Revelation 22:2
In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
πλατείας (“street,” or “boulevard”) collective and generic (cf. Jam 5:6) like ξύλον. Take ἐν … αὐτῆς with what precedes, and begin a fresh sentence with καὶ τοῦ ποταμοῦ (W. H.), ξύλον being governed by ἔδειξεν (from Revelation 22:1). The river, which is the all-pervading feature, is lined with the trees of life. The writer retains the traditional singular of Genesis 2:9, combining it with the representation of Ezekiel (yet note sing, in Ezekiel 47:12); he thus gains symbolic impressiveness at the expense of pictorial coherence. Ramsay (C. B. P. ii. 453) observes, however, that the waters of the Marsyas were “probably drawn off to flow through the streets of Apameia; this practice is still a favourite one in Asia Minor, e.g., at Denizli”.—κ. μῆνα, the poetic imagination soars over the prosaic objection that months are impossible without a moon (Revelation 21:22).—καρπὸν, κ.τ.λ. To eat of the tree of life was, in the popular religious phraseology of the age, to possess immortality. In En. 24., 25., where the prophet sees a wonderful, fragrant tree, Michael explains that it must stand untouched till the day of Judgment (καὶ οὐδεμία σὰρξ ἐξουσίαν ἔχει ἅψασθαι αὐτοῦ). “Then the righteous and the holy shall have it given them; it shall be as food for the elect unto life.” So in contemporary Judaism; e.g., 4 Esd. 7:53 and 8:52 (“For unto you is paradise set open, the tree of life is planted, the time to come is prepared, a city is builded and rest is established,”) as already in Test. Levi. 18, where the messianic high-priest is to “open the gates of paradise and remove the sword drawn against Adam, and permit the saints to eat of the tree of life”. For the association of God’s city and God’s garden, cf. Apoc. Bar. iv.: for the notion of healing, Apoc. Mos. vi., Jub. x. 12 f., and the Iranian idea that (Brandt, 434 f.) the tree of many seeds had curative properties. John is therefore using the realistic and archaic language of Jewish piety to delineate the bliss of Christians in a future state where all the original glories and privileges of God’s life with man are to be restored. The Christian heaven is to possess everything which Judaism claimed and craved for itself. Cf. the Christian addition to 4 Ezra 2:12; Ezra 2:34-35; Ezra 2:38 f.; also the famous hymn to Osiris (E. B. D., ch. 183: “I have come into the city of God—the region which existed in primaeval time—with my soul, to dwell in this land.… The God thereof is most holy. His land draweth unto itself every other land. And doth he not say, the happiness thereof is a care to me?”).
Expositors Greek Testament Revelation 22:2
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