John had earlier seen elders wearing crowns on their heads (Revelation 4:4), which indicated victory and kingship (Revelation 9:7). Instead of a crown, though, this mighty angel wore a rainbow. (The word “over” translates the same word as appears in Revelation 4:4 and Revelation 9:7 with “on”.) John had seen the rainbow already in his initial vision of God; arching over the throne on which the Lord God was seated was a rainbow (Revelation 4:3). Directly after the earth‑destroying flood in the days of Noah, the Lord had placed the rainbow in the sky as a sign of his unending faithfulness to the earth (Genesis 9:13). The rainbow John saw arching over God’s heavenly throne reassured him of God’s faithfulness to Planet Earth in the midst of all the things John would see in coming chapters. Now that this mighty angel comes to earth with a particular message, the church must know before she hears this angel’s message that his Sender’s allegiance to the inhabitants of Planet Earth remains unchanged.
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.