Charles Ellicott Commentary Revelation 1:15

"and his feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace; and his voice as the voice of many waters." — Revelation 1:15 (ASV)

His feet like unto fine brass.—His feet, like those of the ministering priests of Israel, were bare and appeared like chalcolibanus (fine brass).

The exact meaning of this word, used only here in Scripture, is not certain. The most trustworthy authors are inclined to consider it a hybrid word, half Greek and half Hebrew—chalcos (brass) and labân (white, to whiten)—understanding it to signify brass that has achieved a white heat in the furnace.

“Such technical words were likely to have been current in a population like that of Ephesus, which consisted largely of metalworkers, some of whom—if we may judge from the case of Alexander the coppersmith (Acts 19:34; 2 Timothy 4:14)—were, without doubt, Jews. I believe the word in question belonged to this technical vocabulary. St. John, at any rate, used it as familiar and intelligible to those for whom he wrote” (Professor Plumptre, in Epistles to Seven Churches, on this passage).

His voice as the sound of many waters.—(The word “sound” here is better rendered as voice, since the same Greek word, phoné, is used twice in the original text of this vision, and is translated first as “voice” and then as “sound” in our English version.)

Daniel described the voice of the Ancient of Days as the voice of a multitude (Daniel 10:6). However, in earlier Hebrew writings, the voice of the multitude was compared to the sound of the waves of the sea, which only the voice of the Lord could subdue (Psalms 65:7; Psalms 93:4).

The Evangelist adopts this image to describe the voice of Christ—strong and majestic, amid the Babel-sounds of earth. That voice, whose word stilled the sea, sounds as the waves of the sea, which St. John heard Him rebuke.