Verse 28:[1] And I will give him (2 Pet. 1:19; Rev. 22:16) the morning star.
[And I will give to him the star of the early morning] This is an expression of the Rabbis: for they call Him כוכב הבוקר, the star of the morning (Grotius). He understands, either, 1. the light of glory and a clear vision of God (Lapide, Menochius); splendor, not of just any star whatsoever, but of the morning star, which far exceeds the rest of the stars. See Homer and Virgil (Grotius) [and their words in Grotius]; or, the heavenly brightness of bodies in the resurrection (Piscator). Or, 2. the certain and indubitable hope of the eternal light soon to follow (Zegers). Or, 3. a guardian Angel or Archangel (certain interpreters in Lapide). Or, 4. the Holy Spirit, who is called φωσφόρος, the day star, in 2 Peter 1:19, who attends the sun of righteousness, and goes before, as the dawn precedes the Sun (Cotterius). Or, 5. ἀνατολὴν, the East, that is, the Nations in the East, where the star of the early morning rises and goes before the sun, which Nations He will convert to the faith, etc. (Hammond). Or, 6. Christ Himself (Zegers, Pererius, Ribera, Lapide, Gomar, Durham, Pareus), who is called the day star, 2 Peter 1:19, and the Sun of Righteousness, Malachi 4:2 (Gomar), and the star of the early morning, Revelation 22:16[2] (Gomar, Pareus, Ribera), which shines in the darkness, and is the end of night and the beginning of the day; and it promises greater brightness, which the Sun is soon going to convey. Thus, therefore, Christ is called (Ribera), either, 1. on account of His greatest eminence, as this star excels the rest (Durham). Or, 2. because Christ, born and risen again, dispersed and dispelled the darkness of ignorance, of sin (Lapide), of infidelity and of all errors (Ribera, similarly Lapide, Pererius), and of mortality (Ribera, Lapide); and He filled the whole world with the light of faith, and He supplied in Himself an example of our glorious future resurrection (Pererius out of Haymo), and He is present with the saints in the gloom of death and supplies to them light and joy, and is the messenger of the already coming blessedness, of greater brightness, as it were (Ribera); He is no less dear to the faithful than the star of the early morning is to one making a journey in the darkness of night, etc. (Durham).
The morning star: Either the light of glory, the blessed vision of God, or a certain hope of eternal life; or the Holy Spirit, called so, 2 Peter 1:19; or rather, of myself. Christ himself is not only called the Sun of righteousness, Malachi 4:2, but the Morning star, Revelation 22:16, because he excelleth all other stars in glory, and scattereth the darkness of ignorance and error by the light of his gospel: I will make him partaker of myself.
Verse 29:[3] (Rev. 2:7) He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
[To the Churches] Namely, of Thyatira, and its neighbors (Grotius).
He that hath an ear, etc.: Here the same conclusion of this epistle as of all the rest, Revelation 2:7, 11, 17: see the notes on Revelation 2:7.
Those who make this epistle typical and prophetical, make it a type of all the churches of Christ, from about the year AD 1260, or the end of the persecution of the Waldenses, until the protestant religion so far obtained, that whole nations owned it, which was about AD 1560, by which time England and Scotland had made it the religion of those nations: it had before this prevailed in Germany, Helvetia, France, and many other places, where it was the religion of whole cities and particular jurisdictions, etc.