Revelation 16:5 Henry Alford's Greek Testament Critical Exegetical Commentary

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Verses 4-7

4 7 .] And the third poured out his vial into the rivers and the fountains of the waters: and they became (it is quite impossible, in the lax construction of the Apocalyptic Greek, to maintain here a distinction, as Düsterd. has done, from the previous ἐγένετο , and to render here, “there came blood.” Analogy must be our guide: and the account to be given of the singular is either that it belongs to τὰ ὕδατα , or that the rivers and fountains are taken together, and regarded as neuter in sense though not in construction) blood (that the fact was so, is testified by what follows, in which it is assumed that the sources of ordinary drink have become blood). And I heard the angel of the waters (i. e. the angel who was set over the waters; see reff.: not as Grot., “vocatur angelus aquarum quia in aquas immisit phialam.” Schöttgen, h. l., p. 1131 f., gives examples of angels of the earth and of the sea: see also Wolf, h. l. This is more probable than Düsterd.’s idea that the analogy to be followed is that of the four living-beings, and that the angel symbolized the waters) saying, Thou art righteous who art and wast (as in ch. Revelation 11:17 , the καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος is omitted. For the construction, see reff.) holy (I incline against Düsterd., to the usual connexion, viz. the making ὅσιος belong to ὁ ὢν κ . ὁ ἦν , and not in apposition with δικαιος . And that which moves me to it is, 1) the extreme improbability of two epithets, δίκαιος and ὅσιος , both being predicated in such an acknowledgment of an act of justice: and 2) that as I have taken it, it best agrees with the ὅσιος in ch. Revelation 15:4 , where it is predicated of God not as the result of any manifested acts of His, but as an essential attribute confined to Him alone), because Thou didst judge thus (lit., “these things:” viz. the issue mentioned in Revelation 16:4 ; the turning the drinking-water into blood: “Thou didst inflict this judgment”): because (this ὅτι repeats the former ὅτι , καί (following being “ and :” not, as it might be taken, “ because they, &c., Thou hast also ”) they shed the blood of saints and prophets, and Thou hast given them blood to drink (on the form of the inf., πεῖν , see Winer, edn. 6, § 15, and Anthol. xi. 140. 3, οἷς οὐ σκῶμμα λέγειν , οὐ πεῖν φίλον ): they are worthy (these words are made stronger by their asyndetous character). And I heard the altar saying (certainly the simplest understanding of these words is, that they involve a personification of the altar. On the altar are the prayers of the saints, offered before God: beneath the altar are the souls of the martyrs crying for vengeance: when therefore the altar speaks, it is the concentrated testimony of these which speaks by it), Even so, Lord God Almighty: true (reff.) and just are Thy judgments .

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