After this I looked, and lo, in heaven an open door!: the opening phrase After this formally closes one event and begins another one (see 7.1, 9; 15.5; 18.1). One may also translate “After all these events (or, these things) had happened,” or even “After I had seen all these things.” I looked indicates that John is having a vision: Revised English Bible “I had a vision”; Good News Translation “I had another vision” (after the first one that begins at 1.12); similar are An American Translation, Barclay, Bible en français courant. In languages that do not distinguish between dreams and visions, one may render I looked as “I again saw as in a dream” or “I dreamed again and saw.”

Lo: see comments on “Behold” in 1.7. New Revised Standard Version reads “and there in heaven.” Many translators may wish to follow this model.

As noticed in 3.12, the same Greek word can mean “sky” or “heaven” (in Matt 16.1 it means “heaven”; in 16.2, “sky”). Here “sky” is not an appropriate translation; God dwells in heaven, which is not regarded as a physical place.

An open door: this translates the perfect passive participle of the verb “to open”; “a door that had been opened.” The emphasis, however, is not on who opened it or when it was opened, but on the fact that it was open when John looked at it. In those cultures where doors are not used or known, one may say, for example, “An opening into heaven.”

The first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet: the voice issues out of heaven, through the open door. It is the same voice that John had heard before (1.10), the voice of Christ. It is not necessary to translate literally the first voice; it is more natural to say “the voice I had heard before” or “the voice that had spoken to me earlier.”

Said: the Greek has the masculine participle, which does not agree either with voice or with trumpet, both of which are feminine. But John is referring to the one who spoke, that is, Christ, not to a disembodied voice. In certain languages it will be more natural to render this clause as “And the person who had a voice like a trumpet spoke to me again and said….”

Come up hither: New Revised Standard Version has, more appropriately, “Come up here.” The command does not indicate how John will get there; this is a vision, not a physical or metaphysical experience.

I will show you what must take place after this: for the whole phrase see 1.19; for must see 1.1. The phrase after this is rather vague: it means simply “in the future” but does not specify whether it will be soon or much later. In light of 1.1, however, it is reasonable to suppose that the time for these things to happen will be soon. Another way of expressing this clause is “I will cause you to see (or, let you see) the things that will happen after this.”

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• After I had seen all these things, I dreamed again and saw that there was an opening (or, door) into heaven. And the person who had a voice like a trumpet spoke to me again and said, “Come up here and I will let you see the things that will happen after this.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Revelation to John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .