Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Revelation 10:11

"And they say unto me, Thou must prophesy again over many peoples and nations and tongues and kings." — Revelation 10:11 (ASV)

John, like Ezekiel, is now commanded to take the prophetic scroll and eat it. The scroll tasted “as sweet as honey” but was bitter to the stomach. Receiving the Word of God is a great joy; but since the Word is an oracle of judgment, it results in the unpleasant experience of proclaiming a message of wrath and woe (cf. Jeremiah 15:16, 19). The symbolic act of eating the scroll might also mean that the prophetic message was mixed with joy and comfort as well as gloom. The sweetness should not be taken to refer to the joy of proclaiming a message of wrath, for to all God’s prophets this was a sorrowful, bitter task (Jeremiah 9:1). The chief import of ch. 10 seems to be a confirmation of John’s prophetic call, as v.11 indicates: “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings.” This prophesying should not be understood as merely a recapitulation in greater detail of the previous visions but a further progression of the events connected with the end. John uses the word “kings” instead of “tribes” (7:9; 13:7; 14:6); this may anticipate the emphasis on the kings of the earth found in 17:9–12 and elsewhere.