Robert Thomas' Exegetical Treatment of Revelation 4:11

The combination ēsan kai ektisthēsan has occasioned various explanations. One takes the former verb to express the existence of creation in the will of God before its actual existence and the latter verb to refer to the actual creation (Swete; Charles). In other words, ēsan looks back to the eternal past and ektisthēsan pictures the genesis of nature (Swete). This view furnishes a possible explanation of the imperfect tense of ēsan, but it introduces into the context a completely foreign element, the thought of the potential existence of cre- ation (Beckwith). The imperfect tense could just as well view the state of creation immediately after the initial creative act. Another approach to this combination of verbs has been to understand the second as explanatory of the first.¹⁰⁷ Existence, first thought of as an accomplished fact, is made more specific by the latter verb (Beckwith). This proposal is modeled after the creation account in Genesis where the general description of man's creation in Genesis 1 is followed by a more detailed account in Genesis 2 (Charles; Beckwith; Ladd). The debilitating deficiency of this view is the difference between the two verbs. They convey two significantly distinct thoughts, and construing the latter as elaboration of the former is impossible. A third explanation for the two-verb combination is the figure of hysteron proteron, because of the non-chronological arrangement of the two: certainly the τίσις (ktisis, “creation”) must exist before one can say ēsan. The latter verb is proposed to be the act of creation, and the former one the process of creation (Moffatt). Though hysteron proteron is a common literary device of this author (cf. Rev. 3:9, 17) (Beckwith), it is unnecessary to resort to it because of the reverse chronological sequence of the two verbs. The writer may be thinking logically rather than chronologically. The simplest and most satisfactory explanation is that the two verbs speak of the simple fact of the creation's existence (ēsan) and then of the fact of the beginning of its existence (ektisthēsan) (Alford; Ladd). All created things (ta panta) existed in contrast to their prior nonexistence, and God gave them that existence by a specific act of His own power.

Thomas quotes Henry Alford. Here's what he writes about Revelation 4:11:

The elders, though themselves belonging to creation, in this ascription of praise look on creation from without, and that thanksgiving, which creation renders for its being, becomes in their view a tribute to Him who called them into being, and thus a testimony to His creative power. And thus the reason follows): because Thou didst create all things (τὰ πάντα, “this universal whole,” the universe), and on account of Thy will (i. e. because Thou didst will it: “propter voluntatem tuam,” as Vulg.: not durch Deinen Willen, as Luther, which represents διὰ with a gen. “For thy pleasure,” of the E. V., introduces an element entirely strange to the context, and however true in fact, most inappropriate here, where the ὅτι renders a reason for the ἀξιότης of ἡ δόξα, ἡ τιμή, and ἡ δύναμις) they were (ἦσαν, not = ἐγενήθησαν, came into being, as De W., al.: for this it cannot signify: nor again, though thus the requirement of ἦσαν would be satisfied, as Lyra, “in dispositione tua ab æterno, antequam crearentur:” nor, as Grot., “erant jam homines quia tu volueras, et conditi sunt, id est, iterum conditi, per Christum:” nor again as Bengel, “all things were, from the creation down to the time of this ascription of praise and henceforward.” The best explanation is that of Düsterd., they existed, as in contrast to their previous non-existence: whereby not their coming into being, but the simple fact of their being, is asserted.

The remarkable reading οὐκ ἦσαν is worth notice: “by reason of Thy will they were not, and were created:” i. e. “they were created out of nothing.” But besides the preponderance of authority the other way, there is the double chance, that οὐκ may have arisen from the preceding ου, and that it may have been an escape from the difficulty of ἦσαν) and were created (they both had their being,— ἦσαν; and received it from Thee by a definite act of Thine,— ἐκτίσθησαν).

Sources:

Henry Alford, "Commentary on Revelation 4:4." Greek Testament Critical Exegetical Commentary. https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/hac/revelation-4.html. 1863-1878.

Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 1-7: An Exegetical Commentary. Chicago: Moody Press, 1992.

________________. Revelation 8-22: An Exegetical Commentary. Chicago: Moody Press, 1995.