I believe the Greek word translated "quickly" can also be translated "suddenly."
Makes a marked difference, doesn't it?
It may alter the sense to translate it that way, but it goes against the context.
The book opens with the statement: "This is a revelation from Jesus Christ which God granted him to show to his servants what must quickly come to pass (ha dei genesthai en takhei)" (Revelation 1:1), and while one could possibly understand the statement in a non-imminent sense as "events which must occur with quickness (whenever they do occur)", the very next sentence militates against this reading: "How fortunate is the one who reads aloud and those who both hear these prophetic words and obey what is written herein, for the time is at hand (ho kairos eggus)" (v. 3). The same statements occur together in the book's conclusion:
Revelation 22:6-7, 10-12: "Then he said to me, 'These words are faithful and true, and the Lord, the God of the spirits, sent his angel to reveal to his servants what must quickly come to pass (ha dei genesthai en takhei). Indeed, I will come quickly (erkhomai takhu)....He said to me, 'Do not seal up the words of this prophetic book, for the time is at hand (ho kairos eggus). Let the person who is unjust continue to act unjustly and let the person who is morally depraved continue to be depraved, and let the person who is righteous act righteously, and let the person who is holy continue to be holy.' Indeed, I am coming soon (erkhomai takhu). and my reward is with me to repay to each in proportion to his or her behavior".
On the sense of ho kairos eggus as pertaining to eschatological imminence, see Luke 21:8: "See to it that you are not misled; for many will come in my name saying, 'I am he', and 'The time is at hand (ho kairos éggiken)'. Do not go after them". Another similar text referring to the duration of time intervening until the end is James 5:7: "Be patient (makrothemesate), brothers, until the Lord's coming (parousia) has drawn near (éggiken)". While the author of James is still waiting patiently for the time to become at hand, the time already is at hand in Revelation. So takhus used together with eggus makes it quite clear that the former is to be understood in terms of imminence. The same sense occurs in Revelation 11:14: "The second woe has occurred (apélthen), the third woe is coming shortly (erkhetai takhu)". Here we have a sequence of woes and the third still lies in the future but it does not lie very far into the future. The sense of imminence (i.e. without delay) is most common elsewhere with takhus:
Matthew 5:25: "Settle matters quickly(takhu) with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison". (i.e. one is to settle matters without any delay)
Matthew 28:5-8: "The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Now go quickly (takhu) and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee' "... So the women hurried away (apelthousai takhu) from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran (edramon) to tell his disciples". (i.e. the women were to tell the disciples about Jesus' resurrection without any delay)
Mark 9:38-39: " 'Teacher,' said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us'. 'Do not stop him,' Jesus said. 'No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment (takhu) say anything bad about me' ". (i.e. someone performing a miracle in Jesus' name cannot curse him in the very next moment without delay)
Luke 15:22: "But the father said to his servants, 'Quick (takhu)! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet' ". (i.e. the servants were to bring the prodigal son expensive garments without any delay)
John 11:28-29: "And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. 'The Teacher is here,' she said, 'and is asking for you.' When Mary heard this, she got up quickly (takhu) and went to him". (i.e. Mary responded without delay to her sister's announcement of Jesus' arrival)
A number of other contextual observations may be made. In Revelation 22:6-12, where takhus and eggus are used together, John is instructed to "not seal up the words of this prophetic book, for the time is at hand". This is a reversal of the formula from Daniel 8:26, 12:4, 9 in which Daniel was instructed to seal up the book until the "time of the end"; this was an internal plot device in Daniel to explain why no one had seen this book until it suddenly appeared in the second century BC — it was hidden until the eschatological time came for it to be unsealed and circulate among the people. The same motif is common in apocalyptic. In the Assumption of Moses, for example, Joshua was commanded by Moses to embalm and conceal his revelation in clay jars where they would wait until the day of repentance (1:17-18). John of Patmos reverses this motif because the book was not intended to be concealed until the distant future; the book was meant to be circulated immediately, "for (gar, explaining the reason) the time is at hand". The book must not be sealed up because events are going to transpire very quickly, rendering the revelation pointless if it is not used (such as being read aloud before the people of the churches in Asia Minor, 1:3) right away. The messages to the seven churches make the same point that they will personally expect to witness the Lord's coming. To the church at Pergamum, Jesus is represented as saying: "Repent therefore! I will shortly come (erkhomai takhu) to you (soi) and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth" (2:16). To the church of Philadelphia, he is represented as saying that because "you have kept my command to endure patiently (hupomenés), I will also keep you (se) from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth. I am coming shortly (erkhomai takhu)" (3:11). Here Jesus promises the patient people of Philadelphia who have remained steadfast that he will personally spare them the hour of trial that is coming upon the whole earth, and that they will not have to wait much longer because he is coming shortly. Imminence is explicit in the message to the Smyrnaeans in 2:10: "Do not be afraid of what you are about (melleis)to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life". This is mentioned in the same imminent tones as the messages to the other churches, such as the message to the church at Sardis: "Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about (emellon) to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent" (3:2). And similarly with respect to the church at Laodicea: "Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock" (v. 19-20). Throughout all of this, the idea is that judgment is very shortly at hand.
The idea of imminence is found elsewhere in the book. In 1:7, the author says that "he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him (hoitines auton exekentésan), and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him". This is parallel to Jesus' solemn promise to the Sanhedrin in Mark 14:62: "You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven" (cf. Matthew 10:23, 16:27-28, 24:34, Mark 8:38-9:1, 13:30). The idea is that the people responsible for Jesus' death will live to see his return on the clouds of heaven. Then in ch. 6, the opening of the fifth seal of his vision reveals that the souls of those slain (= the martyrdom of the saints by Rome mentioned in 17:6) who are waiting in heaven for their vengeance and they are told to "wait a little longer (khronon mikron) until the full number of their fellow servants and brothers to be killed will be completed" (6:9-11). Here the time remaining is only a khronon mikron, a brief amount of time. How brief is explained further in ch. 17. There John refers to a succession of seven kings of Rome and he explicitly locates his "now" within that succession: "Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for a little while (oligon). The Beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king" (v. 10-11), and it is during the tyranny of the Beast when Jesus will bring about his vengeance (ch. 19). In other words, the time separating the current ruler of Rome from the Beast is only the reign of the seventh king who will rule only for a short while (in comparison to the previous rulers). So the author depicts the end as not decades away, but probably only years and the Beast himself rules for only 42 months (13:5, via an interpretation of Daniel 9:27 in which the figure of the Beast resumes the role of Antiochus Epiphanes in the original vision).
