And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.
'I went away.' John leaves heaven, his standing-point heretofore, to be near the angel standing on the earth and sea.
Give. 'Aleph (') A B C, Vulgate, Syriac, read the infinitive, 'Telling him to give.'
Eat it up - appropriate its contents so entirely that they become assimilated with thyself (as food), so as to impart them the more vividly to others. His finding the roll sweet to the taste is because, divesting himself of carnal feeling, be regarded God's will as always agreeable, however bitter might be the message. Compare Psalms 40:8, margin: Christ's inner appropriation of God's Word.
Thy belly bitter - parallel to Ezekiel 2:10.
As honey - (Psalms 19:10; Psalms 119:103.) Honey, sweet to the mouth, sometimes turns into bile in the stomach. The thought that God would be glorified (Revelation 11:3-6; Revelation 11:11-18) gave him sweet pleasure. Afterward the belly, or natural feeling, was embittered with grief at the coming persecutions of the Church (Revelation 11:7-10: cf. John 16:1-2). The revelation of futurity is sweet at first, but bitter to our natural man, when we learn the cross to be borne before the crown. John was grieved at the coming apostasy and the sufferings of the Church from be borne before the crown. John was grieved at the coming apostasy and the sufferings of the Church from Antichrist.