said to be “hidden”, because he is unknown to men, until revealed; and is wholly hidden from carnal and unregenerate men, and is enjoyed only by believers; and it may denote the private way, in which the true church of Christ had communion with him in his word and ordinances in the wilderness, and during the dark times of Popery. Philo the Jew q often interprets the manna by the “Logos”, the Word of God, the most ancient Word of God.
And will give him a white stone. The phrase, “to add a white stone”, with the Latins, is used to give one’s approbation of anything; and could it be applied here, might signify the approbation Christ gives of his church and people here, amidst the testimonies they bear, and the persecutions they endure for his name’s sake, and that which he will give of them before his Father, angels, and men, at the last day: white stones were used on various accounts. The Grecians used them to mark good or lucky days with them, as they called them; and could the allusion be thought to be to this custom, the sense would be, that Christ promises, to his people that overcome, happy days, after the times of Popish darkness and persecution were over: white stones were also given to the conquerors in the Olympic games, with their names upon them, and the value of the prize they won; and, here applied, may respect the crown of life and glory given to them who are more than conquerors through Christ, with their right and title to it, and the excellency of it. The Romans in judgment used to give their suffrages for condemnation by casting black stones into the urn, and for absolution white stones; to which Ovid has respect, when he says r,
“Mos erat antiquis, niveis atrisque lapillis, His damnare reos, illis absolvere culpa.”
And this is thought by many to be referred to here, and may denote, that though the pure members of Christ, and who abhorred and protested against the abominations of the church of Rome, were charged with heresy and schism, and what not, yet Christ would absolve them, and justify them from all those charges. But rather the allusion is to a custom among the Jews, who used to examine the priests and Levites before they went to their service, or to the sanhedrim, to judge and pass sentence, whether their ways and works were right; and if they were as they should be, they gave them
, “the stone of the sanctuary”: if not, they might not enter on business, as it is said; “and of Levi he said, thy Urim and thy Thummim be with thy Holy One”, De 33:8 s. Now on the Urim and Thummim, the stones in the high priest’s breastplate, were engraven the names of the children of Israel; and, as the Jews say, the name Jehovah, to which reference may be had in the following clause; and may denote that the church, though in the wilderness, is regarded by Christ, is bore upon his heart and cared for by him; and also its spotless purity in him, and justification by him.
And in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth [it]; by this name may be meant, either the name of “Jehovah” our righteousness, which is the name both of Christ, and of his church, Jer 23:6, or the name of a child of God, sometimes called a new name; see Isa 56:5; and so designs the blessing of adoption; this may be said to be a new name, because renewed, manifested to, and put upon the people of God, when they are made new creatures, though provided in predestination, and in the covenant of grace from eternity; and because a renowned and excellent one, better than that of the sons and daughters of the greatest prince on earth; and because a wonderful one, being an instance of amazing love and grace; and is what “no man knoweth”, but the receiver of it; the Father of these adopted ones is unknown to natural men; and so is Christ, through whom this blessing is bestowed; and the Spirit of God also, who witnesses to it; and the persons that enjoy it, and the blessing itself, and the inheritance to which they are adopted: and this new name being on the white stone, may show that the blessings of justification and adoption, though they are two distinct ones, yet they are inseparable: they go together, and both give a right to the heavenly inheritance; and they are also, as well as the hidden manna, gifts of free grace, and not owing to the works and merit of men, and are given by Christ, and in and through him. At Rome, some white stones have been dug up, some lesser, some greater, with names and letters, and other engravings upon them, which Pignorius t has given the figures of; and to such some have thought the allusion here is, and may serve to illustrate this passage. The Ethiopic version, instead of a “white stone”, reads, a “famous book”.
l T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 75. 2. Jarchi in Exod. xvi. 13, 14. Mitzvot Tora, pr. affirm. 30. m Tzeror Hammor, fol. 38. 4. n Midrash Shirhashirim, fol. 11. 2. Midrash Ruth, fol. 33. 2. & Midrash Kohelet, fol. 63. 2. Pesikta in Yalkut Simeoni, par. 2. fol. 75. 4. o Raya Mehimna in Zohar in Numb. fol. 96. 2. Yalkut Simeoni, par. 2. fol. 68. 4. p Zohar in Numb. fol. 88. 1. q Alleg. l. 2. p. 93. Quod det. potior. p. 176. Quis rer. divin. Haeres. p. 491, 492. & Leg. Alleg. l. 3. p. 1103. r Metamorphos. l. 15. fol. 1. s Zohar in Lev. fol. 8. 1. t De Servis, p. 342.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Of the hidden manna ( ). “Of the manna the hidden” (perfect passive articular participle of ). The partitive genitive, the only N.T. example with , though Q reads (accusative) here. For examples of the ablative with and see Robertson, Grammar, p. 519. See John 6:31; John 6:49 for the indeclinable word . The golden pot of manna was “laid up before God in the ark” (Ex 16:23). It was believed that Jeremiah hid the ark, before the destruction of Jerusalem, where it would not be discovered till Israel was restored (II Macc. 2:5ff.). Christ is the true bread from heaven (John 6:31-33; John 6:48-51) and that may be the idea here. Those faithful to Christ will have transcendent fellowship with him. Swete takes it to be “the life-sustaining power of the Sacred Humanity now hid with Christ in God.”
A white stone ( ). This old word for pebble (from , to rub) was used in courts of justice, black pebbles for condemning, white pebbles for acquitting. The only other use of the word in the N.T. is in Ac 26:10, where Paul speaks of “depositing his pebble” ( ) or casting his vote. The white stone with one’s name on it was used to admit one to entertainments and also as an amulet or charm.
A new name written ( ). Perfect passive predicate participle of . Not the man’s own name, but that of Christ (Heitmuller, Im Namen Jsu, p. 128-265). See 3:12 for the name of God so written on one. The man himself may be the on which the new name is written. “The true Christian has a charmed life” (Moffatt).
But he that receiveth it ( ). “Except the one receiving it.” See Mt 11:27 for like intimate and secret knowledge between the Father and the Son and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal the Father. See also Re 19:12.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
To eat. Omit.
Of the hidden manna [ ] . The allusion may be partly to the pot of manna which was laid up in the ark in the sanctuary. See Exo 16:32 – 34; compare Heb 9:4. That the imagery of the ark was familiar to John appears from chapter Rev 11:19. This allusion however is indirect, for the manna laid up in the ark was not for food, but was a memorial of food once enjoyed. Two ideas seem to be combined in the figure :
1. Christ as the bread from heaven, the nourishment of the life of believers, the true manna, of which those who eat shall never die (Joh 6:31 – 43; 48 – 51); hidden, in that He is withdrawn from sight, and the Christian ‘s life is hid with Him in God (Col 3:3). 2. The satisfaction of the believer ‘s desire when Christ shall be revealed. The hidden manna shall not remain for ever hidden. We shall see Christ as He is, and be like Him (1Jo 3:2). Christ gives the manna in giving Himself “The seeing of Christ as He is, and, through this beatific vision, being made like to Him, is identical with the eating of the hidden manna, which shall, as it were, be then brought forth from the sanctuary, the holy of holies of God ‘s immediate presence where it was withdrawn from sight so long, that all may partake of it; the glory of Christ, now shrouded and concealed, being then revealed to His people” (Trench).
This is one of numerous illustrations of the dependence of Revelation upon Old Testament history and prophecy. “To such an extent is this the case,” says Professor Milligan, “that it may be doubted whether it contains a single figure not drawn from the Old Testament, or a single complete sentence not more or less built up of materials brought from the same source.” See, for instance, Balaam (ii. 14); Jezebel (ii. 20); Michael (xii. 7, compare Dan 10:13; Dan 12:1); Abaddon (Rev 9:11); Jerusalem, Mt. Zion, Babylon, the Euphrates, Sodom, Egypt (Rev 21:2; 14. : 1; Rev 16:19; Rev 9:14; Rev 11:8); Gog and Magog (Rev 20:8, compare Eze 38:39.). Similarly, the tree of life, the sceptre of iron, the potter ‘s vessels, the morning – star (ii. 7, 17, 27, 28). Heaven is described under the figure of the tabernacle in the wilderness (Rev 11:1, 19; Rev 6:9; Rev 8:3; Rev 11:19; Rev 4:6). The song of the redeemed is the song of Moses (xv. 3). The plagues of Egypt appear in the blood, fire, thunder, darkness and locusts (chapter 8). ” The great earthquake of chapter 6. is taken from Haggai; the sun becoming black as sackcloth of hair and the moon becoming blood (chapter 8) from Joel : the stars of h
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “He that hath an ear let him hear,” (ho echon ous akousato) “The one (anyone) having an ear, let him hear,” give heed to; personal, individual responsibility, is charged to every church member and Christian to give heed to God’s message and charge to his church and each in it, Rom 14:11-12; Mat 12:3; 1Co 3:8.
2) “What the Spirit saith unto the churches,” (ti to pneuma legei tois ekklesiais) “What the Spirit says to the churches,” to the congregations. These seven letters, though addressed separately to seven churches, were also intended to be preserved and shared with other churches of their kind, that all might profit, Rev 22:16.
3) “To him that overcometh,” (to nikonti) “To those conquering or overcoming;” God’s people are to be conquering, possessive, service rendering, achieving people in manner of conduct and service, as over-comers, Rom 12:21; Joh 16:33.
4) “Will I give to eat of the hidden manna,” (doso auto tou manna tou kekrummenou) “I will dole out of the hidden (preserved) manna; alluding to the hidden pot of manna in the ark of the covenant, symbol of Christ, the Bread of life, Exo 16:33-34; Heb 9:4; Joh 6:51; Joh 6:58; Joh 4:32.
5) “And will give him a white stone,” (kai dodo auto psephon leuken) “I will also present him a white stone; a symbol of acceptance, a well-done symbol, not a black ball, a rejection marble of black, see? The white stone was also a symbol of good fortune admission to a feast, or acquittal of charges of a crime. It is all of these to the believer.
6) “And in the stone a new name written,” (kai epi ten psephon onoma kainon gegrammenon) “And on the stone a new name inscribed; The Creator and Redeemer is continually interested in every individual in each of his churches. He desires that they be a success for him, Mat 5:15-16; Act 1:8.
7) “Which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it,” (ho oudeis oiden ei me ho lambanon) “Which no person perceives except the one receiving it,” Rev 19:12, of such both John and Paul further wrote 1Jn 3:2; 1Co 2:9; Isa 64:4. Blessed mystery, O certain Hope, Tit 2:13.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(17) To him that overcometh.The promise should run thus:To him that conquereth will I give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and upon the stone a new name graven, which no man knoweth, but he who receiveth it. On this promise we may notice (1) that it is appropriate: those who refused to indulge the fleshly appetite are promised gratifications far higher, and hidden from the gaze of sense; (2) the allusions are not all easy to understand. That to the manna is indeed obvious. Israel ate manna in the wilderness, and died; the Father gives the true bread from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. The Son is that Bread of Life. He that eateth Him, even he shall live by Him (Joh. 6:35; Joh. 6:48; Joh. 6:57)live, even though like Antipas he die; for a mans life consists not in the abundance of things which he possesses, but in the moral qualities which go to make up his character; and spiritual gifts are the food of these moral qualities, and these gifts are through Christ. But the promise is of hidden manna. Is the allusion to the pot of manna which had been laid up in the ark? There is no doubt that the Jews long cherished the belief that the ark and sacred treasures of the Temple had not perished. There was a fondly-held tradition that they had been buried by Jeremiah in a safe and secret spot on the mountain where Moses climbed and saw the heritage of God, until the time that God shall gather His people again together, and show them His mercy (2Ma. 2:4; 2Ma. 2:7). This hidden manna, so longed for by an afflicted race, may have suggested the use of the word hidden; but the sacred writer would become anxious to bring out the spiritual truth that the fountains of Christian life are hidden (Col. 3:3), the world knoweth us not. Like the fire in the Interpreters house, men may try to quench it, but a hidden hand pours in secretly the food of the fuel. More difficult is the meaning of the white stone, graven with the new name. Some see in it an allusion to the Urim and Thummim; and therefore take it to indicate the priestly dignity of the victorious Christian. In favour of this, it may be noted that it gives unity to the blessing. Manna and the precious stones worn by the high-priest are both wilderness and Jewish illustrations. Against it, however, must be set the fact that the word here rendered stone is never so applied, a different word being used both in the LXX. and in this book to denote a precious stone. Another suggestion, which is, perhaps, less encumbered with difficulty, is that the reference is to the stone or pebble of friendship, called tessera hospitalis, graven with some legend or device; and which gave to its possessor a claim of hospitality from him who gave it. Some such tickets admitted those invited into the heathen temples on festival days, when the meat which had been offered as a sacrifice formed part of the feast. The stone is called white; but the word does not imply that it is a stone of white colour, but that it is shining, glistering white. On the stone is graven a new name. The giving of new names is not uncommon in the Bible: for example, Abraham, Israel, Boanerges, Peter. The new name expressed the step which had been taken into a higher, truer life, and the change of heart and the elevation of character consequent upon it. Such are known in the world by their daily life, their business, their character; they are known above by the place they hold, and the work (the real character of which is quite unknown to the world) they are doing in the great war against evil. No man knoweth the characteristics of the growth of the character, the spiritual conflict in which the work is done, and the features of that change which has been, and is being wrought, except he who experiences the love, the grace, and the tribulation by which his spirit-life has grown.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
17. Hidden manna For him who spurns the meat of idol sacrifices there is reserved a divine food, the hidden manna. Not merely secret, but hidden, laid up and deposited away from human gaze. So God commanded Moses, Exo 16:32-34, to deposit a memorial manna, “and lay it up before the Lord to be kept for your generations.” According to Heb 9:4, the manna was deposited in a pot enclosed in the ark of the covenant, within the holy of holies. Our Saviour denominates himself the “bread,” figured by the manna, (Joh 6:48-50,) of which our sacramental bread is the symbol. But the depositing the memorial manna by Moses in the holy of holies, (the symbol of the highest heavens,) figures Christ in his ascended and resurrected state. Heb 9:24. It is our risen Lord, then, who is our hidden manna, our immortalizing food. Parallel to this is the fruit of the tree of life, the aliment of a heavenly immortality, whose vitality and vitalizing power are derived from Christ. See note on Revelation 22.
A white stone Of all interpretations of this image, that of Trench is both most beautiful and most satisfactory. The white stone is the oracular urim, (it was probably a diamond,) in the breast-plate of the High-priest, bearing the incommunicable name. And as every glorified Christian becomes a high-priest, so to every one is given the diamond urim. This stone, as white, represents the purity of heaven. Nay more, it is not merely the pale dim white, (Latin, albus,) but the lustrous, radiating white, (Latin, candidus,) of which the diamond gives a sample, and so symbolizes even the glory of heaven. So, white are the hairs of the Son of God, Rev 1:14; and white raiment, Rev 3:5; white robes, Rev 7:9; a white cloud Rev 14:14; white horses, Rev 19:8; Rev 19:14; great white throne, Rev 20:1.
The Greek word for stone here, , meaning a pebble or smooth sea-worn stone, was used before the invention of the paper ballot for the decision of alternative questions, as the election of a candidate to office, or the acquittal of an accused person; which was by a “white stone” in opposition to a black. Hence it was used in some kinds of divination to decide a future event, which may have suggested its use here for the urim, by which the will of Jehovah was ascertained; though Trench does not notice that point. The use of the word to designate so precious a stone as the diamond, is, perhaps, sustained by the fact, that in later Greek it is used by Callimachus to denote the gem of a finger-ring.
How far it is made sure that the urim was a diamond is not so clear. The breastplate of the high priest (see note, Mat 26:3) was studded with twelve precious stones, on which were inscribed the names of the twelve tribes. The urim was, very probably, an additional stone, most precious of all, and so a diamond, or at least some stone of high value and radiant clearness. Its highest value, however, was, that it was officially borne upon the heart of the high priest in his highest functions, and that it was a medium of communion with Jehovah. The white stone bestowed upon the apocalyptic conqueror, that is, upon every triumphant Christian, is token that he is high priest, and his intercommunion with God is glorious. And all this is confirmed by the remarkable fact that both the hidden manna and the white stone of the urim being in the holy of holies, were accessible to the high priest alone.
If we reject this identification of the white stone as too ingenious, or for other reasons, we may fall back upon Hengstenberg’s view, that the white stone is merely the appropriate basis or surface for bearing the gracious inscription of the divine witness of our sonship of God. And we may also add the view of Grotius and others, that the white stone is an entrance-ticket into the gates of heaven, with God’s own signature upon it.
He that receiveth it It means the stone, and not the name; the name is not that of the receiver, but that of the divine donor. And nothing can be wiser than Bengel’s reply to him that asks, What is that name? “Wouldst thou know what sort of a name thou wouldst receive? Overcome! Otherwise, thou askest vainly. But overcoming thou wilt soon read that name upon the white stone.” That name is not a word, but a power.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘He who has an ear to hear, let him hear, what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows but the one who receives it.’
The hidden manna refers to the manna that was hidden in a pot which was laid up before the Ark of Testimony (Exo 16:33), the manna that according to Jewish belief was hidden in Heaven and would be revealed at the end time and given to those who were faithful to God. We find the Ark of the Covenant, containing the hidden manna, later in Heaven (Rev 11:19).
It is thus a promise of benefiting from eternal life, paralleling the Tree of Life and avoidance of the Second Death. And as Jesus makes clear elsewhere, this hidden manna is Himself, for He is the bread of life (Joh 6:35) and as such He will guarantee their resurrection at the last day (Joh 6:32-33; Joh 6:35; Joh 6:39). The eating of the hidden manna contrasts with the eating of idolatrous food. Those who reject the latter will enjoy the former.
‘And I will give him a white stone and on the stone a new name written which no one knows but he who receives it.’ Stones with names written on them are described in Exo 28:9; Exo 28:21. They are alternately stones of onyx, and stones of all colours, bearing the names of the twelve patriarchs, and thus of the tribes who were associated with them. The tribes thus received their blessing by their connection with the patriarchs to whom the promises were made. They formed part of the High Priest’s breastplate (Exo 28:15) and were also on his shoulders (Exo 28:12). In one case there was one stone for six tribes, in the other one stone per tribe.
But here there is a new stone, and this one is pure white signifying the true righteousness of those who bear the new name, it is the stone of the righteous. And there is one for each person. The stone testifies to God on their behalf and they receive their blessing by their connection with Christ, whose secret name is on the stone. They are individually represented before the Lord, for each is precious in His sight.
And as a kingdom of priests they are able to represent themselves as Christ’s before the Lord, wearing their white stones as tokens of Whose they are. However, the names on the older stones were borne on the High Priest’s shoulders and breastplate before the Lord, and it is possible we are to see here that our great High Priest (Rev 1:13) will figuratively bear on His shoulders and breastplate a stone for every believer, inscribed with His own new name.
For mention elsewhere of this new name we turn to God’s declaration in Isa 62:2. ‘The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory, and you will be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord will name’. So this giving of a new name to the people of God was long promised. This name is a new name of Jesus, and is connected with the name of God and of the new Jerusalem (Rev 3:12; Rev 19:12).
When God determined to deliver His people in the days of Moses He revealed His new name to Moses (Exo 6:3 with Exo 3:14). It is true that the name Yahweh was already known to them, but now He was revealing Himself as the ‘I am’, the ‘One Who is there to act’ on behalf of His people, giving the old name a new significance, ready for the new deliverance by which His essence would be revealed. In the same way Christ will receive a new name, which will presumably be a variation of the old, but will reveal His essence and will be for the final deliverance of His people. The name is therefore undoubtedly connected with the name which is above every name which He has already received, the name Yahweh (in Hebrew) and ‘Lord’ (in Greek) (Php 2:9-11), which is the name in which all Christians are baptised (Mat 28:19), a name which did reveal His essence.
But Christ’s new name, His own eternal name, will even more fully reveal His essence, and it is the significance of this which is to be finally revealed to His own, for ‘He has a name written which no one knows but He Himself’ (Rev 19:12). It may be that this name is KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS (Rev 19:16). God says in Isa 52:6 ‘therefore my people will know my name; therefore in that day they will know that I am He who speaks, here I am’. Here ‘knowing the name’ means more than just intellectual knowledge, it means knowing the name fully in experience, and we notice that the name is connected with the ‘I am’. In the same way only those who are granted to know Christ fully in experience will ‘know the name’. ‘Now I know in part, but then I will know even as I am known’ (1Co 13:12). Until that day only Christ Himself truly knows the name.
So the reception and ‘knowing’ of the new name on the white stone will signify that they belong to Christ and have come truly to know Him in all the fullness of His being, something that can only happen in eternity. Having received His righteousness, and having been made righteous in Him, and being destined to enjoy in the future the full experience of the wonders of God’s gracious benefits in Christ in the last day, they are worthy recipients of the white stone of righteousness which has His name written on it. This is in contrast with those who later in Revelation (Rev 13:17) bear the name of the Beast, the mark of Rome.
The knowledge of a name was considered by the ancients to confer mysterious spiritual powers, but we do not need to bring this idea in here. The true knowledge of the name of Christ does indeed confer spiritual power. However, it is not through magical means, but through the grace of the One Who bears the name.
The fact that they will eat of the hidden manna in the heavenly Temple, and bear the white stone carrying the new name of Christ, sets them apart from those who worship in the Temple of Satan, bear the mark of the beast, and eat the defiled sacrificial foods.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Rev 2:17. Will I give to eat of the hidden manna, Hereby the reward of him that conquers in the combat for Christ is described. As Balaam went on in his error through the greediness of gain, so here Christ promises, by way of antidote, the true riches to him, who shall, in the strength of grace, resist and conquer all internal and external temptations to idolatry and vice, notwithstanding the counsel of these Balaamites. According to the notion of the ancients, and especially the Hebrews, temporal riches consist in meats and drink, in having plenty of the fruits of the earth, and much cattle, with all things necessary and convenient to human life. The hidden manna is the unknown meat; the riches well preserved in heaven. It is incorruptible food, the treasure not subject to theft or decay; and that is immortal life, not to be taken away by any means, when once bestowed upon the faithful saint; the necessary sustenance of life being here put for the life itself. As therefore David, upon the undertaking the combat with Goliath, had riches promised him, and accordingly ate at the king’s table; so Christ promises to his champion heavenly riches; and the accomplishment of these promises is set forth in ch. Rev 22:1-2, &c. It is called hidden manna: now, of the manna that fell, some was designed for common use, and some was laid up in the ark as a memorial. That which was common was corruptible, and they who ate thereof died, even though it were bread that came down from heaven; see Joh 6:32.; but that which was laid up and hidden in the ark, remained miraculouslyto future generations. It is God alone who keeps, and consequently gives the true bread from heaven; and that is such manna as was hidden in the ark, incorruptible food, whereof they who perseveringly partake shall never hunger, but shall be immortal. This hidden manna is therefore the symbol of immortality; but an immortality consisting of such a life, and means to preserve it, as are wonderful and transcendant, beyond our present imagination. See ch. Rev 19:12. The next expression makes up an hendyades, that is, two phrases joined by a conjunction to express one thing, as thus, I will give him a new name, written upon a white stone; for the stone is only given for the sake of the new name written upon it. A white stone is either the same, or at least equivalent to tables of stone, upon which the decalogue is said to have been written. Stone, and that too whitened, was the first and most ancient matter used to write upon. See Deu 27:2-3. A new name signifies the same thing as freedom, and a change of condition. New names were given upon change of condition. Abram and Sarai received new names from God; our Saviour changed Simon’s name for Peter, and Christians take a new name at baptism. The expressions, according to our stile and notions, amount to this, “I will give him a new diploma, or character, to enfranchise him, and thereby grant him new privileges, change his condition, and make him immortal. He shall attain to that immoral life, whose glories and felicities no man can fully conceive, and none shall fully conceive but those who enjoy it;” for so much is implied in the expression immediately following. It is here to be observed further, that our Saviour’s joining the manna to the new name, that is, riches, or maintenance, to liberty, is according to the principles of the Mosaical law, by which no servant was to be set at liberty without some liberal provision, to set him up at first for himself: so that the master was not only to give him liberty, but also some goods or maintenance;manna, with his new name. What we have given above, appears to be a rational interpretation of the difficult passage before us: there have been several others offered, and the reader may think it an omission if we do not mention that of Dr. Ward, in whose opinion (Dissert. 59.) this expression of a white stone, &c. alludes to an ancient custom among the Romans, bywhich theycultivated and preserved a lasting friendship between particular persons or families. The method of doing this was usually by a small piece of bone or ivory, and sometimes of stone, shaped in the form of an oblong square, which they called a tessera. This they divided lengthwise, into two equal parts, upon each of which one of the parties wrote his name, and interchanged it with the other. And by producing this when they travelled, it gave a mutual claim, to the contracting parties and their descendants, of reception and kind treatment at each other’s houses; for which reason it was called the hospitable tessera. Hence came the proverbial expression of breaking the hospitable tessera, which was applied to those who violated their engagements. But our translators, by rendering it a white stone, seem to have confounded it with the calculus, or small globular stone, which was made use of in balloting, and on other occasions. The original words do not specify the manner or form, but only the use of it, as the Greek glossaries abundantly prove. By this allusion, therefore, the promise made to the church of Pergamos seems to be to this purpose, That the faithful among them should hereafter be acknowledged by Christ, and received into a state of perpetual favour and friendship; and to this sense the following words very well agree, which describe this stone, or tessera, as having in it a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it. For, as the name in the Roman tessera was not that of the person who wrote it, but of his friend who possessed it; so it was known only to the possessor, who, doubtless, kept it both privately, and with great care, that no other person might enjoy the benefitof it, which was designed only for himself and his family.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Rev 2:17 . . The partitive gen. [1177] has its correct meaning no less than the immediately succeeding accus. [1178]
The general sense of the promise is not to fail because of the parallel ideas at the close of all seven epistles. [1179] The expressions are, at all events, as Areth. remarks on . . , a (a maxim concerning those living happily), a description of future eternal blessedness and glory. This is misapplied by those who understand the manna as directly referring to the Lord’s Supper, [1180] or to the spiritual quickening and consolation imparted to believers even during their conflict in and with the world, [1181] or as the figure of divine grace in general which becomes manifest in justification ( . . ) and the offering of sonship ( . ). [1182] In the latter explanation, apart from the misunderstanding of the idea , the groundless assertion is made, that is equivalent to . [1183] The more specific explanation of details has occasioned much difficulty. Utterly inapplicable to the hidden manna is the allusion [1184] to the Jewish opinion, that, before the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar, the prophet Jeremiah or the king Josiah had rescued and concealed the ark of the covenant, together with the holy relics contained therein, and that the Messiah at his appearance will again bring them to light. [1185] Incorrect, too, is the view that Christ himself is the hidden manna. [1186] Christ gives it. Incorrect is the view of Grot.: “ . . is equivalent to (the intellectual), and designates the more exact knowledge not only of God’s commands, but also of his dispensations.” But rather, [1187] as the victor has approved himself especially in resisting the temptation to eat of what is sacrificed to idols, so he receives a corresponding reward when the Lord offers him heavenly, divine food, viz., manna , the bread of heaven, [1188] such fruit as, like the fruit of the tree of life, Rev 2:7 , will nourish the heavenly, blessed life. This manna is hidden , because it will be manifest only in future glory when it will be enjoyed; as, in a similar way, is said immediately afterwards of the new name. [1189]
, . . . Without any foundation is the explanation of N. de Lyra, [1190] according to which the white stone signifies the body decorated with the endowment of brilliancy, and the new name written thereon; “then every one manifestly and bodily blessed with the endowments of a glorious body, will be enrolled in the city of the celestials.” In connection with the mention of the manna, the explanation of the white stone has been sought in the Jewish fable, that, besides the manna, precious stones and pearls were found in the wilderness; [1191] or the decoration of the high priest at the time of the giving of the manna has been recalled, as he bore upon twelve precious stones (which, however, were not called ) [1192] the names of the tribes of Israel, so that here is indicated the priestly dignity of the complete victors. [1193] Others, likewise, in a certain connection with the mention of heavenly food, have combined the heathen custom, according to which the conquerors in the games were led to festive banquets, and otherwise rewarded with gifts of many kinds. Thus Vitruv. [1194] reports: “To the noble athletes who conquered in the Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games, the ancestors of the Greeks appointed honors so great that not only standing in the assembly with palm and garland they receive praise, but also when they return to their states in victory, they are in triumph drawn within the walls in a four-yoked chariot, and enjoy for their whole life, from the republic, a fixed income.” The Roman emperors [1195] also established such public games, from which the victors were led ( ) in triumph to their native city, and then received the deferred rewards. Titus was accustomed even to throw into the arena small wooden balls, on which were written orders for food, clothing, money, etc.; then the contestants received what the order proffered them stated. [1196] According to this, the white stone is explained as the order for the heavenly reward, [1197] as the “ticket” to the heavenly banquet. [1198] Others, leaving out of consideration any connection between the manna and the white stone, recall the use of the lot among the Jews, [1199] as well as among the Greeks and Romans, who were accustomed to ballot with small white stones or beans, called , upon which names were written; [1200] still others compare it with the classical usage of rendering a favorable judgment in trials by means of white stones, and thus find in this passage a representation of Christ’s judgment preserving from condemnation, and introducing to blessedness by the sentence of justification. [1201] Many expositors, again, have combined several of these references, viz., that of election ( ) and justification. [1202] But against all such definite antiquarian references is the decisive circumstance that the presentation of our passage truly agrees with not one of them. Hengstenb. is correct in saying, [1203] “that the point coming here into consideration is only the fact that in antiquity many things were written on a small stone.” Besides, the white color of the stone given the victor, which in itself represents the glory of the victory, [1204] and the purity of the blessed in heaven, [1205] retains its full significance. But what properly gives the white stone its worth is the inscription which it bears: Christ gives the victor a new name , written upon the stone, a name which no one knows except he who receives it. That the new name written upon the stone can in no way be the name of God, [1206] is proved partly from the type of the ancient prophetic promise of a new name, [1207] partly by the analogy of Rev 19:12 , where what is said is concerning the proper name of Christ, and partly also from the rule given in the limitation , . . . The idea in Rev 3:12 , Rev 14:1 , is of an entirely different nature. The opinion of Eichhorn also is to be rejected; viz., that the stone bore the inscription , which is called new in opposition to the ancient Jewish faith in God without the Lamb. But to the norms given above, corresponds the view advanced by most expositors, according to which the declaration refers to the proper name of the victor. [1208] The name is new , because it designates the new glory of believers, i.e., that which is manifested only in the future life; [1209] and only he having received the same knows it, because, as is the case likewise already in this life, the knowledge of the blessedness of eternal life is disclosed only in personal experience. But how that new name will sound, cannot be in any way answered according to this text. The answer given by most, that it is “son of God,” or “elect,” is applicable only as therein the general contents of the Christian hope are expressed. [1210] [See Note XXXIII., p. 156.]
[1177] Cf. Act 27:30 .
[1178] Cf. Winer, pp. 186, 539.
[1179] Cf. especially Rev 2:7 .
[1180] Tichon., Beda.
[1181] C. a Lap., Boss.
[1182] Wolf. after J. H. Majus.
[1183] Wolf. Cf. also Luther: “A good testimony, and with the testimony.”
[1184] Wetst., Heinr., Ew.
[1185] Cf. 2MMal 2:1 sq. Abarbanel on 1Sa 4:4 : “This is the ark which Josiah hid before the devastation of our temple; and this ark, at a future time, when our Messiah comes, will be manifested.”
[1186] Joh 6 ; Primas, N. de Lyra, Vitr. See on Rev 2:7 .
[1187] Cf. Bengel, De Wette, Hengstenb., Ebrard.
[1188] Psa 78:49 ; Psa 105:40 .
[1189] Cf. also 1Co 2:7 sqq.
[1190] Cf. already Beda.
[1191] Joma viii.: “Precious stones and pearls fell together with the manna upon the Israelites.” In Wetst.
[1192] Exo 28:17 ; Exo 39:10 .
[1193] Cf. Ew., Zll., Ebrard, Klief.
[1194] L ., ix., Praef .
[1195] Cf., e.g., in reference to Trajan, Plin., L. , x. Ep . 119, 120.
[1196] Xiphilin, Epit. Dion ., p. 228: , , , . . .
. Cf., in general, K. F. Hermann, d. Gottesdienstl. Alterth. d. Griechen , 50; Not. 30 sqq. p. 254 sqq.
[1197] Areth., Grot., Hammond, Eichh.
[1198] Heinr., Ew. ii.: Tessera hospitalitatis (token of hospitality).
[1199] Schttgen: “I believe that allusion is made to the lot which was to be cast by the priests who wished to offer sacrifice. According to Tamid., fol. Rev 16:1 : “The prefect of the temple came at the hour of cock-crowing, and the priests open. Then he says to them: ‘Let him who has been washed come and draw lots; he whom the lot touches is worthy of sacrificing.’ ”
[1200] Eisner.
[1201] Victorin., Erasmus, Zeger, C. a Lap., Aretius, Calov., Vitr., Wolf, etc.
[1202] De Wette, Stern. Cf. also Beng.
[1203] Cf. already Beng.
[1204] Rev 6:2 .
[1205] Rev 4:4 .
[1206] Ewald.
[1207] Isa 62:2 ; Isa 65:15 .
[1208] Beda, Ribera, C. a Lap., L. Cappellus, Grot., Coccej., Vitr., Wolf, Bengel, De Wette, Hengstenb., Ebrard, etc.
[1209] 1Jn 3:2 ; 1Co 13:9 sqq.
[1210] Rom 8:17 ; 1Jn 3:2 .
NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR
XXXIII. Rev 2:17 . .
Trench: “The words, ‘the hidden manna,’ imply, that, however hidden now, its meaning shall not remain hidden evermore; and the best commentary on them is to be found at 1Co 2:9 ; 1Jn 3:2 . The seeing Christ as he is, of the latter passage, and, through this beatific vision, being made like to him, is identical with this eating of the hidden manna, which shall, as it were, be then brought forth from the sanctuary, the holy of holies, of God’s immediate presence, where it was withdrawn from sight so long that all may partake of it; the glory of Christ, now shrouded and concealed, being then revealed to his people.” Following Zllig, he has an elaborate argument to prove that there is a reference in “the white stone” to the Urim and Thummim, on the ground that , in later Greek, means “a precious stone,” and indicates “the purest glistering white” of the diamond; both the manna and the white stone “representing high-priestly privileges, which the Lord should at length impart to all his people, kings and priests unto God.” This is refuted by Plumptre in Smith’s Bible Dictionary , article “Urim and Thummim;” and in his commentary, where he adopts Ewald’s view, “who sees in the stone or of the promise, the tessera hospitalis , by which, in virtue of forms or characters inscribed upon it, he who possessed it could claim from the friend who gave it, at any distance of time, a frank and hearty welcome. What I would suggest as an addition to this rises out of the probability, almost certainty, that some such tessera or ticket a stone with the name of the guest written on it was given to those who were invited to partake, within the precincts of the temple, of the feast that consisted wholly, or in part, of the meat that had been offered as a sacrifice. On this view, the second part of the promise is brought in harmony with the first, and is made more directly appropriate: he who had the courage to refuse that tessera to the feast that defiled should receive another that would admit him to the supper of the Great King.” On the last clause, Plumptre: “The inner truth that lies below the outward imagery would seem to be, that the conqueror, when received at the heavenly feast, should find upon the stone, or tessera , that gave him the right of entrance, a ‘new name,’ the token of a character transformed and perfected, a name, the full significance of which should be known only to him who was conscious of the transformation, just as, in the experiences of our human life, ‘the heart knoweth his own bitterness, and the stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy’ (Pro 14:10 ).”
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 2489
EPISTLE TO PERGAMOS
Rev 2:17. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.
IN every one of the epistles, it is the promise that comes last: for our blessed Lord would have a free and willing service, and not a service constrained by fear. Not but that threatenings are good in their place, because they produce a holy fear and caution: but it is by the promises chiefly that God accomplishes the work of his grace within us: and when we truly apprehend them, we shall invariably experience their renewing efficacy; and be led by them to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God [Note: 2Co 7:1.].
In discoursing on the words before us, I shall endeavour to set before you,
I.
The blessedness that awaits the victorious Christian
The terms used in my text require much explanation. But, when duly considered, they will be found to intimate, that, in the eternal world, the victorious Christian will have accorded to him,
1.
A more intimate connexion with the Lord Jesus
[To him will I give to eat of the hidden manna. On manna the Israelites subsisted forty years in the Wilderness. But from the day that they ate corn in the land of Canaan, the supply of manna was withheld [Note: Jos 5:10-12.]. There was, however, a vessel full of manna deposited with the ark, as a memorial of Gods goodness to them in the Wilderness [Note: Exo 16:32-34.]. Any which the Israelites themselves attempted to hoard, even for a day, excepting for their use on the Sabbath-day, bred worms, and stank; but that which was laid up by Gods command, continued good for many hundreds of years, even to the time when all the vessels of the sanctuary were seized by Nebuchadnezzar, and carried into Babylon [Note: Heb 9:4.].
Now, it must be remembered, that the manna was a type of Christ [Note: Joh 6:31-35.]. Even to the Jews it was spiritual meat [Note: 1Co 10:3.]: and all who had a spiritual discernment partook of Christ in it [Note: Joh 6:48-51.]. To us, of course, there is no such food vouchsafed, so far as relates to the body: but in our souls we may feed upon it, even as they: for by faith our souls subsist on Christ, and live by him, even as their bodies did by a daily participation of the manna itself. Yet it is by faith only that we partake of this benefit. Not so when we reach the heavenly Canaan: the life of faith shall then cease, and the life of sense commence. The manna is laid up for us within the sanctuary, by the ark of God. There is the Lord Jesus Christ himself; and there shall we be admitted to the closest possible communion with him. Even here our souls lived by means of him; but there he will be, in a far more intimate manner than he could be in this world, our very life [Note: Compare Joh 6:37 and Col 3:3. with Rev 21:23; Rev 22:1.]. Here we had the foretaste of heavenly things: but there we shall have the full enjoyment [Note: 1Co 13:12.].]
2.
A more assured sense of his favour
[He will give us a white stone.Amongst the Greeks and Romans, when any man was tried for an offence against the State, those who sat in judgment upon him gave their verdict by means of a white stone, if they acquitted him; or by a black stone, if they condemned him: and, on some occasions, the vote they gave was confirmed by an inscription on the stone itself. Thus, when we arrive in the heavenly land, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Judge of quick and dead, will put into our hands a white stone, in token that we are fully and for ever justified in the sight of God. This blessing, also, was vouchsafed to us, in a measure, in this life: for there are many who are enabled to say, We know that we have passed from death unto life [Note: 1Jn 3:14.]; yes, there are many who are privileged to possess a full assurance of hope [Note: Heb 6:11.]. But still we are in the body: and no man can tell what a day may bring forth: nor does it become any man, who is yet girt with his armour, to boast as one that putteth it off [Note: 1Ki 20:11.]. Here our faith must be mixed with fear [Note: Rom 11:20.]: but in that day there shall be no occasion either for faith or fear; for faith shall be lost in sight, and hope be consummated in fruition. Yes, the very stone that declares our acquittal shall be put into our own hands; and be, to all eternity, an evidence of our acquittal, and a pledge that it shall never be reversed.]
3.
A more exquisite enjoyment of his love
[On the stone shall be a name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it. God gave new names to many of his beloved people; to Abram, and Sarai, and Jacob, and Solomon: and a new name will God give to his victorious servants, a name better than of sons and of daughters [Note: Isa 56:4-5.]. Even now are we called by that august title, The Sons of God: and the world knows us not, because it knows not him [Note: 1Jn 3:1-2.]. Even now have we a joy with which a stranger intermeddleth not [Note: Pro 14:10.], and which language would fail us adequately to express [Note: 1Pe 1:8.]. A Spirit of adoption, and the witness of the Spirit, who can comprehend, except the person that has received them [Note: Rom 8:15-16.]? This secret of the Lord is with those only who fear him: to whom, also, he shews his covenant [Note: Psa 25:14.], with all its unsearchable and inestimable benefits. But the love of Christ, in all its heights and depths, infinitely surpasses all human knowledge [Note: Eph 3:18-19.]: nor, indeed, shall we be fully able to comprehend it, even in heaven. But there, on the white stone that shall be given us, will be engraven such characters as none but the possessor of that stone can comprehend. Conceive of a soul before whom all the glory of the Godhead is displayed, and to whom all the wonders of redeeming love are revealed, and into whose bosom all the fulness of Gods love is poured: and who shall estimate his joy? The sublimest conceptions that any finite being can form of such bliss would fall as far below it, as the glimmering of the glow-worm below the lustre of the noon-day sun. It must be felt, in order to be known.]
Does all this blessedness await the victorious soul? Think, then, what are,
II.
The measures which sound wisdom will prescribe, in relation to it
Surely you have anticipated all that I can have to say under this head. Yet it will be proper, at all events, that I add my testimony to what I am persuaded must be the dictates of all your minds. I say, then,
1.
Enlist, without delay, under the banners of your Lord and Saviour
[You are all, of necessity, called to be soldiers of Jesus Christ. In your very baptism you engaged to fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil, and to be Christs faithful soldiers and servants to your lives end. I call upon you, then, to execute the office which has thus devolved upon you. Mark, I pray you, the restrictive clause in my text: To him that overcometh will I give all this blessedness. It is not to him that never fights at all, nor to him that fights only as one that beats the air: no; it is to him who wars a good warfare, and overcomes all his enemies; to him, I say, and to him alone, will all these blessings be vouchsafed. Grieved I am to say, that, according to this view of Gods promises, there are but few that will ever taste the sweetness of them: but I entreat you, my brethren, to engage without delay in this warfare; and so to fight, that you may obtain the crown that fadeth not away ]
2.
Whatever conflicts you may have to sustain, never cease to fight, until you have obtained the victory
[You must expect conflicts, and severe ones too, ere you are liberated from your engagements. A man who fights only against his fellow-man shall have much to endure before he gains the victory: and do you think that the world and the flesh and the devil will yield without much resistance? Look at the saints, that have gone before you, and you will find that they all came out of great tribulation. Your Saviour himself overcame not, but by the sacrifice of his own life. Be ye then ready to sacrifice your lives in this glorious contest [Note: Heb 2:14.]: and as He, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross and despised the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of God [Note: Heb 12:2.]; so shall ye also, if only ye faint not, in due season reign with him in glory for evermore [Note: Gal 6:9.] ]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
17 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it .
Ver. 17. Of the hidden manna ] That is, of Christ, whom none of the princes of this world knew; but God hath revealed him to his hidden ones by the Spirit, 1Co 2:8 ; 1Co 2:10 cf. Psa 83:3 , and given them to taste of that heavenly gift.
A white stone ] In token of absolution. With this white stone may the saints comfort themselves against all the black coals wherewith the world seeks to besmear them. If Libanius could say, (In epist, ad Basil.), Let Basil praise me, and I shall sing away all care, whoever reproaeheth me; may not we much more say so of Christ? “It is he that justifieth us; who shall condemn us?”Rom 8:34Rom 8:34 .
A new name ] Better than that of sons and daughters, Isa 56:5 . The assurance whereof is (saith Father Latimer) the deserts of the feast of a good conscience, which is inconceivable and full of glory.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
17 .] Conclusion . For the former clause see on Rev 2:7 . We may notice that in these three first Epistles, the proclamation precedes the promise to him that conquereth: in the four last, it follows the promise. To him that conquereth I will give to him (see above on Rev 2:7 ) of the manna which is hidden (on the partitive gen. see ref., and Winer, edn. 6, 30. 7, b. In this manna, there is unmistakably an allusion to the proper and heavenly food of the children of Israel, as contrasted with the unhallowed idolofferings; but beyond that, there is an allusion again (see above on Rev 2:7 ) to our Lord’s discourse in Joh 6 , where He describes Himself as the true bread from heaven: not that we need here, any more than in Rev 2:7 (see note there), confuse the present figure by literally pressing the symbolism of that chapter. Christ’s gifts may all be summed up in the gift of Himself: on the other hand, He may describe any of the manifold proprieties of his own Person and office as His gift. This manna is , in allusion partly perhaps to the fact of the pot of manna laid up in the ark in the holy of holies (Exo 16:33 ; cf. our ch. Rev 11:19 ; not to the Jewish fable, “Hc est arca quam Josias abscondit ante vastationem templi nostri, et hc area futuro tempore, adveniente Messia nostra manifestabitur.” Abarbanel on 1Sa 4:4 , cited by Dsterd.), but principally to the fact that our spiritual life, with its springs and nourishments, , Col 3:3 . See also Psa 78:24 ; Psa 105:40 . The distinction between , reconditum, and , occultum, pressed here by Trench after Cocceius, does not appear to be warranted, further than that the participle represents more the objective fact, while the verbal adjective sets forth the subjective quality), and I will give to him a white stone (see, below), and on the stone (the prep. of motion betokens the act of inscribing) a new name written, which none knoweth except he that receiveth it (the views concerning this stone have been very various. Bed [37] interprets it “corpus nunc baptismo candidatum, tunc incorruptionis gloria refulgens.” And similarly Lyra, “corpus dote charitatis decoratum, quod dicitur calculus sive lapillus, quia est extractum de terra, sicut et lapis,” adding, “nomen novum, quia tunc quilibet beatus manifeste et corporaliter per dotes corporis gloriosi erit ascriptus civitati clestium.” But both these are surely out of the question. Some have connected this with the mention of the manna, and cited (as Wetst., who gives it merely among others and expresses no opinion) the Rabbinical tradition, Joma 8, “cadebant Israelitis una cum manna lapides pretiosi et margarit.” Others again think of the precious stones bearing the names of the twelve tribes on the breastplate of the High-priest, the order for which was contemporary with the giving of the manna, Exo 28:17 ; Exo 39:10 , and regard this as indicating the priestly dignity of the victorious Christian. So Ewald, Zllig, Ebrard: the last remarks, that as the hidden manna was the reward for abstaining from idol-meat, so this for abstinence from fornication. But, as Dsterd. observes, these are never called . Again some, as Arethas, Grot., Hamm., Eichhorn, Heinr., have reminded us of the Gentile custom of presenting the victors at the games with a or ticket which entitled them to nourishment at the public expense, and to admission to royal festivals. Titus, they quote from Xiphilinus, Epit. Dion. p. 228, used to cast small pieces of wood ( ) down into the arena, , , . . ., which whoever got was to bring . Hence they regard the white stone as the ticket of admission to the heavenly feast. But it may be replied, 1) the feast is mentioned separately under the name of the hidden manna: and 2) the description of the writing on the stone, which follows, will not suit this view. Again, others, regarding the connexion of the white stone with the manna, refer to the use of the lot cast among the priests, which should offer the sacrifice (so Schttg., quoting the Rabbis): or to the writing a name, at election by ballot, on a stone or a bean (so Elsner, and perhaps Victorinus, who says, “gemma alba, adoptio in filium Dei”): or to the “mos erat antiquis niveis atrisque lapillis, His damnare reos, illis absolvere culpa,” Ov. Met. xv. 41. So Erasm., Zeger, a-Lap., Aretius, Calov., Vitr., Wolf, al. Some expositors combine two or more of these expositions: as De Wette, understanding it as typical of justification and election; Bengel; Stern, who also notices the white stone as the mark of felicity, “Hunc, Macrine, diem numera meliore lapillo, Qui tibi labentes apponit candidus annos,” Pers. Sat. ii., and “O diem ltum notandumque mihi candidissimo calculo,” Plin. Ep. vi. 11. 3. But, as Dsterd. well observes, it is against all these interpretations, that no one of them fits the conditions of this description. Each one halts in the explanation either of the stone itself, or of that which is written on it. Least of all, perhaps, does the last apply: the verdict of acquittal would be a strange reward indeed to one who has fought and overcome in the strength of an acquittal long ago obtained, Col 3:13 . The most probable view is that which Bengel gives a hint of (“scribebant veteres multa in lapillis”), and which Hengst. (“ Das hier in Betrachtkommende Moment ist allein das, dass man im Alterthume manches auf kleine Steine schrieb ”) and Dsterd. hold, that the figure is derived from the practice of using small stones, inscribed with writing, for various purposes, and that, further than this, the imagery belongs to the occasion itself only. Taking it thus, the colour is that of victory, see ch. Rev 3:4 ; Rev 6:2 ; Rev 4:4 ; Rev 19:14 . The name inscribed yet remains for consideration. It is in this, as it would be in every case, the inscription which gives the stone its real value, being, as it is, a token of reward and approval from the Son of God. But what name is this? not what name in each case , for an answer to this question is precluded by the very terms, , . . .: but of what kind? Is it the name of Christ Himself, or of God in Christ? This supposition is precluded also by the game terms: for any mysterious name of God or of Christ would either be hidden from all (so ch. Rev 19:12 , ), or known to all who were similarly victorious through grace. These very terms seem to require that it should be the recipient’s own name , a new name however; a revelation of his everlasting title, as a son of God, to glory in Christ, but consisting of, and revealed in, those personal marks and signs of God’s peculiar adoption of himself , which he and none else is acquainted with. “If the heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with its joy” ( Pro 14:10 ), then the deep secret dealings of God with each of us during those times, by which our sonship is assured and our spiritual strife carried onward to victory, can, when revealed to us in the other blessed state, be known thoroughly to ourselves only. Bengel beautifully says, “ Mochtest Du wissen, was Du fur einen neuen Namen bekommen wirst? Uberwinde! Borher fragst Du vergeblich: und hernach wirst Du ihn bald auf dem weissen Stein geschrieben lesen .” Trench, in loc., after Zllig, suggests that the white, or glistering stone, may be the Urim, in which the most precious stone of all was covered by the twelve on which the names of the tribes were engraved; the writing on which no one knew. The suggestion is one well worth consideration).
[37] Bede, the Venerable , 731; Bedegr, a Greek MS. cited by Bede, nearly identical with Cod. “E,” mentioned in this edn only when it differs from E.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Rev 2:17 . The reward for those who deny themselves pagan pleasures in this world is (as in Rev 2:26 ) participation in the privileges ( Pereq Meir 5), reserved for God’s people in the latter days (here = a victor’s banquet, Gen 14:18 ), not as hitherto (Rev 2:7 ; Rev 2:11 ) simply participation in eternal life. The imagery is again rabbinic (Mal 2:4-6Mal 2:4-6 , Apoc. Bar. vi. 7 9). Previous to the destruction of Jerusalem, Isaiah or the prophet Jeremiah was supposed to have hidden the ark of the covenant ( cf. on Rev 11:19 ) with its sacred contents, including the pot of manna. At the appearance of the messiah, this was to be once more disclosed ( cf. Mechilta on Exo 16:25 , etc.). It is significant how the writer as usual claims for his messiah, Jesus, the cherished privileges and rights to which contemporary Judaism clung as its monopoly, and further how he assumes that all the past glories of O.T. religion upon earth as well as all the coming bliss, which in one sense meant the transcendent restoration of these glories were secured in heaven for the followers of Jesus alone (Rev 7:17 , Rev 21:2 , etc.). See Apoc. Bar. xxix. 8, where “the treasury of manna will again descend from on high,” at the messianic period, that the saints may eat of it; the Fourth Gospel, on the other hand, follows Philo ( quis rer. div. 39, leg. allegor . iii. 59, 61, etc.) in using manna as a type of the soul’s nourishment in the present age. There does not seem to be any allusion to the rabbinical legend underlying Sap. xvi. 20. The strange association of manna and white stones, though possibly a reminiscence of the rabbinic notion preserved in Joma 8 (cadebant Israelitis una cum manna lapides pretiosi), cannot be explained apart from the popular superstitions regarding amulets which colour the metaphor. White stones represented variously to the ancient mind acquittal, admission to a feast (tessera hospitalis), good fortune, and the like. But the point here is their connexion with the new name. This alludes to the mysterious power attached in the ancient mind to amulets, stones ( cf. E.J. i. 546 550, where vignettes are given; also Dieterich’s Mithras-Liturgie , 31 f.) marked with secret and divine names (Jeremias, 79 80, Pfleid. Early Christ. Conc, of Christ , 112 f.), the possession of which was supposed to enable the bearer to pass closed gates, foil evil spirits, and enter the presence of the deity. If the new name ( cf. Heitmller’s Im Namen Jesu , 128 f.), is thus regarded as that of Jesus the irresistible, invincible name above every name the promise then offers safe entrance through all perils into the inner bliss and feast of God; the true Christian has a charmed life. But when the new name is taken to apply to the individual, as seems more likely here, another line of interpretation is required, and the origin of the phrase (though tinged still with this amulet-conception of a stone, the more potent as it was hidden somewhere on the person, cf. Pro 17:8 , etc.), is best approached from a passage like Epict.Rev 1:19 , where the philosopher is trying to dissuade a man from undertaking the duties of priesthood in the Imperial cultus at Nikopolis. What good will it do him after death, to have his name used to mark his year of office in public documents? “My name will remain,” replies the man. “Write it on a stone and it will remain,” is the retort of Epictetus plainly a colloquial expression for permanence. This would fit in with the Apocalyptic saying excellently (see Schol. on Pind. Olymp. vii. 159). Still more apposite, however, is an ancient ceremony of initiation (as among the aborigines of New South Wales: Trumbull, Blood-Covenant , 1887, pp. 335 337), by which each person, on the close of his novitiate, received a new name from the tribe and at the same time a white stone or quartz crystal. The latter was considered to be a divine gift, and was held specially sacred, never to be surrendered or even shown. These boons formed part of the religious covenant which marked the entrance of a man into the closest relation with the deity of his tribe and also into the full enjoyment of manhood’s privileges. Hence, if we suppose some such popular rite behind the language here, the idea is apt: the victor’s reward is the enjoyment of mature and intimate life with his God (so Victor.). For the symbolism of a name as evidence of personal identity (and inferentially of a new name as proof of a renovated, enduring nature), see E.B.D. 75: “May my name be given to me in the Great House, and may I remember my name in the House of Fire. If any god whatsoever should advance to me, let me be able to proclaim his name forthwith” (the latter clause illustrating Rev 3:12 ). The significance attached by the Egyptian religion especially to the reu or name was due to the belief that its loss meant the extinction of a man’s existence. The idea in the prophet’s mind is little more than that developed, e.g. , in Mrs. Browning’s sonnet, “Comfort”: “Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet, From out the hallelujahs sweet and low, Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee,” etc. As the succeeding chapters are full of the state and splendour of heaven, with royal majesty predominating, the prophet finds place here for the more intimate and individual aspect of the future life, depicting God in touch with the single soul ( cf. Rev 14:1 ). In addition to this, he conveys the idea that outside the Christian experience no one can really know what God is or what He gives; the redeemed and victorious alone can understand what it means to belong to God and to be rewarded by him. Wnsch has recently pointed out ( Excav. in Palestine , 1898 1900, p. 186) that, as in Egypt the sacred paper ( ) was used for solemn appeals to the gods ( Brit. Mus. Papyri , xlvi. 308), “in like manner, doubtless, in Palestine, limestone had some superstitious significance, but of what special kind we do not know. Perhaps it is in this connexion that in Rev 2:17 “he that overcometh” is to receive “a white stone” inscribed with a “new” spell, evidently as an “amulet”. There may also be a further local allusion to the and names which were supposed to be received by votaries of Asclepius as they lay in a trance or dream (Aristides, i. 352, 520). For the initiation-custom, cf. Spence and Gillen’s Native Tribes of Central Australia , pp. 139 140, where the secret, individual name is described as given only to those who are “capable of self-restraint” and above levity of conduct. Clem. Alex. ( Strom , i. 23) preserves a Jewish tradition that Moses got three names Joachim, Moses, and Melchi ( i.e. , king), the last-mentioned , .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Revelation
III. – THE VICTOR’S LIFE-SECRET
Rev 2:17 .
The Church at Pergamos, to which this promise is addressed, had a sharper struggle than fell to the lot of the two Churches whose epistles precede this. It was set ‘where Satan’s seat is.’ Pergamos was a special centre of heathen worship, and already the blood of a faithful martyr had been shed in it. The severer the struggle, the nobler the reward. Consequently the promise given to this militant Church surpasses, in some respects, those held out to the former two. They were substantially promised that life eternal, which indeed includes everything; but here some of the blessed contents of that life are expanded and emphasized.
There is a threefold promise given: ‘the hidden manna,’ ‘the white stone,’ a ‘new name’ written. The first and the last of these are evidently the most important. They need little explanation; of the central one ‘the white stone,’ a bewildering variety of interpretations – none of them, as it seems to me, satisfactory – have been suggested. Possibly there may be an allusion to the ancient custom of dropping the votes of the judges into an urn – a white pebble meaning innocence and acquittal; black meaning guilty – just as we, under somewhat similar circumstances, talk about ‘blackballing.’ But the objection to that interpretation lies in the fact that the ‘white stone’ of our text is given to the person concerned, and not deposited elsewhere. There may be an allusion to a practice, which antiquarians have hunted out, of conferring upon the victors in the games a little tile with a name inscribed upon it, which gave admission to the public festivals. But all the explanations are so doubtful that one hesitates to accept any of them. There remains one other alternative, which seems to me to be suggested by the very language of the text, viz., that the ‘white stone’ is here named – with possibly some subsidiary thought of innocence and purity – merely as the vehicle for the name. And so I dismiss it from further consideration, and concentrate our thoughts on the remaining two promises.
I. We have the victor’s food, the manna.
That seems, at first sight, a somewhat infelicitous symbol, because manna was wilderness food. But that characteristic is not to be taken into account. Manna, though it fell in the wilderness, came from heaven, and it is the heavenly food that is suggested by the symbol. When the warrior passes from the fight into the city, the food which came down from heaven will be given to him in fullness. It is a beautiful thought that as soon as the man, ‘spent with changing blows,’ and weary with conflict, enters the land of peace, there is a table spread for him; not, as before, in the presence of his enemies,’ but in the presence of the companions of his repose. One moment hears the din of the battlefield, the next moment feels the refreshment of the heavenly manna.
But now there can be little need for dealing, by way of exposition, with this symbol. Let us rather try to lay it upon our hearts.
Now the first thing that it plainly suggests to us is the absolute satisfaction of all the hunger of the heart. It is possible, and for those that overcome it will one day be actual experience, that a man shall have everything that he wishes the moment that he wishes it. Here we have to suppress desires, sometimes because they are illegitimate and wrong, sometimes because circumstances sternly forbid their indulgence. There, to desire will be to have, and partly by the rectifying of the appetite, partly by the fullness of the supply, there will be no painful sense of vacuity, and no clamoring of the unsubdued heart for good that is beyond its reach. They – and you and I may be amongst them, and so we may say ‘we’ – ‘shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more.’ Oh, brethren! to us who are driven into activity by desires, half of which go to water and are never fulfilled – to us who know what it is to try to tame down the hungering, yelping wishes and longings of our souls – to us who have so often spent our ‘money for that which is not bread, and our labour for that which satisfieth not,’ it ought to be a Gospel: ‘I will give him to eat of the hidden manna.’ Is it such to you? Do you believe it possible, and are you addressing yourselves to make the fulfilment of it actual in your case?
Then there is the other plain thing suggested here, that that satisfaction does not dull the edge of appetite or desire. Bodily hunger is fed, is replete, wants nothing more until the lapse of time and digestion have intervened. But it is not so with the loftiest satisfactions. There are some select, noble, blessed desires even here, concerning which we know that the more we have, the more we hunger with a hunger which has no pain in it, but is only the greatened capacity for greater enjoyment. You that know what happy love is know what that means – a satisfaction which never approaches satiety, a hunger which has in it no gnawing. And in the loftiest and most perfect of all realms, that co-existence of perfect fruition and perfect desire will be still more wondrously and blessedly manifest. At each moment the more we have, the wider will our hearts be expanded by possession, and the wider they are expanded the more will they be capable of receiving, and the more they are capable of receiving the more deep and full and blessed and all covering will be the inrush of the river of the water of life. Satisfaction without satiety, food which leaves him blessedly appetized for larger bestowments, belong to the victor.
Another thing to be noticed here is what we have already had occasion to point out in the previous promises: I will give him.’ Do you remember our Lord’s own wonderful words: ‘Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and shall come forth and serve them’? The victor is seated at the board, and the Prince, as in some earthly banquet to a victorious army. Himself moves up and down amongst the tables, and supplies the wants of the guests. There was an old Jewish tradition, which perhaps may have influenced the form of this promise, to the effect that the Messiah, when He came, would bring again to the people the gift of the manna, and men should once more eat angels’ food. Whether there is any allusion to that poetic fancy or no in the words of my text, the reality infinitely transcends it. Christ Himself bestows upon His servants the sustenance of their spirits in the realm above. But there is more than that. Christ is not only the Giver, but He is Himself the Food. I believe that the deepest meaning of this sevenfold cluster of jewels, the promises to these seven Churches, is in each case Christ. He is the Tree of Life; He is the Crown of Life, He is – as well as gives – ‘the hidden manna.’ You will remember how He Himself gives us this interpretation when, in answer to the Jewish taunt, ‘Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness. What dost Thou work?’ He said, ‘I am that Bread of God that came down from heaven.’
So, then, once more, we come back to the all-important teaching that, whatever be the glories of the perfected flower and fruit in heaven, the germ and root of it is already here. The man who lives upon the Christ by faith, love, obedience, imitation, communion, aspiration, here on earth, has already the earnest of that feast. No doubt there will be aspects and sweetnesses and savours and sustenance in the heavenly form of our possession of, and living on, Him, which we here on earth know nothing about. But no doubt also the beginning and positive degree of all these sweetnesses and savours and sustenances yet to be revealed is found in the experience of the man who has listened to the cry of that loving voice, ‘Eat, and your souls shall live’; and has taken Jesus Christ Himself, the living Person, to be not only the source but the nourishment of his spiritual life.
So, brethren, it is of no use to pretend to ourselves that we should like – as they put it in bald, popular language – to ‘go to heaven,’ unless we are using and relishing that of heaven which is here to-day. If you do not like the earthly form of feeding upon Jesus Christ, which is trusting Him, giving your heart to Him, obeying Him, thinking about Him, treading in His footsteps, you would not like, you would like less, the heavenly form of that feeding upon Him. If you would rather have the strong-smelling garlic and the savory leeks – to say nothing about the swine’s trough and the husks – than ‘this light bread,’ the ‘angels’ food,’ which your palates cannot stand and your stomachs cannot digest, you could not swallow it if it were put into your lips when you get beyond the grave; and you would not like it if you could. Christ forces this manna into no man’s mouth; but Christ gives it to all who desire it and are fit for it. As is the man’s appetite, so is the man’s food; and so is the life that results there from.
II. Note the victor’s new name.
I have often had occasion to point out to you that Scripture attaches, in accordance with Eastern habit, large importance to names, which are intended to be significant of character, or circumstances, or parental hopes or desires. So that, both in reference to God and man, names come to be the condensed expression of the character and the personality. When we read, ‘I will give him a stone, on which there is a new name written,’ we infer that the main suggestion made in that promise is of a change in the self, something new in the personality and the character. I need not dwell upon this, for we have no material by which to expand into detail the greatness of the promise. I would only remind you of how we are taught to believe that the dropping away of the corporeal and removal from this present scene carries with it, in the case of those who have here on earth begun to walk with Christ, and to become citizens of the spiritual realm, changes great, ineffable, and all tending in the one direction of making the servants more fully like their Lord. What new capacities may be evolved by the mere fact of losing the limitations of the bodily frame; what new points of contact with a new universe; what new analogues of what we here call our senses and means of perception of the external world may be the accompaniments of the disembarrassment from ‘the earthly house of this tabernacle,’ we dare not dream. We could not, if we were told, rightly understand. But, surely, if the tenant is taken from a clay hut and set in a royal house, eternal, not made with hands, its windows must be wider and more transparent, and there must be an inrush of wondrously more brilliant light into the chambers.
But whatsoever be these changes, they are changes that repose upon that which has been in the past. And so the second thought that is suggested by this new name is that these changes are the direct results of the victor’s course. Both in old times and in the peerage of England you will find names of conquerors, by land or by water, who carry in their designations and transmit to their descendants the memorial of their victories in their very titles. In like manner as a Scipio was called Africanus, as a Jervis became Lord St. Vincent, so the victor’s ‘new name’ is the concentration and memorial of the victor’s conquest. And what we have wrought and fought here on earth we carry with us, as the basis of the changes from glory to glory which shall come in the heavens. ‘They rest from their labors; their works do follow them,’ and, gathering behind the laurelled victor, attend him as he ascends the hill of the Lord.
But once more we come to the thought that whatever there may be of change in the future, the main direction of the character remains, and the consolidated issues of the transient deeds of earth remain, and the victor’s name is the summing up of the victor’s life.
But, further, Christ gives the name. He changed the names of His disciples. Simon He called Cephas, James and John He called ‘Sons of Thunder.’ The act claimed authority, and designated a new relation to Him. Both these ideas are conveyed in the promise: ‘I will give him … a new name written.’ Only, brethren, remember that the transformation keeps true to the line of direction begun here, and the process of change has to be commenced on earth. They who win the new name of heaven are they of whom it would be truly said, while they bore the old name of earth, ‘If any man be in Christ he is a new creature.’
‘Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.’
III. Lastly, note the mystery of both the food and the name.
‘I will give him the hidden manna … a new name . . . which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.’ Now we all know that the manna was laid up in the Ark, beneath the Shekinah, within the curtain of the holiest place. And, besides that, there was a Jewish tradition that the Ark and its contents, which disappeared after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the first Temple, had been buried by the prophet Jeremiah, and lay hidden away somewhere on the sacred soil, until the Messiah should return. There may be an allusion to that here, but it is not necessary to suppose it. The pot of manna lay in the Ark of the Covenant, of which we hear in another part of the symbolism in this book, within the veil in the holiest of all. And Christ gives the victor to partake of that sacred and secret food. The name which is given ‘no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.’ Both symbols point to the one thought, the impossibility of knowing until we possess and experience.
That impossibility besets all the noblest, highest, purest, divinest emotions and possessions of earth. Poets have sung of love and sorrow from the beginning of time; but men must love to know what love means. Every woman has heard about the sweetness of maternity, but not till the happy mother holds her infant to her breast does she understand it. And so we may talk till Doomsday, and yet it would remain true that we must eat the manna, and look upon the white stone for ourselves, before we can adequately comprehend.
Since, then, experience alone admits to the knowledge, how vulgar, how futile, how absolutely destructive of the very purpose which they are intended to subserve are all the attempts of men to forecast that ineffable glory. It is too great to be understood. The mountains that ring us round keep the secret well of the fair lands beyond. There are questions that bleeding hearts sometimes ask, questions which prurient curiosity more often ask, and which foolish people today are taking illegitimate means of solving, about that future life, which are all left – though some of them might conceivably have been answered – in silence. Enough for us to listen to the voice that says,
‘In My Father’s house are many mansions ‘- room for you and me – ‘if it were not so I would have told you.’ For the silence is eloquent. The curtain is the picture. The impossibility of telling is the token of the greatness of the thing to be told. Hope needs but little yarn to weave her web with. I believe that the dimness is part of the power of that heavenly prospect. Let us be reticent before it. Let us remember that, though our knowledge is small and our eyes dim, Christ knows all, and we shall be with Him; and so say, with no sense of pained ignorance or unsatisfied curiosity,
‘It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.’ Cannot our hearts add, ‘It is enough for the servant that he be as his master ‘?
An old commentator on this verse says, ‘Wouldst thou know what manner of new name thou shalt bear? Overcome. It is vain for thee to ask beforehand. Hereafter thou shalt soon see it written on the white stone.’
Help us, O Lord, to fight the good fight of faith, in the sure confidence that Thou wilt receive us, and refresh us, and renew us.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
to eat of. The texts omit.
hidden. Greek. krupto, as in Col 3:3.
manna. See Joh 6:58. Compare Exo 16:14, Exo 16:32-34. Psa 78:24, Psa 78:25.
stone. Greek. psephos. See Act 26:10. A white stone was known to the ancients as a “victory” stone.
in. Greek. epi. App-104.
new name. Compare Rev 3:12. See Isa 62:2; Isa 65:15, and compare Act 10:17.
new. See Mat 9:17.
no man = no one. Greek. oudeis.
knoweth. App-132. as the texts.
Saving. Same as else, Rev 2:5.
receiveth. As in Joh 3:27.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
17.] Conclusion. For the former clause see on Rev 2:7. We may notice that in these three first Epistles, the proclamation precedes the promise to him that conquereth: in the four last, it follows the promise. To him that conquereth I will give to him (see above on Rev 2:7) of the manna which is hidden (on the partitive gen. see ref., and Winer, edn. 6, 30. 7, b. In this manna, there is unmistakably an allusion to the proper and heavenly food of the children of Israel, as contrasted with the unhallowed idolofferings; but beyond that, there is an allusion again (see above on Rev 2:7) to our Lords discourse in John 6, where He describes Himself as the true bread from heaven: not that we need here, any more than in Rev 2:7 (see note there), confuse the present figure by literally pressing the symbolism of that chapter. Christs gifts may all be summed up in the gift of Himself: on the other hand, He may describe any of the manifold proprieties of his own Person and office as His gift. This manna is , in allusion partly perhaps to the fact of the pot of manna laid up in the ark in the holy of holies (Exo 16:33; cf. our ch. Rev 11:19; not to the Jewish fable, Hc est arca quam Josias abscondit ante vastationem templi nostri, et hc area futuro tempore, adveniente Messia nostra manifestabitur. Abarbanel on 1Sa 4:4, cited by Dsterd.), but principally to the fact that our spiritual life, with its springs and nourishments, , Col 3:3. See also Psa 78:24; Psa 105:40. The distinction between , reconditum, and , occultum, pressed here by Trench after Cocceius, does not appear to be warranted, further than that the participle represents more the objective fact, while the verbal adjective sets forth the subjective quality), and I will give to him a white stone (see, below), and on the stone (the prep. of motion betokens the act of inscribing) a new name written, which none knoweth except he that receiveth it (the views concerning this stone have been very various. Bed[37] interprets it corpus nunc baptismo candidatum, tunc incorruptionis gloria refulgens. And similarly Lyra, corpus dote charitatis decoratum, quod dicitur calculus sive lapillus, quia est extractum de terra, sicut et lapis, adding, nomen novum, quia tunc quilibet beatus manifeste et corporaliter per dotes corporis gloriosi erit ascriptus civitati clestium. But both these are surely out of the question. Some have connected this with the mention of the manna, and cited (as Wetst., who gives it merely among others and expresses no opinion) the Rabbinical tradition, Joma 8, cadebant Israelitis una cum manna lapides pretiosi et margarit. Others again think of the precious stones bearing the names of the twelve tribes on the breastplate of the High-priest, the order for which was contemporary with the giving of the manna, Exo 28:17; Exo 39:10, and regard this as indicating the priestly dignity of the victorious Christian. So Ewald, Zllig, Ebrard: the last remarks, that as the hidden manna was the reward for abstaining from idol-meat, so this for abstinence from fornication. But, as Dsterd. observes, these are never called . Again some, as Arethas, Grot., Hamm., Eichhorn, Heinr., have reminded us of the Gentile custom of presenting the victors at the games with a or ticket which entitled them to nourishment at the public expense, and to admission to royal festivals. Titus, they quote from Xiphilinus, Epit. Dion. p. 228, used to cast small pieces of wood ( ) down into the arena, , , …, which whoever got was to bring . Hence they regard the white stone as the ticket of admission to the heavenly feast. But it may be replied, 1) the feast is mentioned separately under the name of the hidden manna: and 2) the description of the writing on the stone, which follows, will not suit this view. Again, others, regarding the connexion of the white stone with the manna, refer to the use of the lot cast among the priests, which should offer the sacrifice (so Schttg., quoting the Rabbis): or to the writing a name, at election by ballot, on a stone or a bean (so Elsner, and perhaps Victorinus, who says, gemma alba, adoptio in filium Dei): or to the mos erat antiquis niveis atrisque lapillis, His damnare reos, illis absolvere culpa, Ov. Met. xv. 41. So Erasm., Zeger, a-Lap., Aretius, Calov., Vitr., Wolf, al. Some expositors combine two or more of these expositions: as De Wette, understanding it as typical of justification and election; Bengel; Stern, who also notices the white stone as the mark of felicity, Hunc, Macrine, diem numera meliore lapillo, Qui tibi labentes apponit candidus annos, Pers. Sat. ii., and O diem ltum notandumque mihi candidissimo calculo, Plin. Ep. vi. 11. 3. But, as Dsterd. well observes, it is against all these interpretations, that no one of them fits the conditions of this description. Each one halts in the explanation either of the stone itself, or of that which is written on it. Least of all, perhaps, does the last apply: the verdict of acquittal would be a strange reward indeed to one who has fought and overcome in the strength of an acquittal long ago obtained, Col 3:13. The most probable view is that which Bengel gives a hint of (scribebant veteres multa in lapillis), and which Hengst. (Das hier in Betrachtkommende Moment ist allein das, dass man im Alterthume manches auf kleine Steine schrieb) and Dsterd. hold, that the figure is derived from the practice of using small stones, inscribed with writing, for various purposes, and that, further than this, the imagery belongs to the occasion itself only. Taking it thus, the colour is that of victory, see ch. Rev 3:4; Rev 6:2; Rev 4:4; Rev 19:14. The name inscribed yet remains for consideration. It is in this, as it would be in every case, the inscription which gives the stone its real value, being, as it is, a token of reward and approval from the Son of God. But what name is this? not what name in each case, for an answer to this question is precluded by the very terms, , …: but of what kind? Is it the name of Christ Himself, or of God in Christ? This supposition is precluded also by the game terms: for any mysterious name of God or of Christ would either be hidden from all (so ch. Rev 19:12, ), or known to all who were similarly victorious through grace. These very terms seem to require that it should be the recipients own name, a new name however; a revelation of his everlasting title, as a son of God, to glory in Christ, but consisting of, and revealed in, those personal marks and signs of Gods peculiar adoption of himself, which he and none else is acquainted with. If the heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with its joy (Pro 14:10), then the deep secret dealings of God with each of us during those times, by which our sonship is assured and our spiritual strife carried onward to victory, can, when revealed to us in the other blessed state, be known thoroughly to ourselves only. Bengel beautifully says, Mochtest Du wissen, was Du fur einen neuen Namen bekommen wirst? Uberwinde! Borher fragst Du vergeblich: und hernach wirst Du ihn bald auf dem weissen Stein geschrieben lesen. Trench, in loc., after Zllig, suggests that the white, or glistering stone, may be the Urim, in which the most precious stone of all was covered by the twelve on which the names of the tribes were engraved; the writing on which no one knew. The suggestion is one well worth consideration).
[37] Bede, the Venerable, 731; Bedegr, a Greek MS. cited by Bede, nearly identical with Cod. E, mentioned in this edn only when it differs from E.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Rev 2:17. , ) The ancients used to write many things on stones (see Not. on Gregory of Neocsarea, Paneg. p. 139), and especially votes. Sam. Petit, var. lect. c. 8, shows that the white stone was a ticket for receiving food (), and he compares that with this passage. But in this place, the white stone and the new name is a reward by itself, and therefore it is placed after the hidden manna.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
a white stone
Signifies approval.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Victory and Intimacy
To him that overcometh, to him will I give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it.Rev 2:17.
The Church at Pergamum, to which this promise is addressed, had a sharper struggle than fell to the lot of the two Churches whose epistles precede this. It was set where Satans seat is. Pergamum was a special centre of heathen worship, and already the blood of a faithful martyr had been shed in it.
There were two houses in the city which represented the two forces that made life a battle for the Christian. One was the Church of Christ, and the other was the temple of idolatry. Heathen vice and heathen pleasure had such a sway in Pergamum that it seemed to be Satans capital. In the palace of the idol the Adversarys throne was set and his court gathered. All that was grand and popular and pleasant was on the side of evil. When a man left that gorgeous temple in the great square he left everything that appealed to ease and pride and ambition. When he entered the poor little church in the back lane he entered into conflict with his heart and with the world. That single renunciation of the sweets and successes of life was but the beginning of the strife. In the church itself were some who taught that the Christian need not break with his former life in choosing Christ. Let us say to ourselves that the idol is nothing, and so let us go to the temple feasts, and take part in the foul and wild joys of the heathen. Let us be friendly with the people, and bring no unnecessary hardships on ourselves.
At once we see that the dingy, hidden church is, indeed, the portal of the one true temple, all glorious and eternal. Let these worshippers of the Christ be faithful to Him, and soon they shall pass in and be at home there. Let them keep from the meats of the idol shrine, and they shall feast on the best in the house of God. Let them refuse to be votaries of the foul altar, and they shall be very priests of the Holy of Holies. Let them forgo the society of the heathen, and they shall be the close and particular friends of Him who is the visible Divinity of the heavenly sanctuary. They shall be fed with hidden manna; they shall receive a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it.
I
The Hidden Manna
To him that overcometh, to him will I give of the hidden manna.
1. The reference is to the golden pot of manna which was preserved in the ark, under the mercy-seat, along with Aarons rod and the tables of the covenant. The manna was taken from off the sand of the desert, put into an urn, and placed, for all ages, in the Holy of Holies, in remembrance of the desert food, and as a type of something better yet to be revealed.
This hidden manna was both like and unlike the manna of the wilderness; it was connected with it, yet also separate. It was of heaven originally (Joh 6:31); it came down to earth; it was taken into the holiest of all, the emblem of the heaven of heavens; thus it was both of earth and of heaven. It was of the wilderness, yet not in it. It was originally corruptible, yet made incorruptible; once a daily gift, spread over all the sand of the desert, now gathered into one small vessel, and laid up there once for all. It was in the ark, covered with the blood, beneath the cherubim and the glory; food that could be reached only through blood, and could be only for those whom blood had redeemed. Man had eaten angels food; but now this had become the food of mennot only of men here, in weakness and wandering, but also of the glorified in the New Jerusalem.
2. Those who remember with what fulness St. John, and he alone, records the teaching in which his Master claimed to be the Bread of God, the living bread that came down from heaven, of which, if a man ate, he should live for ever, as contrasted with the manna in the wilderness, which had no power to save from death, will be ready to admit that the words now before us must have recalled that teaching, and that the manna which was to be the reward of the conqueror was the fruition of the ineffable sweetness of that Divine presence. Those who resisted the temptation to join the idols feast in the idols temple should be admitted to that heavenly feast in the eternal temple, which was also the palace of the great King.
The food of God is thus set over against forbidden food. The Christians here first addressed had eaten food offered to idols. In opposition to this is the promise of the hidden manna. Not as the world giveth give I unto you. Christ contrasts the worlds food, as that which never satisfies, with His love and sympathy, which alone satisfy the cravings of the soul.
In course of one of his Sunday evening addresses to the students of Edinburgh University, Professor Drummond remarked: I was talking last Sunday to a man who said that though he could live for Christ at the close of the meetings, or could even for a month or so keep straight, yet after that his new life went down and was lost. Now, this proves two things. It proves the possibility of a man living for Christ and keeping straight under suitable conditions, and it proves also that if a man tries living without the Bread of Life he will flag and die. You cant live on air. You cant live on one another. You cant live on what I say; but you can live on the Bread of Life, which is Jesus Christ. The problem of Nutrition is the fundamental problem of physiology, the fundamental problem of living beings. So exactly is it the fundamental problem of the Christian life.
He then drew a long analogy between physical and spiritual nutrition in the terms of physiology. But the closest parallel I can draw is that which we see in life and read of in tales, where one man is the sustenance and life of another, or more often where a woman is the sustenance and help of a man. Something which is very pure, which is fresh, which is high and loftywhy, it throws an influence around the base life which elevates and ennobles that miserable life to the level of its own. Not in a day. Not in a year. But in a long continuous process which works unseen. How is it done? By abiding in the presence of that which is pure and noble. One life affects the other, and the weak becomes stimulated and roused; there are the elements of growth. So a man who abides in the presence of Jesus Christ in some mystical way appropriates, unconsciously and unavoidably, the life and character of Christ, so that he is built up like Him. That is the whole process. It is perfectly simple and perfectly natural. The point of importance is this, that it is quite impossible to go on at all in the spiritual life without living in the immediate presence and fellowship of Christ. This is to reach the Supreme. This is to be nourished and strengthened for life.1 [Note: G. A. Smith, The Life of Henry Drummond, 493.]
How richly in the desert Israel fared,
By Gods own hand with food angelic fed,
Which with the dew around the camp was shed.
That other dew, brow-drenching, they were spared
In tilling thorn-cursed groundsad burden shared
By all for Adams sin; but ate their bread,
As from a table in the desert spread,
Without their labour, or their thought, prepared.
So Gods salvation, the true bread from heaven,
In rich completeness is before us set,
Fresh with the Spirits dew, and freely given:
But not without the labour of Another,
Toils, tears, and thorny crown, and bloody sweat,
Of Him who is Gods Fellow and mans Brother.2 [Note: Richard Wilton.]
3. The sustenance promised to the conqueror is hidden food. When the manna was given to the Israelites a golden vessel full of it was stored in or near the ark. When the first Temple perished, the rumour ran that the ark of the covenant, and the objects associated with it, had not really perished. No one knows what became of the ark. It is mentioned in the days of Solomon (1Ki 8:21), and after that not at all in the historical part of the Old Testament. But the Jewish tale ran, and still runs, that when the first Temple perished under Nebuchadnezzar the ark had escaped the fate of the other vessels of the house of God, which were carried to Babylon, and had been successfully hidden in one of the thousand caves with which the limestone rock of Palestine is honey-combed, where still, if the tradition be true, it may await a chance discovery. St. Johns readers would be perfectly familiar with the tale, for it stood in their Bibles though it does not stand in ours. The Book of the Maccabees tells that Jeremiah came and found a chamber in the rocks, and there he brought in the tabernacle, and the ark, and the altar of incense, and he made fast the door. And some of those that followed with him came there that they might mark the way and could not find it. But when Jeremiah perceived it he blamed them, saying, Yea, and the place shall be unknown until God shall gather the people together again and mercy come; and then shall the Lord disclose these things, and the glory of the Lord shall be seen, and the cloud.
We can see, then, what the promise of the hidden manna would mean to these Jewish Christiansfor most of St. Johns readers, no doubt, were JewsGods secret known, the ark revealed, the scattered people of Israel gathered together again, the Bread of Life restored to them, but restored in truer fashion, for their fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead, but Christ had promised that My Father shall give you the bread of heaven. I am the bread of life he that cometh unto me shall not hunger.
(1) The manna was in its very nature and origin something hidden, something unknown and wonderful. The name is supposed to be derived from the wondering question of the Israelites as they saw the strange thing lie on the ground: Manna? or What now? What is it? It was like coriander seed, sweet as honey; but what it actually was Israel never learned to know. It fell for nearly forty years with the dew from the womb of the morning, a gift direct from the hand of God. It came from the storehouse of heaven, where it lay hid with God, and this was all that the people knew of its origin; and in this very ignorance was certified to them this glorious fact that it was inexhaustible, a supply measured by no breadth or fertility of corn-fields.
Silently it fell,
Whence, no man might tell,
Like good dreams from heaven
Unto mortals given,
Like a snowy flock
Of strange sea-birds alighting on a shore of rock;
Silent thus and bright
Fell the manna in the night.
Silently thus and bright,
In our starless night,
Gods sweet mercy comes
All about our homes;
Whence, no man can see,
In a soft shower drifting, drifting ceaselessly.
Till the morning light
Falls the manna in the night.
Thus His mercys crown,
Bread of life, came down;
At our doors it fell,
Whence, no man might tell,
Silent to the ground;
Softly shining thus through the darkness all around,
Snowy, pure, and white,
Fell the manna in the night.
(2) Jesus, whom the manna typifies, is now hidden from view. The manna was there in the golden pot, and kept in the Holy of Holies, and miraculously preserved from year to year, so that it saw no corruption. The people had never seen it, neither had the priests, neither are we told that the high priest ever did, on that one day in the year when he entered that inner sanctuary. What a thrilling figure of Him who said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. He is our hidden Manna which saw no corruption. He has entered, not the Holy of Holies that was here on earth, but heaven itself. He is laid up for us in heaven. He is hidden from us now, even Him whom having not seen we love. But presently we who are made by Him priests unto God and His Father shall have boldness through His blood to enter into the Holiest. Then we shall see the now hidden Manna, then feast our eyes and hearts on the sight of our glorified Saviour. Then the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed us, and lead us to the living fountains, i.e., the very springs and source of life. So that then we shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more. The hidden Manna shall then be revealed; the Lamb shall be our light, and our God our glory.
The suggestion of mystery in this hidden manna was calculated to arouse the immediate interest of the Christians of Pergamum. For this was known as the City of Mystery. Its tutelary divinity, Aesculapius, was worshipped under the symbol of a serpent. It is said that the porches of his temple were crowded in the night-time with worshippers tarrying there in the hope of having dreams and visions. Pergamum was the centre of the Oriental occultism of those days. Its merchants carried on a profitable business in charms, amulets and cabalistic letters. Its smooth sheep-skins were famous the world over as Pergamenae chartae, which we have shortened into parchment.1 [Note: D. J. Burrell, The Cloister Book, 46.]
II
The White Stone
And I will give him a white stone.
Commentators differ as to the meaning of the white stone, and Dr. Maclaren came at length to regard it as the mere vehicle for the name, with possibly some subsidiary thought of innocence and purity. Perhaps the language is vague and indefinite just because it means and hides so much.
1. The giving of the stone is evidently a mark of the highest distinction, and there is much to be said for the view that the reference is to splendid gems, called Urim and Thummim (that is, lights and perfectnesses), enclosed within the folds of the high priests breastplate which none but the high priest ever beheld.
The white stone which Jesus bestows excels the Old Testament gems. The Urim and Thummim were but dead stones, and lay but on the breast. They were but outward symbols of God. This white stone is lustrous with the very light which is God, and it is hidden within the breast itself. The upshining of faith, the fardarting beams of hope, and the outspreading glow of love are glories born of Gods own glory. A Divine nature begins at the centre of the human nature. And as the Christian obeys it, it grows. As he wars against his evil loves and ambitions, a strange, sweet light dawns in the secret of his heart. To his gladdened eyes there is revealed a purity and a beauty not there of old, and not given by any hand but Gods. However tiny and dim that gem may be, as his eye lights on it he knows it to be the diamond of a Godlike goodness. He knows by that token that he is now a priest. However unfit, and however slackly he uses his grand privileges, he has the loftiest dignity open to mortal. He wears the veil through which the inner splendour glimmers, and the eternal voices are faintly heard. Soon with wondering awe, but no fear, he shall pass within and be for ever with the Lord.
The hidden manna and the white stone are not merely united in time, belonging both to the wilderness period of the history of Gods people; they are united as both representing high-priestly prerogatives, which the Lord should at length impart to all His people, kings and priests to God, as He will then have made them all. If any should be privileged to eat of the hidden manna, who but the High Priest, who alone had entrance into the Holy Place where it was laid up? If any should have knowledge of what was graven on the Urim, who but the same High Priest, in whose keeping it was, and who was bound by his very office to consult it? The mystery of what was written there, shut to every other, would be open to him.1 [Note: R. C. Trench.]
2. But there is another suggestion. In ancient times the white stone was often the symbol of acquittal. In the symbolism of colours, which, as having its ultimate root in the impression of pain or pleasure made upon the senses, might almost be called natural, and is, as a matter of fact, all but universal, white, in its brightness and purity, had been associated with joy and gladness, with victory and triumph. So, in a practice which, though originating, it was said, with the half-civilized tribes of Thrace or Scythia, had become general, days of festivity were noted with a white, those of calamity with a black, stone. Thus, when the vote of an assembly as to the guilt of an accused person was by ballot, white stones were the symbol of acquittal, black of condemnation. It has, accordingly, been contended, with at least much plausibility, that this is the significance of the white stone in the promise now before us. The conqueror in the great strife with evil, whatever opprobrium he might incur in the sight of men, whatever sentence he might receive at the hands of an earthly judge, would be received as justified and acquitted by the Eternal Judge. Yet, on the other hand, it can scarcely be said that the symbol of a mere acquittal would be an adequate expression of the reward promised to him that overcometh. A verdict of not guilty, which, on this interpretation, would exhaust the meaning of the promise, could hardly take its place as co-ordinate with the crown of life, or with the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.
The Greek commentator Andreas sees allusion in the words white stone to the white pebble, by placing which in the ballot-box the Greek judges pronounced the sentence of acquittal ( , they were therefore called), as by the black of condemnation; a custom expressed in the well-known lines of Ovid (Metam. xv. 41, 42):
Mos erat antiquus, niveis atrisque lapillis,
His damnare reos, illis absolvere culpae.
But, not to speak of a grave fault common to this and almost every other explanation of these words which is offered, this one is manifestly inadequate; the absolving pebble was not given to the acquitted, as this is to the victor, nor was there any name written upon it.1 [Note: R. C. Trench.]
3. Once more the reference may be to the tessera hospitalis, the tally or token of hospitality employed by the ancients. At a time when houses of public entertainment were less common, private hospitality was the more necessary. When one person was received kindly by another, or a contract of friendship was entered into, the tessera was given. It was so named from its shape, being four-sided; it was sometimes of wood, sometimes of stone; it was divided into two by the contracting parties; each wrote his own name on half of the tessera; then they exchanged pieces, and therefore the name or device on the piece of tessera which each received was the name the other person had written upon it, and which no one else knew but he who received it. It was carefully prized, and entitled the bearer to protection and hospitality.
Some such tessera, or ticketa stone with the name of the guest written on itwas given to those who were invited to partake, within the precincts of the temple, of the feast that consisted wholly, or in part, of the meat that had been offered as a sacrifice. On this view the second part of the promise is brought into harmony with the first, and is made more directly appropriate: he who had the courage to refuse that tessera to the feast which defiled should receive another that would admit him to the supper of the Great King.
Plantus, in one of his plays, refers to this custom. Hanno inquires of a stranger where he may find Agorastocles, and discovers to his surprise that he is addressing the object of his search.
If so, he says, compare, if you please, this hospitable tessera; here it is: I have it with me.
Agorastocles replies, It is the exact counterpart; I have the other part at home.
Hanno responds, O my friend! I rejoice to meet thee; thy father was my friend, my guest; I divided with him this hospitable tessera.
Therefore, said Agorastocles, thou shalt have a home with me, for I reverence hospitality.
4. Closely associated with the stone of hospitality was the stone of friendship. It was a tender custom in classic times which has not quite died out of a prosaic modern world. Two friends would sometimes plight friendship in a beautiful way by dividing between them a small tablet, oftenest in the form of a small piece of white marble or ivory. It is done sometimes to-day, at all events in country districts, with a ring. Each portion of the broken tablet bore upon it a symbol known only to the friends. When once this token had been given or received, the friends were bound to one another for ever, and not for life only, for the broken fragments could be handed from father to son, and no matter how many generations had passed, if the holder of one half of the tablet presented it to the holder of the other half, he could claim from him shelter, protection, defence in the courts of law against all adversaries, and every privilege that the first holder could have claimed. So Christ seems to say, He that conquers shall plight troth with Me. He and I will break the tablet of friendship together. We will bind ourselves together for time and for eternity, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. If he claims My help he shall have it, freely, ungrudgingly. I will be his Friend in everything. He shall live with Me. We will sup together. I will divide all I have with him. All the treasures of God shall be his. All that is Mine shall be his.
There is a lovely German poem of the Middle Ages, by one Weruher, which has not yet found a translator. It is something like this
Thou art mine and I am Thine,
I will make Thee sure of that,
I will lock Thee in my heart,
I will close its outer door,
I will lose its little key,
Thou canst then no more depart.1 [Note: W. P. Workman, in A Book of Lay Sermons, 156.]
In his notes of 1854 Ruskin says: This holding the name in the white stone is very suggestive as well as mysterious. In one sense the White Stone may be the Heartalways a stone, compared to what it ought to be; yet a white one when it holds Christ (Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God).2 [Note: Ruskin, Fors Clavigera, vii. 23 (Works, xxix. 302).]
5. Above all else the white stone is a sign of public honour. It is given to him that overcometh. And so it has been suggested that the reference is to the gladiatorial combats which were so marked a feature of classic times. They took place in those huge amphitheatres which are to-day more wonderful in their ruins than most modern buildings in their completeness. In them, as in all shows, there were honoured seats, and among these were places for old gladiators, heroes of the arena, who in many a fight had won the title to rest. The diploma of these heroes was a white stone, and on it was engraved the number of the victories its possessor had won and the names of the victims he had slain. So, it has been suggested, when lifes long battle is won, Christ will give His heroes (gladiators in a far nobler warfare, gladiators in the struggle with sin) a white stone of victory, a title of admission to a place, and a place of special honour, in the cloud of witnesses.
He who held this stone was entitled to be supported at the public expense, had free access to all the festivities of the nation, and was regarded as illustrious in all great gatherings. Thus he who wins the moral battle of life will be publicly honoured. A crown of glory is prepared for him, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give unto him at that day. He will have free admission into all the honours of eternity.
The Saxon name of the family was originally spelt Livingstone, but the Doctors father had shortened it by the omission of the final e. David wrote it for many years in the abbreviated form, but about 1857, at his fathers request, he restored the original spelling. The significance of the original form of the name was not without its influence on him. He used to refer with great pleasure to a note from an old friend and fellow-student, the late Professor George Wilson of Edinburgh, acknowledging a copy of his book in 1857:Meanwhile, may your name be propitious; in all your long and weary journeys may the Living half of your title outweigh the other; till after long and blessed labours, the white stone is given you in the happy land.1 [Note: W. G. Blaikie, The Personal Life of David Livingstone (ed. 1880), 2.]
In The Book of the Sparkling Stone the subject is the mysterious stone of which the Spirit says in the Apocalypse: Et dabo illi (vincenti) calculum candidum, et in calculo nomen novum scriptum, quod nemo scit nisi qui accepit (Rev 2:17). This stone, according to the monk of the forest of Soignes, is the symbol of Christ, given to His loved ones only, and like a flame which images the love of the eternal Word. And then again we have glimpses of those dark shadows of love, from which break forth uninterrupted sobs of light, seen in awful flowers through the gradual expansions of contemplation and above the strange verdure of an unequalled gladness.2 [Note: M. Maeterlinck, Ruysbroeck and the Mystics, 78.]
Have you not heard
Of the fair white stone,
With its written word
By one soul known,
And the Lord alone?3 [Note: Emily Hickey.]
III
The New Name
And upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it.
1. The ideal function of a name is to give an accurate and complete description of the thing that it denotes. Of course names are, practically, very far from performing this function, and the names applied to individuals very often express anything but the truth. But the metaphor of the text is based on the ideal name, and not the actual. It is in this way that we are to interpret such phrases as the name of Jesus and the name of God. It means the essential life of Jesus, of God, and all the relations that this life assumes. But we must not fall into the mistake of thinking that the name denotes a bundle of abstract qualities, which you may separate from the actual living person. It is rather the person in the totality of his life and its manifestations. The life that manifests the qualities is essential to the name.
The readers of this letter, who possessed the key to its comprehension, hidden from the common world, could not fail to be struck with the analogy between this New Name and the Imperial title Augustus. That also had been a new name, deliberately devised by the Senate to designate the founder, and to mark the foundation of the new Empire: it was an old sacred word, used previously only in the language of the priests, and never applied to any human being: hence Ovid says: Sancta vocant augusta patres (Fast., 1:609). That old word was appropriated in 27 b.c. to the man who had been the saviour of Rome, and whom already the popular belief had begun to regard as an incarnation of the Divine nature in human form, sent down to earth to end the period of war and introduce the age of peace. This sacred, Divine name marked out the man to whom it was applied as one apart from the world, standing on a higher level, possessor of superhuman power in virtue of this new name and transmitting that power through the name to his descendants.
The analogy was striking; and the points of difference were only to the advantage of the Christian. His new name was secret, but all the more efficacious on that account. The readers for whom this letter was writtenthe Christians of Pergamum, of all Asia, of the whole worldwould catch with certainty the hidden meaning. All those Christians, when they were victorious, were to be placed in the same position as, or rather higher than, Augustus, having a New Name, the Name of God, their own secret possession, which no man would know and therefore no man could tamper with by acquiring control through knowledge. As Augustus had been set above the Roman world by his new name, so they would be set above the world by theirs.1 [Note: W. M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, 310.]
2. The name, then, expresses the character, the nature, the being, the meaning of the person who bears it. It is the mans own symbol,his souls picture, in a word,the sign which belongs to him and to no one else. Who can give a man this, his own, name? God alone. For no one but God sees what the man is, or even, seeing what he is, could express in a name-word the sum and harmony of what He sees. To whom is this name given? To him that overcometh. When is it given? When he has overcome. Does God then not know what a man is going to become? As surely as He sees the oak which He put there lying in the heart of the acorn. Why then does He wait till the man has become by overcoming ere He settles what his name shall be? He does not wait; He knows his name from the first. Butalthough repentance comes because God pardonedas the man becomes aware of the pardon only in the repentance, so it is only when the man has become his name that God gives him the stone with the name upon it, for then first can he understand what his name signifies. It is the blossom, the perfection, the completion, that determines the name; and God foresees that from the first, because He made it so; but the tree of the soul, before its blossom comes, cannot understand what blossom it is to bear, and could not know what the word meant, which, in representing its own unattained completeness, named itself. Such a name cannot be given until the man is the name.
My heart was tender and often contrite, and universal love to my fellow-creatures increased in me. This will be understood by such as have trodden in the same path. Some glances of real beauty may be seen in their faces who dwell in true meekness. There is a harmony in the sound of that voice to which Divine love gives utterance, and some appearance of right order in their temper and conduct whose passions are regulated; yet these do not fully show forth that inward life to those who have not felt it; this white stone and new name is only known rightly by such as receive it.1 [Note: The Journal of John Woolman (ed. 1903), 48.]
3. The new name had been used by Isaiah and Jeremiah for expressing the new life of blessedness in store for those to whom it was applied. The land that had been forsaken and abandoned to destruction should be called Hephzibah, as once more delight of her Lord. The daughter of Zion, that had sat desolate as a widow, should be Beulah, as a bride over whom the bridegroom once more rejoiced. Jerusalem herself was to be known by the mystic name of The Lord our Righteousness. In his own case and that of his brother, as in that of Simon Barjonain Peter, the Rock, and Boanerges, the Sons of Thunderthe Apostle had known a new name given which was the symbol of a higher life and a character idealized in its gifts. And so in this case the inner truth that lies below the outward imagery would seem to be that the conqueror, when received at the heavenly feast, should find upon the stone, or tessera, that gave him the right of entrance a new name, the token of a character transformed and perfected, a name the full significance of which should be known only to him who was conscious of the transformation, just as in the experiences of our human life, the heart knoweth its own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with its joy.
When little children are baptized they receive a name, inalienable. Its possession means given to God. Our surname is our old name. Our baptismal name, the name suggestive of our new nature is our new name for earth. When admitted into heaven, we shall receive a new name, Christs name and ours. I will write upon him mine own new name.
When the angels that await me,
Meet me at my entering in,
With what name of love and music
Will their welcoming begin?
Not the name so dimmed with earth stains,
Linked with thoughts of grief and pain,
No, the name which mortals give me
Will not be my angel name.1 [Note: A. W. Lewis.]
4. The new name becomes ours by communication from Christ I will give him a new namea deeper, a more inward, a fresh knowledge and revelation of My own characteras eternal love, eternal wisdom, all-sufficient, absolute power, the home and treasure and joy and righteousness of the whole heart and spirit. That is the representation uniformly given in Scripture with regard to all the change and glorifying of human nature which follows upon the entrance into the life beyond. It is ever set forth as being the consequence of a fuller knowledge and general possession of the namethe manifested character of Jesus Christ our Lord. The words of the Apostle John, who wrote the Apocalypse, mean the same thing without metaphor, as his words here in their metaphor: We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
The name is inscribed upon the beholder as the sun makes an image of itself on the photographic plate. If thou wouldest see Christ, thou must be as Christ; if thou wouldest be as Christ, thou must see Christ. We all, with unveiled faces mirroring, as a glass does, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image.1 [Note: A. Maclaren, The Unchanging Christ, 230.]
5. This new name is known only to its possessor. That, of course, is true in all regions of human experience. Did ever anybody describe a taste so that a man that had not tasted the thing could tell what it was like? Did ever anybody describe an odour so as to do more than awaken the memory of someone who had once had the scent lingering in his nostrils? Have all the poets who have been singing from the beginning of the world described love and sorrow, joy and hope and fear, so as to do more than kindle the reminiscences of men as to their own sorrows and joys? If he has not known the love of a child, no talking will ever make a man understand what a fathers heart is. Religious experiences are not unlike ordinary human experiences in this matter. It is not possible to communicate them, partly because of the imperfection of human language, partly because we need in all departments sympathy and prior knowledge in order to make the descriptions significant at all.
We have our own heart, with its own love and its own aspirations. We have our own tasks and responsibilities and failings. Hence our need of God is not the need of any other soul; it is just our own need that He meets, and so we have our own special view and experience of Him. The harder, the stranger, our lot may be, the more distinct are our dealings with Him to whom we pray, on whose Spirit we depend, in whose goodness we are being exercised. We cling to Him, not as the great God of all, but as our own Father, in whose heart we have our own place, and into whose character we have our own insight.
Thus comes it that my own sense of God is a name for God known only to Him and to me. You would need my heart, my history, to be indeed myself, before you could understand all that I mean and feel when I say, God, my Father.
Nowhere do we find on earth that picture of society reconstructed by the idea of Jesus, society around the throne of God, which shines out upon us from the mysterious promises of the Apocalypse; the glory of which society is to be thisthat while the souls stand in their vast choruses of hundreds of thousands, and all chant the same anthems and all work together in the same transcendent duties, yet each bears the sacred name written on the flesh of his own forehead, and carries in his hand a white stone, on which is written a new name which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. It is individuality emphasized by company, and not lost in it, because the atmosphere in which the company is met is the idea of Jesus, which is the fatherhood of God.1 [Note: Phillips Brooks, The Influence of Jesus, 99.]
You would be ashamed not to know the name and use of every piece of furniture in the house, and we ought to be as familiar with every object in the worldwhich is only a larger kind of house. You recollect the pretty story of Pizarro and the Peruvian Inca: how the Inca asked one of the Spaniards to write the word Dio (God) upon his thumb-nail, and then, showing it to the rest, found only Pizarro unable to read it! Well, you will find as you grow older that this same name of God is written all over the world in little phenomena that occur under our eyes every moment, and I confess that I feel very much inclined to hang my head with Pizarro when I cannot translate these hieroglyphics into my own vernacular.2 [Note: Letters of James Russell Lowell, i. 182.]
O Name, all other names above,
What art Thou not to me,
Now I have learned to trust Thy love
And cast my care on Thee!
What is our being but a cry,
A restless longing still,
Which Thou alone canst satisfy,
Alone Thy fulness fill!
Thrice blessd be the holy souls
That lead the way to Thee,
That burn upon the martyr-rolls
And lists of prophecy.
And sweet it is to tread the ground
Oer which their faith hath trod;
But sweeter far, when Thou art found,
The souls own sense of God!
The thought of Thee all sorrow calms;
Our anxious burdens fall;
His crosses turn to triumph-palms,
Who finds in God his all.1 [Note: Frederick Lucian Hosmer.]
Victory and Intimacy
Literature
Alexander (S. A.), The Saints Appeal, 67.
Banks (L. A.), John and his Friends, 206.
Belfrage (H.), Sacramental Addresses and Meditations, 403.
Bonar (H.), Light and Truth: The Revelation, 107.
Brown (C.), The Letters of Christ, 47.
Burns (D.), Sayings in Symbol, 72.
Burrell (D. J.), The Cloister Book, 45.
Foster (J. M.), The White Stone, 1.
Fraser (D.), Seven Promises Expounded, 20.
Hall (N.), in The Worlds Great Sermons, vi. 87.
Hamilton (J.), Faith in God, 352.
Huntington (F. D.), Christian Believing and Living, 185.
Jones (T.), The Divine Order, 151.
Laird (J.), Memorials, 231.
MacDonald (G.), Unspoken Sermons, i. 100.
Mackay (W. M.), Bible Types of Modern Men, 299.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Epistles of John to Revelation, 205.
Maclaren (A.), Sermons Preached in Manchester, iii. 75.
Maclaren (A.), The Unchanging Christ, 223.
Macmillan (H.), The Daisies of Nazareth, 125.
Macpherson (D.), Last Words, 51.
Matheson (G.), Moments on the Mount, 195.
Neale (J. M.), Sermons on the Apocalypse, 18.
Temple (W.), Repton School Sermons, 223.
Thomas (J.), Myrtle Street Pulpit, iii. 268.
Trench (R. C.), Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia, 137.
Workman (W. P.), in A Book of Lay Sermons, 145.
Christian World Pulpit, xiv. 293 (M. Lucas); liii. 117 (W. T. Davison).
Examiner, Jan. 5, 1905 (J. H. Jowett).
Expositor, 1st Ser., ii. 433 (E. H. Plumptre).
Expositor and Current Anecdotes, xv. (1914) 307 (A. W. Lewis).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
hath: Rev 2:7, Rev 2:11, Rev 3:6, Rev 3:13, Rev 3:22
to eat: Psa 25:14, Psa 36:8, Pro 3:32, Pro 14:10, Isa 65:13, Mat 13:11, Joh 4:32, Joh 6:48-58, Col 3:3
a new: Rev 3:12, Rev 19:12, Rev 19:13, Isa 56:4, Isa 65:15
saving: 1Co 2:14
Reciprocal: Gen 17:5 – but thy name Gen 32:28 – Thy name Exo 16:15 – It is manna Num 11:7 – the manna 1Sa 17:25 – the king 2Ch 15:2 – Hear ye me Psa 49:1 – Hear Pro 5:1 – attend Isa 8:16 – among Isa 62:2 – thou shalt Jer 7:2 – Hear Jer 33:3 – mighty Mic 1:2 – hearken Mat 10:22 – but Mat 11:15 – General Mat 13:9 – General Mar 4:23 – General Mar 7:16 – General Luk 6:23 – your Luk 14:35 – He Luk 15:22 – a ring Luk 15:29 – yet Luk 18:30 – manifold more Joh 6:31 – He gave Joh 6:53 – eat Joh 14:17 – whom Joh 14:21 – and will Act 1:2 – through Act 13:16 – give 2Co 1:22 – sealed Gal 6:9 – if Eph 3:15 – is Phi 4:7 – passeth Col 2:3 – hid 1Ti 4:1 – the Spirit Heb 10:15 – General 1Jo 5:4 – overcometh 1Jo 5:10 – hath the Rev 2:26 – he Rev 12:11 – they overcame Rev 13:9 – General Rev 14:3 – no Rev 21:7 – overcometh Rev 22:16 – General Rev 22:19 – and from
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE NEW NAME
I will give him a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.
Rev 2:17
Rightly to understand this passage, we may with advantage go back to the beginnings of the Jewish race. Thou shalt no more be called Jacob, but Israel (not Supplanter, but Striver with God), said the mysterious Personage with whom Jacob had wrestled, openly and manfully, perhaps for the first time in his life. The blessing he won was the blessing of the text.
I. It told him that his God thought better of him; that for God, whatever man might sayfor God, and therefore also for his own consciousnessthat mean and unworthy past was gone, never more to haunt and to degrade him. And the blessing was not merely negative, repealing his base traditions; it also spoke clearly of the character of his better life. Effort, and even painful, permanently crippling effort, was the condition of his new life. He is to be called the Striver with God; for his highest honour is to have striven successfully, like one to whose life bad habits, evil associations, bloated and long-indulged appetites are clinging. Israel is the name which belonged to him; so much he won in that strange battle with a combatant willing to be overcome.
II. As Jacob by overcoming won his new name, so Christ says to all menfor whoever hath an ear is bidden to hear His message to the Churches: To him that overcometh will I give a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. Is this a little thing? To him that overcometh is promised the hidden manna, the morning star, to rule the nations with an iron rod, to sit down with his Master in His throne. In company with such gifts, what is it to receive a new name? So hollow, so unreal one might think it, to receive, in reward for a life of struggle, a name that is never to be divulged. But so it was not, to Jacob. It was the very turning-point of his existence. Think what multitudes of men and women must long to do better, but find themselves tied and bound in the chain of their own past. With health lost, reputation lost, purity lost, what sort of man is this to aspire to saintship? And if he aspires, plenty of people are ready to tell him how absurd it is. But Christ does not tell him so. He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent and unfeignedly believe His holy gospel. And having pardoned He says, Go in My strength and you shall overcome. And when His strength in you has conquered the bad old habit, the fierce old temptation, then you shall find the effects reaching down to the very root of your being, and working a blessed revolution there. According to the old Hebrew notion, that a change of character should bring a change of name to tell of it, He offers to each man for himself a new name, a new characterisation.
III. Oh blessed thought, that Christ Himself shall see and observe in me something more really myself than my failures and disgraces; that He shall bid me put away the memory of all the haunting horrors that laugh at my desire for goodness! And this new name is a reality. Jacob is called Israel because he has really striven; it is not a compliment at all, but a fact divinely recognised.
Bishop G. A. Chadwick.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Rev 2:17. The promise contained in this verse has always occasioned much difficulty to interpreters. It consists of three parts:(1) To him that overcometh, to him will I give of the hidden manna. The allusion may perhaps be to the pot of manna which was laid up in the innermost sanctuary of the Tabernacle (Exo 16:33), for we see from chap. Rev 11:19 that the imagery of the ark within which the manna was stored was familiar to St. John. Such an allusion, however, is at the best indirect, for the manna laid up in the ark was not for food, but in memory of food once enjoyed. It seems better, therefore, to place the emphasis on the thought of the manna itself, that bread from heaven by which Israel was nourished in the wilderness, and which is now replaced in the Christian Church by the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that any one may eat thereof, and not die (Joh 6:50). This living bread is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who is now hidden, but will at length be revealed to the perfect satisfaction and joy of them that wait for Him. It is no valid objection to this view that Christ gives the manna, for He gives Himself, and will give Himself to be the nourishment as well as the reward of His people in the world to come, when He shall be revealed to them as He is (1Jn 3:2). The contrast between not eating the meats offered to idols and eating this heavenly banquet may be noticed in passing.(2) And I will give him a white stone. The tendency of the Apocalypse to group its particulars into threes seems to require the separation of this clause from the next following, and to demand that it be considered in itself, and not as simply subordinate to the new name. In determining the meaning of the white stone, it will be well to bear in mind that in the Apocalypse white is not a mere dull white, but a glistering colour, not even necessarily while, and that we must seek for the foundation of the figure in Jewish not in Gentile customs, and in Scripture rather than in rabbinical traditions. We shall thus have to dismiss the idea that it refers to the white pebble of the ballot-box, or to any one of the three following tablets, that given to the victor in the games and having certain privileges attached to it, that which entitled the receiver to the liberal hospitality of the giver, or that which admitted the stranger to the enjoyment of the idol feast. Rejecting these, we may also reject the supposition that the white stone has no more importance than as a medium for the name written on it. Nor does it seem easy to accept the explanation, although more legitimate than any of the above, that it was the Urim which the high priest bore within the breastplate of judgment (Exo 28:30); for the stone thus referred to was probably a diamond, and we cannot easily conceive that the name here spoken of could be inscribed on such a stone.
In these circumstances, what appears by much the more likely interpretation is that which supposes that we have an allusion to the plate of gold worn on the forehead of the high priest, with the words inscribed on it, Holiness to the Lord. What seems almost condusive upon this point is, that we learn from other passages of this book that it was upon the forehead that the peculiar mark of the child of God was borne (Rev 3:12, Rev 7:3; Rev 14:1, Rev 22:4; cp. also chap. Rev 9:4); and we have already had occasion to speak of the importance of that law of interpretation which, in the Apocalypse, leads to the Winging of different passages together for the sake of complementing and completing one another. In adopting this view, however, it ought to be observed that we are not to think of this stone either as a plate of gold or as a precious stone, supposed by the Seer to be beaten out for the sake of receiving the inscription. Except in the present passage, the word occurs only once in the New Testament, when St. Paul says, I gave my vote against them (Act 26:10). It thus came to denote (derived, it may be, originally from the customs of heathenism) that by which a verdict of either condemnation or acquittal was pronounced, even by Jewish lips. Here, therefore, this underlying idea of acquittal is the prominent idea of the word. Those referred to receive a stone, an ordinary stone of acquittal, but glistering with heavenly brightness, and bearing upon it the motto or legend spoken of in the next clause.(3) And upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth saving he that receiveth it. What name is this? Not the Lords name, for even in chap. Rev 19:11-13, urged in favour of such a view, the name is given, but the new name bestowed upon the believer, and descriptive of his position, his character, and his joy as an inhabitant of the New Jerusalem. We are not to think that the word knoweth is used in the sense of outward knowledge, such as that given by reading or translation. It expresses the inward knowledge referred to in Joh 4:32 (see note there), the knowledge of experience, the blessedness found in the service of their Lord by those who live through Him, and which the world cannot comprehend. The world may read the name of the believer, just as there seems no cause to doubt that the name here spoken of might be read, but it cannot understand its meaning. These things God reveals by His Spirit to His own (cp. 1Co 2:9-10). We are thus again led to the conclusion that the new name is neither a name of God nor of Christ, nor of the believer considered as a separate individual. It is a name which speaks of the believers glorious condition when he is united to the Son and, in Him, to the Father. Before passing from this Epistle, it may be well to notice the correspondence between the reward thus spoken of and that holding fast of the name of Christ which had been mentioned in Rev 2:13. As, too, the tree of life was promised to the Christian of Ephesus who should overcome that temptation to false knowledge to which our first parents in Eden yielded, so, when the Christian of Pergamos is not led astray by the error of the new Balaamites, and when he refuses to partake of the offerings of the dead which he might have had from them (Psa 106:28), he shall receive manna, of which, in its rich nourishment and invigorating properties, the manna of Israel was but the faintest type (Joh 6:32).
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 17
The hidden manna; the spiritual life and sustenance which God bestows.–A white stone. Precious stones, upon which figures and inscriptions were cut, were often used, by ancient princes, as gifts and badges of honor.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
2:17 {14} He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat {15} of the hidden {g} manna, and will give him a {h} {16} white stone, and in the stone a new {17} name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth [it].
(14) The conclusion, by way of exhortation as before, and of promise.
(15) The bread of life, invisible, spiritual, and heavenly, which is kept secretly with God, from before all eternity.
(g) He alludes to Psa 105:40 Joh 6:26-59 .
(h) Arethas writes that such a stone was given to wrestlers at games, or else that such stones did in old time witness the leaving of a man.
(16) Which is a sign and witness of forgiveness and remission of sins, of righteousness and true holiness, and of purity uncorrupted after the sin nature is destroyed.
(17) A sign and testimony of newness of life in righteousness and true holiness, by putting on the new man, whom no one inwardly knows, but the spirit of man which is in him, which is not praised by men, but by God; Rom 2:28 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
5. Promise 2:17
The "hidden manna" seems to be a reference to the manna that sustained the lives of the Israelites in the wilderness that lay "hidden" in the holy of holies. The Christians in Pergamum did not need the food of pagan festivals since they already had much better food. Christians feed spiritually on Jesus Christ, the bread of life (Joh 6:48-51), who is the real manna hidden from sight now. [Note: See Daniel K. K. Wong, "The Hidden Manna and the White Stone in Revelation 2:17," Bibliotheca Sacra 155:619 (July-September 1998):348-49.]
The "white stone" seems to allude to the tesseron. [Note: Mounce, p. 99.]
A tesseron was, ". . . given to those who were invited to partake, within the precincts of the temple [at Pergamum], of the sacred feast, which naturally consisted only of meats offered to the idol. That stone bore the secret name of the deity represented by the idol and the name was known only to the recipient." [Note: Tatford, p. 82.]
A white stone represented a vote of acquittal or a favorable vote. [Note: Beale, p. 252.] Victors in contests or battles also received a white stone. [Note: Chitwood, p. 73.] Perhaps God will elevate the overcomer to the position of ruler over the earth and will give him or her a new name, as He did Joseph (cf. Gen 41:39-45). The name on that stone is new (Gr. kainon) in the sense of being different, not new in contrast to what is old. However the name is probably that of Christ (cf. Php 2:9). [Note: Aune, pp. 190-91. See my comments on "name" as "reputation" at 3:5.] It is unknown to others in the sense that others who are not overcomers do not possess it.
The historical parallel to the church in Pergamum is the period following Constantine’s legalization of Christianity in A.D. 313 that lasted for about 300 years. When Christianity became the official religion of the empire, paganism overwhelmed it. It became hard to distinguish true Christians because people claiming to be Christians were everywhere. Many of them were practicing pagans who indulged in immoral festivals and all kinds of behavior inconsistent with the teachings of Christianity. Many writers have noted that "Pergamum" comes from the Greek word gamos that means marriage. This letter pictures a church married to the world rather than to Christ.