Revelation 15:6 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

And the seven angels... — Better, And there came out the seven angels who had the seven plagues from the temple, clothed in linen, pure, glistening, and girt about their breasts with golden girdles. The temple is the inner shrine, or sanctuary; it was this which was measured (Revelation 11:1); it was out of this that the angel with the sharp sickle came for the vintage of the earth (Revelation 14:7); out of this now came the seven angels with the seven plagues. It is well to remember this, for these plagues are not, like the judgments of the trumpet, calls to repentance; they are plagues on those who have refused to return, who have rejected the sanctuary, the tabernacle of witness, which the Lord pitched among men, and who have refused, like obstinate builders, the stone which has become the head of the corner. Out of the rejected temple the angels of wrath come; it is ever true that out of rejected mercies the heaviest of plagues are forged. The angels are clad in a garb resembling that of Christ (Revelation 1:13); they are come forth to do His bidding; they are clothed in raiment which indicates their righteous errand. (Comp. Revelation 19:8; Acts 1:10; Acts 10:30.) Instead of linen, some MSS. have “a stone:” the angels, according to this, were “clad in a stone, pure, brilliant.” There is a parallel thought in Ezekiel, who describes the splendour of the King of Tyre: “Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond,” &c. (Ezekiel 28:13).