Revelation 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

John is told to write down four messages, one each to the churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, and Thyatira. Each message opens with a description of the speaker, states what he knows about that church's conduct, and, in three of the four, names something he holds against it and calls for repentance. Each closes with a call to listen to the Spirit and a promise to the one who overcomes. These are the first four of the seven messages that run through chapter 3.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • The message is to be written to the angel of the church of Ephesus.
   • The speaker is the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand.
   • The speaker is the one who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands.
2. 2:2
   • The speaker knows the works of the one addressed.
   • The speaker knows his labor.
   • The speaker knows his patient endurance.
   • The one addressed cannot bear those who are evil.
   • The one addressed tested those who say they are apostles.
   • Those who say they are apostles are not apostles.
   • The one addressed found them to be liars.
3. 2:3
   • The one addressed has borne up.
   • The one addressed has patient endurance.
   • The one addressed has labored for the sake of the speaker's name.
   • The one addressed has not grown weary.
4. 2:4
   • The speaker has something against the one addressed.
   • The one addressed has left his first love.
5. 2:5
   • The one addressed is told to remember from where he has fallen.
   • The one addressed is told to repent.
   • The one addressed is told to do the first works.
   • If he does not, the speaker will come to him quickly.
   • The speaker will remove his lampstand out of its place.
   • The removal will happen unless he repents.
6. 2:6
   • The one addressed has this in his favor.
   • The one addressed hates the deeds of the Nicolaitans.
   • The speaker also hates the deeds of the Nicolaitans.
7. 2:7
   • The one who has an ear is to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
   • The speaker will give to the one who overcomes to eat of the tree of life.
   • The tree of life is in the midst of the paradise of God.
8. 2:8
   • The message is to be written to the angel of the church in Smyrna.
   • The speaker is the first and the last.
   • The speaker became dead.
   • The speaker came to life.
9. 2:9
   • The speaker knows the works of the one addressed.
   • The speaker knows his tribulation.
   • The speaker knows his poverty.
   • The one addressed is rich.
   • The speaker knows the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews.
   • Those who say they are Jews are not Jews.
   • They are a synagogue of Satan.
10. 2:10
    • The one addressed is told not to fear the things he is about to suffer.
    • The devil is about to cast some of them into prison.
    • The imprisonment is so that they may be tested.
    • They will have tribulation ten days.
    • The one addressed is told to be faithful unto death.
    • The speaker will give him the crown of life.
11. 2:11
    • The one who has an ear is to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
    • The one who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.
12. 2:12
    • The message is to be written to the angel of the church in Pergamos.
    • The speaker is the one who has the sharp two-edged sword.
13. 2:13
    • The speaker knows the works of the one addressed.
    • The speaker knows where the one addressed dwells.
    • The one addressed dwells where Satan's throne is.
    • The one addressed holds fast the speaker's name.
    • The one addressed has not denied the speaker's faith.
    • This held even in the days of Antipas.
    • Antipas was the speaker's faithful martyr.
    • Antipas was killed among them.
    • Satan dwells where they are.
14. 2:14
    • The speaker has a few things against the one addressed.
    • The one addressed has there those who hold the teaching of Balaam.
    • Balaam taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel.
    • The stumbling block was to eat things sacrificed to idols.
    • The stumbling block was to commit fornication.
15. 2:15
    • The one addressed likewise has those who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.
    • The speaker hates that teaching.
16. 2:16
    • The one addressed is told to repent.
    • If he does not, the speaker will come to him quickly.
    • The speaker will fight against them with the sword of his mouth.
17. 2:17
    • The one who has an ear is to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
    • The speaker will give the hidden manna to the one who overcomes.
    • The speaker will give him a white stone.
    • A new name is written on the stone.
    • No one knows that name except the one who receives it.
18. 2:18
    • The message is to be written to the angel of the church in Thyatira.
    • The speaker is the Son of God.
    • The speaker's eyes are like a flame of fire.
    • The speaker's feet are like burnished bronze.
19. 2:19
    • The speaker knows the works of the one addressed.
    • The speaker knows his love.
    • The speaker knows his service.
    • The speaker knows his faith.
    • The speaker knows his patient endurance.
    • The one addressed's last works are more than the first.
20. 2:20
    • The speaker has a few things against the one addressed.
    • The one addressed tolerates the woman Jezebel.
    • Jezebel calls herself a prophetess.
    • Jezebel teaches the speaker's servants.
    • Jezebel leads the speaker's servants astray to commit fornication.
    • Jezebel leads the speaker's servants astray to eat things sacrificed to idols.
21. 2:21
    • The speaker gave her time to repent of her fornication.
    • She did not repent.
22. 2:22
    • The speaker will cast her into a bed.
    • The speaker will cast those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation.
    • The tribulation comes unless they repent of her deeds.
23. 2:23
    • The speaker will kill her children with death.
    • All the churches will know that the speaker is the one who searches the inward parts and hearts.
    • The speaker will give to each one of them according to their works.
24. 2:24
    • The speaker speaks to the rest in Thyatira.
    • They do not hold this teaching.
    • They have not known the depths of Satan.
    • The depths of Satan are so called by those who speak of them.
    • The speaker will put no other burden upon them.
25. 2:25
    • They are told to hold fast what they have until the speaker comes.
26. 2:26
    • The one who overcomes and keeps the speaker's works to the end will receive authority over the nations.
27. 2:27
    • He will rule them with a rod of iron.
    • They will be broken to pieces like a potter's vessels.
    • The speaker received this authority from his Father.
28. 2:28
    • The speaker will give him the morning star.
29. 2:29
    • The one who has an ear is to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

2:1

These are seven letters to seven real congregations in the Roman province of Asia, the western end of what is now Turkey, listed in the order a messenger would reach them traveling a circular road. The Greek word translated "angel" means messenger, and can mean either a heavenly being or a human envoy; readers have taken it both ways, and the text does not settle it. Ephesus was a major port and the largest city of the province. The KJV's "candlesticks" are lampstands: stands holding small clay lamps that burned olive oil. Candles were not in use.

2:2

"Patience" in 1611 English meant holding up under pressure without giving way, closer to endurance than to calm waiting. "Tried" means tested, the way metal is tested for purity. "Apostles" were traveling envoys sent out with authority; the word means one who is sent. Wandering teachers claiming that status were common enough that a congregation had to check the claim.

2:3

"Hast not fainted" has nothing to do with collapsing. In 1611 "faint" meant to lose heart or grow weary.

2:4

The King James says "thou hast left thy first love." That means the warm love they had when they first believed.

2:5

"Repent" translates a Greek word meaning to change your mind and turn around: a reversal of direction, not a feeling of regret. "Out of his place" is old English for "out of its place"; before "its" came into general use, "his" served as the possessive for things as well as for men.

2:6

Nothing is known about the Nicolaitans beyond this verse and verse 15. The name suggests followers of a leader called Nicolaus, but the letter assumes its readers already know who they are and never says what they did.

2:7

"He that hath an ear, let him hear" is a fixed call for attention, repeated at the end of each of the seven letters. "Overcometh" translates a verb for winning a fight or a contest, the word a Greek speaker would use of a victor. "Paradise" comes from an old Persian word for a walled garden or park; Greek-speaking Jews used it for the garden of Eden, where the tree of life stood (Genesis 2 and 3).

2:8

Smyrna was a wealthy port about forty miles north of Ephesus, on the site of modern Izmir. "The first and the last" is a title used of God in Isaiah 44:6 and 48:12.

2:9

"Blasphemy" in Greek means abusive or slanderous speech, and can be aimed at people as well as at God; here it is talk spoken against the congregation. "Synagogue" simply means a gathering or assembly, and was the ordinary word for a Jewish congregation and its meeting house, which is why the phrase "synagogue of Satan" lands as a reversal of an everyday term. The dispute described is one inside the Jewish community of the city, over who counts as belonging to it.

2:10

"Ten days" is a way of marking off a short, bounded stretch of time rather than a precise count. The "crown" is a stephanos, the wreath given to the winner of an athletic contest or awarded as a public honor, not a royal diadem.

2:11

"Hurt of" means harmed by. "The second death" is a phrase this book returns to later (20:14), where it is identified with the lake of fire; here it is left standing without explanation.

2:12

Pergamos, also spelled Pergamum, lay inland to the north. It was the old royal capital of the region, held the first temple in the province dedicated to the worship of a Roman emperor, and was known for a huge altar to Zeus and a major healing shrine to Asclepius. The sword described is a rhomphaia, a long broad blade, not the short stabbing sword a Roman soldier carried.

2:13

"Satan's seat" means Satan's throne: in 1611 English a "seat" was regularly a throne or seat of government. "Martyr" translates martys, which in Greek means simply a witness, someone who gives testimony; only later did the word narrow to mean a person killed for their faith, and this verse is part of how that shift happened. Nothing else is known about Antipas.

2:14

In Numbers 22 to 24 the Moabite king Balak hires the seer Balaam to curse Israel and Balaam cannot do it; in Numbers 25 Israelite men then join in the sacrificial meals and sexual rites of Moab, and Numbers 31:16 lays that at Balaam's door. A "stumblingblock" is a trap or snare set in someone's path. "Things sacrificed unto idols" means meat from a temple sacrifice, which was served at temple banquets and sold in the market, so refusing it meant stepping out of much of the social and business life of a Greek city. "Fornication" translates porneia, a broad term for sexual activity outside marriage, which the Hebrew prophets also used as an image for unfaithfulness to God. Both senses are available here and the text does not separate them.

2:16

A sword coming from the mouth is an image for words spoken as a weapon, drawn from Isaiah 11:4, where a ruler strikes with what he says rather than with anything in his hand.

2:17

Manna was the bread-like food Israel ate in the desert (Exodus 16); a jar of it was kept beside the covenant chest, and a later Jewish tradition held that it was hidden away to reappear in the age to come. What the white stone stands for is disputed: white stones were used as a juror's vote for acquittal, as a token of admission to a banquet, and as an amulet inscribed with a secret name. The text does not say which it means.

2:18

Thyatira was a smaller inland town known for its trade guilds, especially dyers and metalworkers; belonging to a guild normally meant attending meals held in a temple. The Greek word behind "fine brass" (chalkolibanos) appears nowhere else in surviving Greek and its exact sense is unknown; it is some bright copper alloy. "Brass" in 1611 usually meant what we call bronze.

2:19

"Charity" in the KJV means love, with none of the modern sense of giving to the poor. "Patience" again means endurance under pressure.

2:20

Jezebel was the Phoenician queen of King Ahab of Israel, who promoted the worship of Baal and had prophets of the Lord killed (1 Kings 16 to 21, 2 Kings 9). The name is used here as a label pinned on a woman in Thyatira; it will not have been her own name. "Sufferest" means tolerate or allow, the older sense of "suffer". A prophetess is a woman claiming to speak messages received from God.

2:21

"Space to repent" means time and opportunity to turn around.

2:22

"Cast her into a bed" turns the bed of the adultery into a sickbed; the grim wordplay is in the Greek. "Tribulation" in the KJV means crushing affliction or pressure in general, not specifically an end-times event.

2:23

"Kill her children with death" is a Hebrew-style doubling that means kill them outright, often with the sense of death by plague. "Her children" may mean her followers rather than her offspring. "The reins" are the kidneys: Hebrew idiom located the deepest impulses in the kidneys and thought and will in the heart, so "reins and hearts" means the whole inner person. The word has nothing to do with a horse's reins.

2:24

"As they speak" means "as they call it": the phrase "the depths of Satan" is being quoted back at the group, and it is unclear whether they used those words themselves or whether this is a sharp twist on their own claim to know deep things. "Burden" means a further requirement laid on a congregation to carry.

2:26

"Power" here means authority, the right to rule, rather than raw force.

2:27

This quotes Psalm 2:8 and 9, where God promises his anointed king rule over the nations. The Greek verb translated "rule" means to shepherd, since the Greek Old Testament read the Hebrew word for "break" as "shepherd"; the gentler image of herding and the violent image of smashing pottery sit side by side in the line. "Vessels of a potter" are ordinary fired clay pots, cheap and easily shattered. "Broken to shivers" is old English for smashed into fragments; a shiver was a splinter or small broken piece.

2:28

The morning star is the planet Venus, seen low in the east just before sunrise. Later in this book (22:16) the speaker calls himself the bright morning star. A star was also a standing image for a coming ruler, as in Numbers 24:17, "there shall come a Star out of Jacob".