Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll.
Ver. 1. Then I turned me, and lifted up mine eyes] i.e. I prepared me to the receiving of a new vision; nothing so comfortable as the former, but no less necessary; that the people, by sense of sin and fear of wrath, might be taken off their wicked practices, redeem their own sorrows, and be accounted worthy to escape all those things that should (otherwise) come to pass, as Zechariah 5:11, and to stand before the Son of man at that dreadful day, Luke 21:36. This seemeth to be the mind of the Holy Ghost, in these two visions here recorded; which while some interpreters attend not, in toto vaticinio neque coelum, neque terrain attingunt, saith Calvin, they are utterly out.
And behold a flying roll] Or, volume, as Psalms 40:7, or scroll of paper, or parchment, usually rolled up, like the web upon the pin, uti convolvuntur nostrae Mappae Geographicae, as our maps are rolled up, saith a Lapide; and as in the public library at Oxford the book or roll of Esther (a Hebrew manuscript) is at this day to be seen; but here flying, Volans velocissimum ultionis incursum significat (Chrysost.). Not only becanse spread wide open, as Rabshakeh's letter, 2 Kings 19:14, and as that book of the prophet Isaiah, Luke 4:17, but also as fleeting along swiftly, like a bird ready to seize on her prey. Nemo scelus gerit in pectore, qui non idem Nemesin in tergo. No man bears evil in his heart who does not show the same revenge on the outside. The heathens named Nemesis (their goddess of revenge, to take punishment of offenders) Aδραστεια, because no man can possibly escape her, οτι ουκ αν τις αυτην αποδρασαιτο. They tell us also that their Jupiter writeth down all the sins of all men in a book, or scroll, made of a goat's pelt, which they call διφθερα; the very word whereby Aquila and Theodotion (two Greek translaters) do render the Hebrew of this text. Daniel 7:18 Rev 20:12 Symmachus turns it Kεφαλις, a chapter, or abstract of a larger book, full of sins and woes; and yet it is of an unheard of size, Zechariah 5:2, and of very sad contents, like that book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel 2:9,10, lamentation, and mourning, and woe; or the first leaf of Bishop Babington's book (which he turned over every morning), all black; to remind him of hell and God's judgments due unto him for his sins.