The speaker in Revelation 22:16 is Jesus. The text says so, but the angel, whom Jesus sent to John, may be quoting Jesus as opposed to John actually hearing Jesus speak these words. However, no matter how one sees this, Jesus says he is the root and the offspring of David and the bright morning star. But, what does Jesus mean? First of all, Jesus claimed to be the offspring of David, which, taken at face value, means he is **the** descendant of David, or the one the nation had been seeking, since the time when David was the king. Jesus is claiming to be the Messiah (cp. Luke 2:25, 38; 23:51; Mark 15:43).
Secondly, Jesus claims to be the root of David. This can be taken in one of two ways. First of all, it could mean Jesus is the root of the tree of David that had been cut down. In other words the root that survived the destruction of the Davidic line. In this context it points once more to Jesus being the Messiah. Yet, there is a flaw in this understanding, in that the ‘root’ of David, according to Scripture is his father , Jesse (Isaiah 11:1). Indeed, the Branch does grow out of the root to become the Messiah, but the ‘root’ is Jesse, not the Lord. Secondly, the root of David can also mean he who produced David the king, that is, he is the Lord who made David king in the first place. This latter point of view is the position I take, and I do so for two reasons. First of all, if both the root and the offspring of David pointed to the same meaning, the Greek, in so far as I can tell, should have been written to say “the root and offspring of David” (only one article, not two), but this isn’t so in the original manuscript. The Greek has the article before both nouns. That is, the Greek has it: “the root and the offspring of David. This seems to point to two different matters that concern David, the king.
Secondly, I believe the Lord, himself, spoke to this matter in the days of his flesh. Notice:
What do you think of Christ? Whose son is he? They say to Him, David’s. He said to them, How then does David by the Spirit call him Lord, saying, “the LORD said to my Lord, Sit on My right until I make Your enemies Your footstool for Your feet?” If David then calls Him Lord, how is He his son? (Matthew 22:42-45)
It seems to me that both the idea of Jesus being the Messiah, i.e. the descendant of David, and the one who made David the king of Israel, are present in Jesus’ argument. If it is so here, I see no good reason to doubt its presence at Revelation 22:16, yet many scholars deny this is what the Apocalypse is conveying.
The verse concludes with Jesus’ claim that he is the bright morning star (Revelation 22:16). The Greek text is emphatic declaring Jesus is the star, the bright, the morning. The physical or literal ‘morning star’ is Venus, and it can either lead or trail the sun in the sky. When it trails the sun, it is the brightest evening star. However, when it ‘leads’ the dawn of the sun, it becomes the brightest morning star, and it is seen in the eastern sky just before sunrise, but how should we understand this in the context of Revelation 22:16?
We need to keep in mind that the morning star was used to prophesy of the coming of the Messiah as far back as the time the children of Israel were about to enter the Promised Land (Numbers 24:17), thus establishing the Mosaic Covenant.[1] Similarly, and in the context of the nearness of the fulfillment of the Apocalypse (viz. Revelation 1:1, 3; 3:11; 22:6-7, 10, 12, 20), and in the context of the elect seeking the arrival of the Kingdom of God (Luke 1:78; 2:25, 38; 23:51; Mark 15:43), the bright morning star points to that new day, that is the arrival of the new heaven and the new earth (Revelation 21:1), which is the establishment of the New Covenant. When Jesus, the bright morning star, arrived, he brought the Old Covenant to its conclusion by destroying Jerusalem and the Temple. When this was accomplished, he said he made all things new (Revelation 21:4). That is, he ushered in the New Covenant: the new heaven and the new earth (Revelation 21:1).
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[1] It is one thing to draw up a national constitution having laws that govern a nation. It is quite another to implement that constitution by becoming that nation, recognized as legitimate in the eyes of neighboring nations. Israel drew up its “constitution” in the wilderness, but it couldn’t fully implement that “constitution” until it entered and seized the Promised Land.
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