Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Revelation · About this commentary
The Sealed Scroll
Revelation 5:1-4
1 I saw, in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, a book written inside and outside, sealed shut with seven seals. · WEB
A scroll written full and sealed shut waits in the open hand, the summons finds no one worthy in three realms, and the seer weeps.
I saw, in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, a book written inside and outside, sealed shut with seven seals.
The throne room's stillness now acquires a crisis, and it is an object: a scroll in the open right hand of the enthroned one — offered, waiting — written inside and outside: full, nothing more to be added, like Ezekiel's scroll of lament crowded on both sides Ezekiel 2:10. And sealed shut with seven seals — perfectly closed, its contents settled but unexecuted. A sealed testament in the ancient world was opened only by the qualified party; this one holds — as the visions that flow from its opening show — the destiny of the world, the answer to the martyrs' how-long Revelation 6:10, the whole purpose of God for history waiting to be enacted. Daniel was told to seal his book to the time of the end Daniel 12:4; here is the sealed book, in hand, at court.
I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, "Who is worthy to open the book, and to break its seals?" Revelation 5:2.
The summons is cosmic and legal: not who is strong enough — seals are not forced — but who is worthy: the word the hymn just grounded in creation Revelation 4:11, now demanded for redemption's document. And the search comes back empty at every level of existence: no one in heaven above, or on the earth, or under the earth, was able to open the book or to look in it Revelation 5:3 — not the elders, not the four creatures, not any angel, no one living and no one dead. The universe is canvassed and produces no qualified party.
Then I wept much Revelation 5:4.
The seer's weeping should be allowed its full weight, because it is the reader's own situation felt honestly. If the scroll stays sealed, history stays unexplained and unredeemed: the martyrs wait forever, the prayers go unanswered, the pressure on the seven churches has no terminus, and the throne's purposes remain a closed book in an open hand. John weeps over the possibility that everything stays as it is — the most reasonable grief in Scripture, and the last tears shed in heaven in this book until God wipes tears away for good Revelation 21:4. The weeping is the space the next verse's don't weep was written to fill.
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