OLBGrk;
Smyrna was a city in Ionia; we read not when, or by whom, the gospel was first planted and a church gathered there; nor can we tell who are meant by the angel of this church: see Revelation 1:20. That it was no single person is probable, for he speaks plurally, Revelation 2:10, the devil shall cast some of you, ex umwn, into prison. These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive: for the meaning of this phrase, see annotations on Revelation 1:8,17,18; only it is observable how Christ, speaking to this church under great tribulation and persecution, fits a name proper to comfort them; for he himself was dead, and yet now alive, and he living, those that believe in him, because he lives, shall live also, 1 Thessalonians 14:19; and as he was the first, so he will be the last, surviving all his enemies, and be at last a conqueror over them.