Revelation 10:11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And he said Thou hast not yet finished the whole of thy work, in what thou hast already recorded of the visions of the Lord: but thou must again prophesy before, or to, many peoples and nations, &c. Mede infers from hence, that the apostle is about to go over the same period of time that he had before been discoursing of, giving an account of the state of the church as he had just done of the state of the empire. But the new descriptions and new events to which the subsequent prophecies refer, that are introduced here, and which constitute the following Chapter s, are sufficient, without any peculiarity of interpretation, to justify the expression, Thou must prophesy again. Besides, as Bishop Newton observes, if the prophecy begin here again anew, the subject be resumed from the beginning, and all that follows be contained in the little book, then the little book contains more matter than the larger book; and part of the sealed book is made part of the open book, which is contrary to the regularity and order of the Apocalypse, and in a great measure destroys the beauty and symmetry of the different parts: for it is evident and undeniable that the seventh trumpet is the seventh part of the seventh seal, as the seventh seal is the seventh part of the sealed book, and consequently can be no part of the little open book, which ends, as we shall see, with the sixth trumpet, and immediately before the sounding of the seventh.