And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I John. "John" is omitted in 'Aleph (') A B, Vulgate, Syriac, Coptic, Andreas; also "I" is not emphatic. The insertion of "I John" would interfere with the close connection between "the new heaven and earth," Revelation 21:1, and the "new Jerusalem."
Jerusalem ... out of heaven - (Galatians 4:26; Hebrews 11:10; Hebrews 12:22; Hebrews 13:14; Revelation 3:12.) The descent of the new Jerusalem out of heaven is distinct from the earthly Jerusalem, in which Israel in the flesh shall dwell during the millennium, and follows on the "new heaven and earth." [John in his gospel always writes Hierosoluma (G2414) of the old city; in the apocalypse, always Hierousaleem (G2419) of the heavenly city (Revelation 3:12). Hierousaleem (H2419) is Hebrew, the original, holy appellation. Hierosoluma (G2414) is the common Greek, in a political sense.] Paul observes the same distinction when refuting Judaism (Galatians 4:26: cf. Revelation 1:17-18; Revelation 2:1; Hebrews 12:22); not so in the letters to Romans and Corinthians (Bengel).
Bride - made up of the citizens of "the holy city." There is no longer merely a paradise, as in Eden (there is that also, Revelation 2:7), a mere garden, but now the city of God on earth, costlier and statelier, at the same time the result of labour such as had not to be expended by man in dressing the garden of Eden. "The lively stones" were in time laboriously chiselled into shape, after the pattern of "the chief corner stone," to prepare them for the place which they shall everlastingly fill in the heavenly Jerusalem.