Who is judging who in Revelation 20:4?

Question

The following verse towards the end of Revalation has an interesting turn of phrase:

Revelation 20:4 (ESV) (emphasis mine)
⁴  Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

Most translations I've checked have something pretty similar here, but a few of them differ quite radically.

Revelation 20:4 (NASB) (emphasis mine)
⁴  Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

I have heard this verse preached two different ways, one which has people judging something or other and another which has them being judged. This seems like a pretty significant different interpretation, but judging from the various translations it looks like there might also be ambiguity in the original.

My Greek ... isn't. What exactly is going on in this verse that leaves translators in the position of filling in gaps, and for those translations that do try to make sense out of it, what else do they have in the passage to build on? Is the same phrase used elsewhere in Revelation?

Answer 1

Καὶ εἶδον θρόνους, καὶ ἐκάθισαν ἐπ’ αὐτούς, καὶ κρίμα ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς is the phrase in question.

"And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them..."

αὐτοῖς is a dative plural and, outside of its temporal function, usually indicates indirect object. This would result in the latter of the two renderings (which is by no means conclusive anyway - "judgment was given to them" does not imply that they were "judged."). However, the lack of another good candidate for direct object in this phrase (αὐτούς and its referent θρόνους would render a nonsense translation).

So could this be a direct object? In many other languages, the Dative can be used as a direct object when dealing with bestowal, or transfer of possession. In Koine Greek another common use of the Dative direct object is one of close personal relationship.

What does all of this mean? The NASB probably has the best pure rendering of the Greek. However, many of the suppositions that follow are usually rooted in bias or theological understanding. So, one person can read it as "the judgment that God declared was pronounced upon them" while another person could see it as "the object/concept/authority that is judgment was given to them." It's still syntactically ambiguous.

The theme of the rest of the following phrases and clauses (until we get to a transition in v. 7) seems to indicate a positive connotation for the referents in this passage. So while I'm inclined to say that the NASB is the most accurate translation, it also seems to lead to some misunderstanding which makes the ESV hold more closely to the author's intent.