10
8Then the voice from heaven spoke to me again: “Go and take the open scroll from the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.” 9So I went to the angel and told him to give me the small scroll. “Yes, take it and eat it,” he said. “It will be sweet as honey in your mouth, but it will turn sour in your stomach!” 10So I took the small scroll from the hand of the angel, and I ate it! It was sweet in my mouth, but when I swallowed it, it turned sour in my stomach.
Revelation 10:8-10
My concluding comments to the previous Gem were:
I am going to leave this Gem at this point, half-finished as it may seem. I will pause on the brink of unravelling puzzle 3 – the ordering of sweet ~ bitter; bitter ~ sweet. The fact is, there is a curious subtlety which appears to be hidden in the text. It’s medicine, so there has to be a bad taste or a bad reaction for it to be good for you. That’s the thinking behind it if medicine is going to be good for you. Ok, I understand that as I hinted at it in the previous Gem. But as I did my due diligence, I realised there is something not right about this verse as it is found in the New Living Translation.
- The angel told me,“Yes, take it and eat it,” he said. “It will be sweet as honey in your mouth, but it will turn sour in your stomach!”
- So I took the small scroll from the hand of the angel, and I ate it! It was sweet in my mouth, but when I swallowed it, it turned sour in my stomach.
What is not right about that Ian? The angel gave John good advice. He told him exactly what would happen when he took the medicine and lo and behold, it worked out just like the angel said in the order of the sequence of events. Firstly, he took the medicine and it tasted sweet in John’s mouth. But then as the medicine progressed to his stomach it turned sour or bitter when it got to his stomach. What’s wrong with that? That is in accord with what the angel told John and it also is in line with our experience of taking medicine. All is good Ian.
Oh no it’s not! It is not in accord with the Word of God. That is not what this passage records for us. There is a strange anomaly included in these verses. When I read this verse in my Greek New Testament I read something very different. I won’t give you the Greek but rather I will give you a literal reading of the Greek for your enlightenment.
- And I went away to the angel, saying to him, “Give me the little scroll”; and he said to me, “Take and eat it up, and it will make your belly bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.”
- And I took the little scroll out of the hand of the angel, and ate it up, and it was in my mouth sweet as honey, and when I ate it my belly was made bitter.
Do you detect what has happened here? In the NLT we have two lines or steps in the process repeated word for word with the same ordering of events. But when looking at the Greek text, translated literally into English (with help from the Literal Standard Version) something strange is going on. We have a reversal of normality. The effect on the stomach is placed first, before the taste in the mouth, which is not normal. The normal process ought to be to experience the taste in the mouth before the effect hits the stomach and the bitterness takes over. Just what is going on here? Becoming aware that the ordering of the process in the NLT was not in accord with the Greek gave me feelings of disquiet. The change was not footnoted in any way and neither was it correct according to what is recorded in the Greek text. I then did a survey of translations and found that most followed the order of the Greek text, which includes the switching or reversal of ‘sweet in the mouth’ ~ ‘bitter on the belly’.
I checked each translation I have loaded in E-Sword and found that 32 translations follow the wording and the ordering of the Greek text, with the exception of the NLT and the Living Bible, which don’t. Ooh, that’s not good, especially when there is no footnote or explanation as to why the publishers have not followed the order in the Greek text. But then I found there are other printed Bibles which do the same thing – following the order of the red text above and not the blue without footnoting the discrepancy. Why is that and does it matter? Which is correct? I can state categorically that the blue text follows after the ordering written in the Greek of the Greek New Testament. But there is a variation among the translations, both printed and electronic text which follow the red text above as found in both the NLT and the Living Bible without explanation or a footnote1.
This effectively is another warning to those who have ears to heed the Spirit of God and be informed by the Spirit to the mystery which surrounds all prophecy.
Indeed, the Sovereign LORD never does anything until he reveals His plans to His servants the prophets.
Amos 3:7
So why does all this matter? I have told you before in Gem 2232 that there is a Greek literary term used to describe what is happening in both cases – [ὕστερον πρότερον] hýsteron próteron. You don’t need to remember the Greek literary term. I just want to draw your attention to what is happening here and explain why. Hýsteron próteron describes when the first key word of a dual couplet of ideas refers to something that happens later in time after the second key word. The goal of hýsteron próteron is to call attention to the second word, as the more important idea by switching its position and making it unnaturally first in order. In this case placing the bitterness in the stomach before the sweetness in the mouth in order to highlight the fact of the bitterness in the stomach.
The text is playing with the metaphor of the Word of God being sweet like honey, which it is! But by placing the bitter effect on the stomach before the sweetness of the Word of God it brings the bitter or sour effect on the body front and centre, thereby highlighting it in sharp focus. The text highlights the effects of ignoring the Word of God at your own peril and your own health, ultimately to the detriment of your eternal state of wellness. If you won’t take your Word-of-God-medicine, you will end up making your life and your eternal state bitter. A subtle or not so subtle way of driving the point home.
Indeed, the Sovereign LORD never does anything until he reveals His plans to His servants the prophets.
Amos 3:7
I suspect that is the purpose of the positioning of the following verses at this point. As some of you have said or written to me, the judgements of Revelation are a bit hard to take. Judgement warning after judgement warning, the death toll increasing and terror on every side, which reminds me of the nickname that was given to Jeremiah. He gave the prophetic words of the LORD as faithfully as he dared to the extent he became known as old “Terror on Every Side. He is always on about there being ‘terror on every side’.
I have heard the many rumours about me. They call me “Terror on every side” They threaten, “If you say anything, we will report it.” Even my old friends are watching me, waiting for a fatal slip. “He will trap himself,” they say, “and then we will get our revenge on him.”
Jeremiah 20:10
The same thing happened to Ezekiel:
Then this message came to me from the LORD: “Son of man, turn and face the south and speak out against it; prophesy against the brushlands of the Negev. Tell the southern wilderness, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Hear the word of the LORD! I will set you on fire, and every tree, both green and dry, will be burned. The terrible flames will not be quenched and will scorch everything from south to north. And everyone in the world will see that I, the LORD, have set this fire. It will not be put out.’”
Then I said, “O Sovereign LORD, they are saying of me, ‘He only talks in riddles!’”
Ezekiel 20:45-49
That same reaction happened to John and I guess to a degree still happens in this day and age. The judgement message of God is not an easy one to hear. But we still have to hear it and to heed it. That is the point being made by this Greek literary technique which highlights the bitter effect on the stomach of the Word of God when the LORD has to give His people or the people who belong to this world a hard message. What is God’s alternative? To just speak nice words and to lull you and them into a false sense of security? No, we need to be prepared to hear the truth, the natural consequence of our waywardness. Hence John records for us the following:
And the messenger whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land lifted up his right hand to the heaven, and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created the heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there shall be no further delay, but in the days of the sounding of the seventh messenger, when he is about to sound, the secret of Elohim shall also be ended, as He declared to His servants the prophets.
Revelation 10:5-7
Jesus spoke the Truth strongly, in order to be able to affect the release of the person from untruth. That is the ultimate goal, the winning of their souls.
Ian
Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. Hard rebukes from God have to be received with grace and prayer. [What other alternative do you have? Ian] Franklin P Jones
Always keep in mind, the end of the world as we know it, only heralds the beginning of the Age to Come. That thought helps you maintain perspective, especially when reading Revelation.
Ian
When life gets too hard to stand … kneel.
Gordon B Hinkley
- There is a footnote on Revelation 10:9 in the TS2009 translation which is curious to say the least and reads: Footnote: b Ezk 2:1-10 and Ezk 3:1-27. This is a Hebraism which means to receive knowledge. This is a strange comment to add which doesn’t at all address how the reversal of the order between stomach and mouth is being used here in Revelation. ↩︎