We encounter here two commands (Fear! Give!). This is the kind of language that befits a superior party addressing an inferior. This angel comes from heaven and so speaks with the authority of the Victor, Jesus Christ (Revelation 12:10–12). He speaks to the inferior, to earthlings, to people made of dust. These earthlings have the dragon and his beasts as their captain, their saviour and deity (Revelation 13:4, Revelation 13:12), but even that does not change their inferior and defeated status relative to the angel’s Sender. Not surprisingly, these earth-dwellers are instructed to “fear God” (stand in awe of him, respect him, and therefore take his judgment seriously) and “give him glory” (join the choruses of heaven in praising this glorious God, Revelation 11:16–18; Revelation 12:12). No other response, of course, is fitting to the victory described in Revelation 12:7–9.
7 And he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”