After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number; after these things, I saw, and behold a great multitude, etc. Here, as in Revelation 7:1, a fresh phase of the vision occurs.
indicated by μετὰ ταῦτα, "after these things;" but not, perhaps, commencing (as so many writers think) an entirely new and disconnected vision. It is the immediate prelude to the opening of the seventh seal (see on Revelation 8:1).
Revelation 6:1-17. recounts the terrors of God's judgments on the wicked, and especially those of the final judgment; but lest the godly should be dismayed and ask, "Who is able to stand" (Revelation 6:17) on that great day?
it is revealed that the faithful are first selected and preserved. This occupies the first eight verses of Revelation 7:1-17. But all is not yet quite ready for the opening of the seventh and last seal.
There is, besides those sealed on the last day, an innumerable company with whom the former are joined in one body; and a glimpse is afforded of their conjoint adoration and of that supreme bliss which is entered upon, but not described, under the seventh seal.
The "great multitude which no man could number" includes, therefore, the hundred and forty-four thousand of Revelation 7:4. They have escaped the terror of the final judgment of the world (see Revelation 7:3), but have formerly experienced tribulation (see Revelation 7:14).
Of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues; out of every nation and [all] tribes and peoples and tongues. The classification, as in Revelation 5:9, is fourfold, symbolical of completeness in matters of creation (see on Revelation 5:9; Revelation 4:6, etc.
). Stood before the throne, and before the Lamb; standing before, etc. We are carried back to the description given in Revelation 4:1-4 and Revelation 5:6-11. Clothed with white robes; arrayed in (Revised Version).
See on Revelation 4:4 and Revelation 6:2 for white—the emblem of victory and righteousness. And palms in their hands. φοίνιξ, "palm," occurs in the New Testament only in this place and in John 12:13.
Trench states that no symbol of heathen origin is used in the Apocalypse; and he connects the palm-bearing multitude with the celebration of the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles. Wordsworth and Hengstenberg take the same view; and there is much to be said in favour of it, though Alford and others connect the image rather with the Greek and Roman sign of victory.
In the first place, the word is used by St. John in John 12:13, where doubtless it is connected with the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles. Secondly, the use of such an image would more naturally occur to one so familiar with Jewish customs and ritual as the writer of the Apocalypse; and, moreover, the idea commemorated by this feast—that of the enjoyment of rest and plenty, the possession of the promised Canaan after toil and delay—is peculiarly applicable to the condition of those here described.
Thirdly, the idea seems carried on in the mind of the writer, and referred to in John 12:15 in the words, "shall spread his tabernacle over them" (see Revised Version).