Five-minute study · Day 340 · Revelation 22
Revelation 22:20
A word worth stopping on: come ἔρχομαι erchomai
'He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.' This is the last prayer in the Bible. The Greek verb is erchomai, come, in the imperative. It is a command born from longing. John, exiled on Patmos, aged, separated from his churches, having just received the most overwhelming vision in Scripture, responds with two words in Greek: erchou, kyrie. Come, Lord. The sentence echoes the Aramaic Maranatha from 1 Corinthians 16:22, one of the oldest prayers in the Christian tradition, so early that Paul left it untranslated for his Greek-speaking audience. The Bible opens with God speaking creation into existence. It closes with a human voice calling the Creator back.
Word study: come
- Greek
- ἔρχομαι
- Pronounced
- erchomai
- Strong's
- G2064
- Definition
- To come, to arrive, to appear, to make one's appearance. A fundamental verb of motion indicating movement toward the speaker or toward a specified location. In the imperative: a summons, a request for arrival.
Erchomai appears 634 times in the New Testament, making it one of the most common verbs in Greek scripture. BDAG defines it as 'to come, go, move toward.' The word spans the entire narrative of the New Testament, from the angel's announcement to Mary ('The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,' Luke 1:35) to the final prayer of the canon.
Aune's commentary on Revelation (WBC) identifies 22:20 as the conclusion of a dialogical exchange between Jesus and John. Jesus declares, 'Surely I come quickly' (nai, erchomai tachy). John responds, 'Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus' (Amen. erchou, kyrie Iesou). The exchange is liturgical in structure. Aune argues that it reflects the worship pattern of the early church, where a prophetic declaration would be met with a congregational response. The 'Amen' confirms the declaration. The 'erchou' converts it into prayer.
The connection to Maranatha (1 Corinthians 16:22) is significant. Maranatha is Aramaic: marana tha, 'Our Lord, come!' or maran atha, 'Our Lord has come.' Paul includes it without translation in a letter to Greek-speaking Corinthians, which indicates that the phrase was so widely known in the early church that translation was unnecessary. It functioned as a liturgical formula, spoken at worship gatherings, possibly at the eucharistic meal (the Didache 10:6, a late first-century document, places Maranatha at the close of a eucharistic prayer). The prayer was pre-Pauline, Aramaic-speaking, Palestinian in origin, one of the earliest Christian utterances preserved in the New Testament.
Aune notes that the imperative erchou in Revelation 22:20 is the Greek equivalent of the Aramaic Maranatha. The last book of the Bible ends with the same prayer that the earliest communities spoke. The theology is compressed into a single verb: the one who came (in incarnation), who comes (in Spirit), will come (in glory). The imperative asks for the final arrival. John's prayer is the prayer of every generation of the church since. It is still unanswered, which means it is still being prayed.
Historical context · c. AD 90-96
Patmos, Exile, and the Closing Prayer of Scripture
John writes Revelation from Patmos, a small rocky island in the Aegean Sea, approximately 55 kilometers southwest of Miletus. Revelation 1:9 identifies his presence on Patmos as the result of exile 'for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.' Roman authorities used island exile (relegatio in insulam) as a punishment for political and religious offenses, a step below execution. The exile removed the person from their community and their influence.
Patmos is roughly 34 square kilometers of volcanic rock, with limited vegetation and a small population. Archaeological evidence from the island includes a cave (the Cave of the Apocalypse, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site) traditionally identified as the location where John received his vision. Whether or not the specific cave can be authenticated, the conditions of exile on a small Aegean island are well documented: isolation, exposure to weather, limited food supply, and separation from everything familiar.
Aune situates Revelation 22:20 within the broader context of first-century Christian eschatological expectation. The early church lived in the tension between the 'already' and the 'not yet': Christ had already come, died, risen, and ascended; Christ had not yet returned in glory to complete the work. The Maranatha prayer captured this tension in a single phrase. Paul's use of it in 1 Corinthians 16:22 (c. AD 53-55) places it among the earliest strata of Christian tradition, predating the written Gospels.
The Didache, a church manual likely composed between AD 70-100, includes Maranatha at the conclusion of its eucharistic liturgy: 'Let grace come, and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David. If anyone is holy, let him come; if anyone is not, let him repent. Maranatha. Amen.' The prayer moves from worship to longing to summons. Revelation 22:20 enacts the same movement. Jesus speaks. John responds. The Bible ends with a human voice calling across the distance: come. The prayer is forty words from the end of Scripture. Everything that follows, 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen,' is benediction. The last prayer has already been spoken.
For reflection
The Bible ends with a prayer, not a statement. The final human words in Scripture are a request: come, Lord Jesus. John has just seen heaven opened, the new Jerusalem descending, every tear wiped away. He has seen the ending. And his response is to ask for it to arrive. What are you waiting for God to finish? Say the prayer aloud. Two words are enough. Come, Lord.
Maranatha was spoken by Aramaic-speaking believers in Palestine before Paul ever wrote a letter. The prayer is older than most of the New Testament. You are joining a line of voices that stretches back to the beginning of the church.
Sources: BDAG; Aune, "Revelation" (WBC)