Revelation 2:21Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Their harmful heresy did not use for good the time given to it for repentance. Continuing to speak figuratively, He likens the cunning and flattery of the heretics to a harlot. He threatens to strike her with death and diseases, and also all who have been defiled with her and have fornicated before God, unless they turn to Him through repentance.

Disease and weakness are foretold for this teaching, and the impotence of the bed, that is, the pleasure of this world. To those who fornicate in the teaching, great condemnation is promised on the day of judgment. For Jezebel is translated as a pit of filth or as the shedding of blood. What else can be understood in the filth of a dung heap and in blood, if not wickedness and sin brought by transgression? Therefore He righteously foretells future punishment for them if they do not offer zealous repentance for their deeds. For He recalls that He will condemn her children, that is, her disciples, to the second death.

By the bed is meant here the security of apostates. The wicked imagine this security for themselves because their crimes go unpunished. After sinning, they do not experience the manifest wrath of God, and they despise punishment and repentance.

They continue so until the sudden wrath of God overtakes them, like the pains of a woman in childbirth, and they are turned to flight. It is said that such security is given them by God when they are left for a hidden but just judgment.

Almost nine hundred years before Christ, the impious Ahab reigned in Israel. In his days idolatry reached an extreme degree. He was married to Jezebel, daughter of the king of Sidon, a corrupt woman with a malicious heart. She slew all the prophets of God in the kingdom of Israel.

She introduced public acts of fornication among the people and deceived them with various forms of sorcery. To establish seductive groves and pagan abominations, she maintained five hundred false prophets at her own expense.

In the Apocalypse, under the name Jezebel, there is depicted a heresy that corrupted the minds of the simple people and pretended to have the gift of prophecy. But Jezebel was thrown from the window of her palace, trampled by horses, and eaten by dogs.

Yet it is not good that the Church of Thyatira submitted to the influence of some false prophetess. The Lord calls her Jezebel, probably because this prophetess also drew Christians into fornication and the eating of meat sacrificed to idols. In the same way Queen Jezebel had formerly drawn the kingdom of Israel into these things.

Let this prophetess and her followers not think that God approves her actions because He does not punish her. He does this only to give her time to repent.

Since she still will not repent, the Lord will cast her sick upon the very bed on which she committed fornication. Those who committed fornication with her He will cast into great tribulation.