Henry Alford on Revelation 16:5

Henry Alford (1810-1871), Dean of Canterbury, is apparently best known for his New Testament commentary, "The Greek Testament."

Alford writes: 

saying, Thou art righteous who art and wast (as in ch. Revelation 11:17 , the καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος is omitted. For the construction, see reff.) holy (I incline against Düsterd., to the usual connexion, viz. the making ὅσιος belong to ὁ ὢν κ . ὁ ἦν , and not in apposition with δικαιος . And that which moves me to it is, 1) the extreme improbability of two epithets, δίκαιος and ὅσιος , both being predicated in such an acknowledgment of an act of justice: and 2) that as I have taken it, it best agrees with the ὅσιος in ch. Revelation 15:4 , where it is predicated of God not as the result of any manifested acts of His, but as an essential attribute confined to Him alone),

Notice that Alford in his disagreement offers us two ways in which hosios can be understood in the text.  The best understanding is one that connects it back to Revelation 15:4, no doubt.  Moreover, all God's attributes are not a result of what God does, but instead what God does reveals who God is.  In this case, though, I think that the very fitting death sentence in Revelation 16:5 shows both God's justice and his hosiotis.

At Revelation 1:4, Alford writes:

 from Him who is and who was and who is to come (a paraphrase of the unspeakable name יהוה , resembling the paraphrase אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה in Exodus 3:14 , for which the Jerusalem Targum has, as here, qui fuit, est, et erit : as has the Targum of Jonathan in Deuteronomy 32:39 , Schemoth R. 3. f. 105. 2: “Dixit Deus S. B. ad Mosen: Ego fui et adhuc sum, et ero in posterum.” Schöttg., Wetst., De Wette. “ ὁ ἐρχόμενος , instants , i. e., futurus : ut Marc. 10:30. Caret lingua Hebræa participio quale est ἐσόμενος .” Ewald. Each of the appellations by itself is to be regarded as a proper name ὁ ὤν , ὁ ἦν (not ὃ ἦν : the imperf. or aor. being used in the lack of a past participle of εἰμί ), and ὁ ἐρχόμενος : and it follows from what is remarked above that the meaning of ἐρχόμενος is not here to be pressed as referring to any future coming , any more than in its English representative, “He that is to come .” By doing so we should confuse the meaning of the compound appellation which evidently is all to be applied to the Father, ὡς αὐτοῦ περιέχοντος ἐν ἑαυτῷ πάντων τῶν ὄντων τὴν ἀρχὴν καὶ τὰ μέσα καὶ τὰ τελευταῖα , as the second alternative in the Catena. In the first (Arethas?) ὁ ὤν is supposed to mean the Father ( ἐγὼ εἰμὶ ὁ ὤν , as said to Moses), ὁ ἦν the Son ( ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος ), and ὁ ἐρχόμενος the Spirit, as ever proceeding forth and descending on the Church. Hengstenb., who presses the literal sense of ἐρχόμενος , avoids this confusion, but falls into that of making the covenant Jehovah, Father, Son, and Spirit, come to judge the world and the Church. At least so it would seem: for when he comes to this the weak part of his exegesis, he obscures his meaning by raising a cloud of rhetorical description of what shall take place at that coming. He connects ἐρχόμενος with ἰδοὺ ἔρχεται μετὰ τῶν νεφ . below, in spite of the καὶ ἀπὸ … καὶ ἀπό intervening. It is needless to say, that that ἔρχεται is to be referred to the last subject only, viz. to Ἰησοῦς χριστός . And wherever the ἔρχομαι ταχύ , with which he also connects it, occurs, it is distinctly said of the glorified Saviour),

Notice how insistent Alford is against the idea that "the coming one" has anything to do with coming, instead treating it as a periphrastic future. While Alford has an explanation for why ὁ ἦν is used, Alford does not offer any explanation for why ho esomenos is not used, if that is what John meant.  The "Hengstenb." he criticizes is the Hengstenberg we previously reviewed (link to discussion).