Revelation 21:24 had told us that “the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.” Revelation 21:26 replaces the reference to “the kings of the earth” with the pronoun “they,” an obvious allusion to those very kings. But what they bring into the city differs in these two verses. Revelation 21:24 had the kings bringing their own glory into the city, while Revelation 21:26 has these same kings bringing in the “glory…of the nations,” and underscores the word “glory” by adding the parallel term “honor.” With the gates never being shut and it never becoming dark, the passage presses on the reader that the kings take advantage of the opportunity before them to keep bringing their glory into the city. Notice that the transport of goods goes in one direction only! This is action that happens in the present dispensation. Whether deliberate or not, kings (and other people of note) have laid remarkable inventions at the disposal of the church in advancing the kingdom of God; think only of the role the printing press played in the Great Reformation.
26 They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.