Revelation 7:16

7:13-17 Faithful Christians deserve our notice and respect; we should mark the upright. Those who would gain knowledge, must not be ashamed to seek instruction from any who can give it. The way to heaven is through many tribulations; but tribulation, how great soever, shall not separate us from the love of God. Tribulation makes heaven more welcome and more glorious. It is not the blood of the martyrs, but the blood of the Lamb, that can wash away sin, and make the soul pure and clean in the sight of God; other blood stains, this is the only blood that makes the robes of the saints white and clean. They are happy in their employment; heaven is a state of service, though not of suffering; it is a state of rest, but not of sloth; it isa praising, delightful rest. They have had sorrows, and shed many tears on account of sin and affliction; but God himself, with his own gracious hand, will wipe those tears away. He deals with them as a tender father. This should support the Christian under all his troubles. As all the redeemed owe their happiness wholly to sovereign mercy; so the work and worship of God their Saviour is their element; his presence and favour complete their happiness, nor can they conceive of any other joy. To Him may all his people come; from him they receive every needed grace; and to him let them offer all praise and glory.

16, 17 . Taken from Isaiah 49:10 . We have again the solemn paradox, that the Lamb is Shepherd (of course we are reminded of St John 10, but we ought to remember Psalms 23 as well, and its many O. T. imitations, including Is. l.c., in all of which the Shepherd is the Lord God of Israel), and the men are His flock—cf. Ezekiel 34:31 ; Ezekiel 36:37-38 . that is in the midst of the throne ] See on Revelation 5:6 . living fountains of waters ] Lit., fountains of waters of life , cf. Revelation 22:1 : but the A. V. is right, in keeping the order of the words rather than the construction. God shall wipe &c.] From Isaiah 25:8 .

Revelation 7:16 . οὐ μή with both fut. indicative and subjunctive (= Revelation 2:11 ), in emphatic assertions. For the absence of scorching as a trait of the Hellenic Utopia, cf. Dieterich, 31–33. If καῦμα corresponds here to the sense of the Isaianic equivalent καύσων , the reference is to the scorching sirocco. So the Egyptian dead yearned for a cooling breeze in the next world—“Let me be placed by the edge of the water with my face to the north, that the breeze may caress me, and my heart be refreshed from its sorrows” (see Maspero, Dawn of Civil , p. 113).

(16) They shall hunger no more . . .—Better, They shall not hunger any more , nor yet thirst any more; neither at all shall the sun light upon them , nor any heat. The negatives are emphatic, and rise in force as the verse proceeds. None of the privations which they have endured for Christ’s sake shall trouble them; none of the dissatisfactions and weariness of life shall afflict them; for hunger, thirst, and fatigue will be no more, for the former things are passed away ( Revelation 21:3-4 ). And then, too, shall that blessed hunger and thirst —the hunger and thirst for righteousness—be appeased. Christ’s benediction will then be realised in its fulness: Blessed are they who so hunger, for they shall be filled. And as they will receive inward strength and satisfaction, so also will they be kept from the outward trials which wear down the strength of the strongest. The sun shall not light on them: The Eastern sun, in its fierce and overpowering intensity, was a fit emblem of those trials which dry up the springs of strength. The sun, risen with a burning heat, devoured the beauty of the flower ( James 1:11 ); the rootless growth on the stony ground was scorched when the sun was up ( Matthew 13:5-6 ).

Man’s beauty of wealth and talent, man’s resolutions of better things, all fade away before the testing beams of this sun; but the time of trial is past, the pains and temptations of life are over, the sun in that land will not scorch, for there is no longer need of these burning beams; the city has no need of the sun, for the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof ( Revelation 21:23 ). No sun, and no heat, no burning hot wind like the sirocco, will spread withering influence there.

Verse 16. - They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; shall the sun strike upon them (Revised Version). The passage is evidently founded upon Isaiah 49:10 (cf. the punishment of the fourth vial, Revelation 16:8 ). Revelation 7:16

They shall hunger no more - A considerable portion of the redeemed who will be there, were, when on earth, subjected to the evils of famine; many who perished with hunger. In heaven they will be subjected to that evil no more, for there will be no want that will not be supplied. The bodies which the redeemed will have - spiritual bodies 1 Corinthians 15:44 - will doubtless be such as will be nourished in some other way than by food, if they require any nourishment; and whatever that nourishment may be, it will be fully supplied. The passage here is taken from Isaiah 49:10 ; "They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them." See the notes on that passage. Neither thirst any more - As multitudes of the redeemed have been subjected to the evils of hunger, so have multitudes also been subjected to the pains of thirst. In prison; in pathless deserts; in times of drought, when wells and fountains were dried up, they have suffered from this cause - a cause producing as intense suffering perhaps as any that man endures. Compare Exodus 17:3; Psalm 63:1; Lamentations 4:4; 2 Corinthians 11:27. It is easy to conceive of persons suffering so intensely from thirst that the highest vision of felicity would be such a promise as that in the words before us - "neither thirst anymore." Neither shall the sun light on them - It is hardly necessary, perhaps, to say that the word "light" here does not mean to enlighten, to give light to, to shine on.

The Greek is πέσῃ pesē - "fall on" - and the reference, probably is to the intense and burningheat of the sun, commonly called a sunstroke. Excessive heat of the sun, causing great pain or sudden death, is not a very uncommon thing among us, and must have been more common in the warm climates and burning sands of the countries in the vicinity of Palestine. The meaning here is, that in heaven they would be free from this calamity. Nor any heat - In Isaiah 49:10, from which place this is quoted, the expression is שׁרב shaaraab, properly denoting heat or burning, and particularly the mirage, the excessive heat of a sandy desert producing a vapor which has a striking resemblance to water, and which often misleads the unwary traveler by its deceptive appearance. See the notes on Isaiah 35:7. The expression here is equivalent to intense heat; and the meaning is, that in heaven the redeemed will not be subjected to any such suffering as the traveler often experiences in the burning sands of the desert. The language would convey a most grateful idea to those who had been subjected to these sufferings, and is one form of saying that, in heaven, the redeemed will be delivered from the ills which they suffer in this life.