…me permission to make extensive use of the fine NASB translation of the Bible. biblehub.com/nasb/revelation/1.htm – The BibleHub.com site is a marvelous source of scripture with parallel translations, commentaries, Greek and Hebrew translations, dictionaries, and lexicons. I particularly found the commentaries of Jamieson-Fausset-Brown and Barnes’ Notes on the Bible to be helpful. www.biblegateway.com/keyword – I found the search function at Bible Gateway to be particularly helpful, especially the ability to use the “match any word”, “match all words”, or “match exact phrase” options. www.revelationcommentary.org – This commentary on Revelation (based on the Pre-Wrath view) is reasonable and interesting. For me,…

…because of Israel’s unbelief. Paul warns that God can also take those things away from some of the Gentiles and give them to Israel — and that day will come. Israel will be restored to be better representatives of God than the Gentiles (verse 24) — In agreement with the Old Testament prophecies above, Israel will turn to God. Paul indicates that the Jews (the natural branches) will be grafted back with greater success than the unnatural wild branches, which represent the Gentiles. Sadly, and to our shame, Gentile Christians have been arrogant and conceited toward the Jews many times…

The Prominence of Seven The number seven is the most prominent number throughout the whole Bible. The word “seven” (or derivatives such as “seventh”, “seventy”, etc.) appears in the Bible 562 times. The book of the Bible that uses the word “seven” most frequently is Revelation, where it appears 55 times. One cannot read Revelation without being struck by the heavy repetition of seven. There are seven churches, seven lampstands, seven stars and a seven-fold spirit — and that’s just the first chapter! Later there are seven messages to the churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls, seven thunders, seven…

…seventh bowl event, in chapter 19. What is the Outcome of the Battle? By the time the armies of the nations prepare to assemble in Israel, a series of devastating bowl plagues will have destroyed much of the earth. The latest such plague shall be darkness over all the earth (the fifth bowl event). Even under these circumstances, the determined nations shall utterly commit themselves to the “great cause” of sending armies to destroy Israel in hopes of saving the world, because they are convinced that Israel is somehow causing the plagues. Their arrival in Israel will be the fulfillment…

…hand, if both of these articles do seem reasonable to you, then please read on! Having read these articles, you shall be well-prepared to go forward. The Commentary menu will take you through the chapter-by-chapter online commentary, starting with chapter 1. To keep the commentary from becoming too verbose and repetitive, I’ve placed the discussion of several major topics into articles, and then link to those articles within the commentary. However, the articles are meant to be self-contained, and you can reach all of them directly using the Articles menu. The About menu offers some information about the author (me)…