Revelation 2:17

Hath an ear. See on v. 7.

Him that overcometh. See on v. 7.

Hidden manna. See Ex. 16:14–36. Some think the allusion here may be to the manna Aaron placed in a pot and preserved in the ark (Ex. 16:33; Heb. 9:4). An ancient Jewish teaching declares that when the Messiah would come, “the treasury of manna shall again descend from on high, and they will eat of it in those years” (2 Baruch 29:8; R. H. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2, p. 498). In view of John 6:31–34 it seems that John here intends manna to be symbolic of spiritual life in Christ now, and eternal life in the hereafter (see on John 6:32, 33).

White stone. Various ancient customs have been suggested as providing a basis for this allusion to the gift of a white stone, but none of these is altogether satisfactory. One of the more common ancient customs was that of the use of a white and a black stone by jurors to determine acquittal or conviction. All that may be said with reasonable certainty is that John doubtless refers to some ceremony involving the bestowal of a special gift or honor.

New name. In the Bible a person’s name often stands for his character, and a new name would indicate a new character. The new is not patterned after the old, but replaces it and is different from it. Here the Christian is promised a “new name,” that is, a new and different character, patterned after that of God (cf. Isa. 62:2; 65:15; Rev. 3:12).

No man knoweth. The experience of spiritual rebirth, of the transformation of character, can be understood only by personal experience. Attempts to explain this experience to a man who himself has not been born again can never convey a true or complete picture of it (cf. John 3:5–8).