In the middle of the trumpet judgments, John is stopped by a scene that is at once intimate and immense. A mighty angel descends with a little scroll open in his hand and tells the apostle to take it and eat. In John’s mouth it is sweet like honey, but it turns his stomach sour. Then comes the charge that gives the moment its aim: “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings” (Revelation 10:11). This is not a pause to catch one’s breath. It is a holy interruption in which God recommissions His servant to speak with clarity while the world shakes.
The picture is not new. Centuries earlier, Ezekiel saw a hand stretch out a scroll written on both sides with “lament and mourning and woe,” and he was told to eat it. He found it sweet as honey. Then he rose and went to a hard-headed people with a hard message because the word he had swallowed now owned his mouth and ordered his steps (Ezekiel 2:9–10; Ezekiel 3:1–3; Ezekiel 3:4–11). John stands in that prophetic stream. Revelation 10 binds old and new together, showing that the God who spoke by the prophets now speaks through the apostle to the nations, and the message is as weighty and as necessary as ever (Hebrews 1:1–2).
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Historical and Cultural Background
Revelation 10 sits between the sixth and seventh trumpets. After the Lamb opens the seals and the first six trumpets bring devastation on land, sea, and sky, an angel announces three woes because the final blasts will cut deeper than the first (Revelation 6:1–17; Revelation 8:6–13; Revelation 8:13). The fifth trumpet releases tormenting locusts from the Abyss; the sixth unleashes a vast cavalry that kills a third of humankind; and yet the survivors do not repent of worshiping idols or of their murders, sorceries, sexual immorality, and thefts (Revelation 9:1–6; Revelation 9:13–21). In that moral darkness God does what He often does: He raises a witness. Before the seventh trumpet proclaims the kingdom of Christ, John receives a renewed commission that will be paired with the measuring of the temple and the ministry of the two witnesses in the city where the Lord was crucified (Revelation 10:11; Revelation 11:1–8).
The setting matters. John writes from exile “because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus,” and the churches in Asia Minor live under the pressure of imperial cult and local hostility (Revelation 1:9; Revelation 2:9–10; Revelation 2:13). Revelation’s language is saturated with the Old Testament, and its symbols are not free-floating. John’s mighty angel stands on sea and land, echoing the Lord’s sovereignty over creation, while his roar like a lion and the answering voices of seven thunders recall Sinai’s terror and the psalmist’s God whose voice shakes the wilderness (Revelation 10:2–4; Exodus 19:16–19; Psalm 29:3–9). The open scroll in the angel’s hand is not the sealed deed of chapter 5; it is a smaller, specific message John must internalize and deliver in the heat of judgment (Revelation 5:1–9; Revelation 10:2). In this way, the chapter functions as an interlude of mercy: before the seventh trumpet announces that the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah, God ensures that His word runs and His servants speak (Revelation 11:15; Amos 8:11).
The parallels with Ezekiel are deliberate. Ezekiel ate a scroll filled with lament and woe, found it sweet, and went to a resistant house, hardened not by ignorance but by rebellion (Ezekiel 2:10; Ezekiel 3:3–7). John eats a scroll that tastes sweet and turns bitter because the gospel he carries brings life to the believing and judgment to the hardened, and the judgments he must announce are real and near. The prophet’s task has always been to wear both tenderness and steel, to rejoice in God’s word and to weep over cities that will not heed it (Jeremiah 15:16–17; Luke 19:41–44).
Biblical Narrative
John says he saw “another mighty angel coming down from heaven.” He is robed in a cloud with a rainbow over his head, his face like the sun, his legs like pillars of fire, and he places his right foot on the sea and his left on the land while holding a little scroll open in his hand (Revelation 10:1–2). He cries out with a loud voice like a lion roaring, and when he does, seven thunders speak, but John is told to seal up what the thunders said and not write it (Revelation 10:3–4). Then the angel lifts his right hand to heaven and swears by Him who lives forever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them and the earth and all that is in it and the sea and all that is in it, that there will be no more delay, but in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished as He announced to His servants the prophets (Revelation 10:5–7).
That oath brings the scene to its point. The same voice that first spoke to John from heaven tells him to go, take the open scroll from the angel, and eat it. He does, and it is sweet as honey in his mouth, but when he has eaten it, his stomach turns sour. Then he hears the charge: “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings” (Revelation 10:8–11). The next verses show where that prophecy runs first. John measures the temple, altar, and worshipers, a sign of protection and belonging, while the outer court is given to the nations to trample the holy city for forty-two months. Two witnesses prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth, bearing God’s word with power, and are killed by the beast that comes up from the Abyss; but God raises them and calls them up to heaven in a cloud, and a great earthquake strikes the city and many give glory to God (Revelation 11:1–13). Only then does the seventh trumpet sound and heaven proclaim that the kingdom has changed hands forever (Revelation 11:15–17).
Ezekiel’s story supplies the template. The prophet sees a hand stretch out a scroll written front and back with lament, mourning, and woe, and he hears, “Son of man, eat what is before you; eat this scroll; then go and speak to the people of Israel.” He eats and finds it sweet as honey. Then the Spirit lifts him and takes him to the exiles, where he sits overwhelmed for seven days before the Lord makes him a watchman and sets him to speak whether they listen or fail to listen (Ezekiel 2:9–3:3; Ezekiel 3:10–11; Ezekiel 3:15–17). The sweetness is not sentimental. It is the sweetness of truth. But the message itself carries sorrow because it names judgment and calls a stubborn people to turn back while there is time (Ezekiel 33:7–11). John is drawn into the same rhythm of sweetness and ache, and the nations, not only Israel, now fill the horizon of his commission.
The details in Revelation 10 keep that rhythm grounded. The angel’s stance on sea and land matches the scope of the message. The oath by the Creator underlines that history is not spinning without a hand on the wheel. The sealing of the thunders reminds readers that God retains secrets even as He reveals enough to call us to faith and endurance (Deuteronomy 29:29). The declaration that there will be “no more delay” points to the moment when God turns the key on His mystery—the delay between promise and fulfillment—and moves the story to its appointed end as foreannounced through the prophets (Habakkuk 2:3; Revelation 10:7). The little scroll, already open, ensures that the word John must speak is ready; he need not create it; he must receive and deliver it.
Theological Significance
The little scroll teaches us about the nature of revelation. God’s word is not raw data that sits on a desk. It is food for the soul that must be taken in, tasted, and carried in the body of a messenger. Jeremiah said he ate God’s words and they became his joy and his heart’s delight, yet they also set him apart for reproach because the truth he bore cut against the current of his age (Jeremiah 15:16–18). Ezekiel tasted honey and spoke woes. John tasted honey and knew bitterness, not because God’s word is double-minded but because the same sun that melts wax hardens clay, and the same gospel that saves those who believe confirms judgment on those who refuse (2 Corinthians 2:15–16; John 3:36).
The scene also clarifies the identity and mission of the prophetic servant. John is an apostle, yet here he takes the posture of a prophet among prophets, standing in the line of Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel who heard, trembled, and spoke. The command “You must prophesy again” signals that Revelation is not merely a bound book; it is a living word that insists on being announced, explained, and pressed upon “peoples, nations, languages and kings,” a phrase that mirrors the breadth of the Great Commission and the global scope of the judgments to come (Revelation 10:11; Matthew 28:18–20; Revelation 14:6–7). In a dispensational frame, this recommission occurs within Daniel’s seventieth week’s timetable, just as time markers like forty-two months and 1,260 days remind us that the last half of the Tribulation is in view when resistance hardens and witness intensifies (Daniel 9:27; Revelation 11:2–3; Revelation 12:6; Revelation 13:5).
The oath of the mighty angel underscores God’s sovereignty over timing. The angel swears by the Creator that there will be no more delay, and that “in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished” as announced to the prophets (Revelation 10:6–7). That mystery is not the Church as such, which Paul calls a different mystery revealed in this age, but the long-announced plan to bring human rebellion to an end, judge wickedness, save a remnant, and establish the Messiah’s rule on earth as it is in heaven (Ephesians 3:4–6; Isaiah 11:1–9; Zechariah 14:9). When the seventh trumpet sounds, heaven proclaims that the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah, and He will reign forever, a line that marks the accomplishment of what the angel swore would not be delayed (Revelation 11:15; Psalm 2:6–9).
The identity of the angel matters, too. Some read the description and think of the Lord Himself because of the cloud, the rainbow, and the face like the sun. Others hold, with good reason, that this is an exalted angelic messenger, not the Son, because he swears by the One who lives forever and ever and receives commands rather than giving them (Revelation 10:5–7). Either way, the emphasis falls not on speculation but on message. The God who thunders at Sinai and comforted Noah with a rainbow now sends a herald whose stance on sea and land says, “This word governs the whole world,” and whose oath says, “The clock is about to strike” (Genesis 9:13–16; Exodus 19:18–19).
Finally, the little scroll binds judgment and mercy. The sweetness is real because God’s word is true, beautiful, and life-giving. The bitterness is real because that same word spells woe for those who harden themselves. Revelation refuses to let us sanitize either side. The bowls will pour. Babylon will fall. Yet even as trumpets sound, God raises witnesses, calls people out of false worship, and saves a multitude no one can number from every nation, tribe, people, and language who wash their robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 16:1–7; Revelation 18:4; Revelation 7:9–14). The scroll prepares John to speak in that tension and prepares us to hear.
Spiritual Lessons and Application
The first lesson is to eat before you speak. God did not tell John to hold the scroll up or to copy its lines; He told him to take and eat. Ezekiel had to do the same. A messenger who has not tasted the word is likely to wield it as a cudgel or to retreat when crowds frown. But a heart warmed by the sweetness of God’s speech and sobered by its gravity will carry truth with conviction and tears, which is how prophets have always served best (Psalm 119:103–104; Acts 20:31). If you teach, preach, or share your hope, begin where John began. Take, read, pray, and ask God to make His word your food.
The second lesson is to accept the bittersweet of faithful ministry. There is joy in seeing eyes open, burdens lift, and sinners come home. There is also grief in watching some mock, others shrug, and still others rage. John’s sour stomach tells us not to be surprised by sorrow in the path of obedience. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Paul had great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart for his kinsmen. The saints under the altar cry, “How long?” and are told to wait a little longer until the number of their fellow servants is complete (Luke 19:41–44; Romans 9:2–3; Revelation 6:9–11). The bitterness is not failure; it is part of love.
The third lesson is that timing belongs to God, not to rumor. The angel swears that there will be no more delay and ties the completion of God’s mystery to the seventh trumpet. That keeps us from two errors. We must not claim secret knowledge about dates the Lord has not given, because “the secret things belong to the Lord our God.” And we must not live as if delay will stretch on forever, because God is not slow as some understand slowness; He is patient, not wanting any to perish, but the day of the Lord will come (Deuteronomy 29:29; 2 Peter 3:9–10). Live ready. Work steadily. Speak plainly. Hope firmly.
The fourth lesson is to see yourself as part of God’s witness in the world He is judging and saving. John is told to prophesy again about peoples, nations, languages, and kings. Soon the two witnesses will speak in Jerusalem with heaven’s power and earth’s scorn. The Church today is not those two prophets, nor can we duplicate their signs on demand; yet our calling is kin to theirs. We bear the testimony of Jesus and keep God’s commands. We worship the Creator rather than the beast. We call people out of Babylon’s commerce of souls. We endure and refuse the mark of compromise, and we do it with the gospel on our lips and the Lamb’s song in our hearts (Revelation 12:17; Revelation 14:6–12; Revelation 18:13; Revelation 19:10).
The fifth lesson is to love Israel and the nations with the patience of God. Revelation 11 moves from the little scroll to the measuring of a temple and the trampling of the holy city, then to the witnesses in “the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.” It is a hard paragraph with a soft core, because even there God preserves worshipers, numbers days, raises the fallen, and gains glory from the survivors who fear Him (Revelation 11:1–13). Pray for Jerusalem. Pray for rulers and peoples. Speak Christ to neighbors. And remember that the same Lord who numbers hair and sparrows numbers days and witnesses, and He does all things well (Luke 12:6–7; Revelation 11:3).
Conclusion
The little scroll does not detour the story; it advances it. By taking and eating, John becomes the kind of messenger the last stretch of history requires—one who feels the sweetness of God’s truth and the ache of human rebellion and who will speak anyway because the King is worthy. Revelation 10 teaches the Church to live the same way. God still sends His word to be swallowed, not sampled. He still binds sweetness to sorrow in faithful witness. He still swears that there will be no more delay when His hour comes. And He still intends to finish the mystery He announced through the prophets so that the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of His Messiah and He reigns forever and ever (Revelation 10:7; Revelation 11:15).
Until that trumpet sounds, take heart. The Lamb who opens seals and sends angels also raises witnesses and sends His Spirit to strengthen weak knees. Eat the book. Tell the truth. Love your hearers. Endure the bitter with the sweet. And lift your eyes, because the One who says “Surely I am coming soon” keeps all His words, and none of His words return empty (Revelation 22:20; Isaiah 55:10–11).
“So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, ‘Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.’ I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. Then I was told, ‘You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings.’”
(Revelation 10:9–11)
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