1. Revelation 10:1 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

Who is this mighty angel John saw?

Revelation 10:1 (ESV)

1 Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire.

John had seen the seven angels who stood before God, to whom seven trumpets had been given (Revelation 8:2), and he had observed six of the seven angels blowing their trumpets (Revelation 8:7 – 9:21). So his attention is now invariably on the seventh angel, with John expecting him to blow his trumpet. But instead of seeing the seventh angel raise his trumpet to his lips to blow it, John’s attention is diverted away from the seventh angel with the vision of Revelation 10:1: a different angel appears, “another” one, in contrast to the seventh (and the other six angels). This one is mighty in a way the previous seven angels were not. Those seven had a position before God (Revelation 8:2) and so were ready and able to do whatever God commanded (Hebrews 1:14), but this angel was uniquely “mighty,” which means powerful, strong. That becomes clear from the descriptions of the following verses. The precise identity of this angel is not revealed to us and so we do well not to speculate as to his name.