Chapter I

The Apocalypse in Haggai

Haggai prophesied about a century after Zephaniah; and was contemporary with Zechariah, and the rebuilding of the Temple after the return from Babylon. He stirred the people up to finish it. Zerubbabel, son of David, and ancestor of Joseph the husband of Mary, and of Mary and Jesus, was Governor of Judah under the Persians; and Joshua, the son of Josedec, high priest. These were “men of sign;” that is, men representative of ONE, who shall afterwards himself occupy, at one and the same time, the position of Governor and High Priest of the nation. Zerubbabel and Joshua are so regarded both by Haggai and Zechariah. In reference to the apocalypse of the Holy One they typified, Jehovah says in Haggai, “Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry; and I will shake all nations, and that to be desired of all nations they shall come (באו bahu, 3 p. plur.), and I will fill this house with glory. And this “yet once more,” says Paul, “signifieth the removing of those things which may be shaken as of things that are constituted, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” The heavens and earth shaken in the Babylonian desolation, were shaken “once more” in the Roman. But the time approaches when the heavens, earth, sea, and dry land of the Gentile world, are also to be convulsed. Therefore Jehovah commanded Haggai to speak to Zerubbabel, and say, “I will p. 54 shake the heavens and the earth: and I will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother. In that day, saith Jehovah of armies, I will take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, son of Shealtiel, and will make thee as a signet; for I have chosen thee, saith Jehovah of armies”—ch. ii. 6, 7, 21-23. Now as these things did not come to pass in the lifetime of Zerubbabel, he was either a representative of his descendant the Son of Mary who shall be the ensign; or he must be raised from the dead if it is to be personally accomplished in him. Whichever alternative may be accepted, this is certain, that Zerubbabel is to be a living man when the shaking of the nations predicted shall come to pass. The prophesy, then, relates to our future, and will be found hereafter to have been incorporated in some of the scenes of the Apocalypse.

The Apocalypse in Zechariah

The next prophet in the order of the Old Testament is ZECHARIAH; a book which, like all the preceding, is intimately connected with the Apocalypse of the Anointed Jesus. Zachariah was contemporary with Zerubbabel, Joshua the High Priest, and Haggai, and prophesied about 520 years before the birth of Jesus.

Like John in Patmos, Zechariah had a Vision of Horses of divers colors—red horses, bay horses, and pale horses, ranged behind a Man upon a red horse, standing among myrtle-trees. The branches of myrtle-trees were used in the construction of booths under which Israel dwelt in celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles. In their rebelliousness the Jews are regarded as briers and thorns; but in restoration, because of righteousness, they are olive-branches, pine-branches, myrtle-branches, and palm-branches. When, therefore, it is prophesied in Isaiah lv. 13, “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree: and it shall be to Jehovah for a name, for an Aion-memorial that shall not be cut off;” and in ch. xli. 19, “I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah-tree, and the myrtle, and the olive-tree: I will set in the desert the fir-tree, the pine, and the box-tree together; that they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of Jehovah hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel (Christ) hath created it:”—when these things are declared, it not only imports that the land previously desolate shall become like Eden, the Garden of Jehovah (Ezek. xxxvi. 35), but that all its inhabitants in Messiah’s Olahm, the Millennial Aion, shall be p. 55 “trees of righteousness, the planting of Jehovah, that he might be glorified”—Isai. lxi. 3.

These considerations fix the time of Zechariah’s horses at rest,—at the Feast of Tabernacles first ensuing, when the Holy One of Israel, the Man on the Red Horse, shall have completed his conquests, and shall be Prince of Peace in the midst of Israel. He and his cavalry march to and fro through the earth with blood, signified by redness, famine by the bay, and pestilence by the pale or whitish, until the earth is reduced to submission, and obtains rest from these calamities. This vision is reproduced in the Apocalypse, only on a more extended scale; but with the same result.

“Thus saith Jehovah of armies,” who, as Moses saith, “is a Man of War” and “a Jealous Power,” “I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with great jealousy. And I am very sore displeased with the nations at ease; for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction.” Now, if this were the state of Jehovah’s mind in the days of Zechariah, what must be the intensity of his jealousy for Jerusalem and Zion at this day! The Chaldeans destroyed Jerusalem, and burned the temple, and overturned the kingdom and throne of David; and he punished the Chaldean Babylon with the loss of empire, and a conversion into heaps of ruins as at this day. The Roman nations followed in their steps; and have aggravated the affliction and their own guilt, by great cruelty towards Israel, and slaughters, or rather torments inflicted upon the brethren of Jesus, the Saints. The Little Horn Babylon, therefore, of our times, will be subjected to a mere terrible vengeance than hitherto experienced by any power, or confederacy of powers, hostile to the Jews.

The decree of Jehovah concerning Jerusalem and Zion hath gone forth; and he commanded Zechariah to proclaim it, saying, “Thus saith Jehovah of armies, My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad; and Jehovah shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem.” But how shall this come to pass?

In reference to this inquiry the prophet is introduced to another scene—the visions of the Four Horns, and of the Four Carpenters or artificers. He is told that the Horns represent the powers by which Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem are scattered; answering to the Lion, the Bear, the Leopard, and the Fourth Beast of Daniel; whose oppression has so completely scattered the power of Judah, “that no man doth lift up his head.” And in this prostrate condition the Jews and Jerusalem must remain until the “Four Carpenters” are apocalypsed or revealed for the work assigned them. This work the prophet says, is to terrify the horns; to make them afraid; to cast out the horns of the nations, p. 56 which lift up their horn, or power, over the land of Judah to scatter it.” No such power, with such a mission, has appeared since the days of the prophet: on the contrary, all the powers that have arisen have been Gentile, and ambitious of exclusive sovereignty over Jerusalem and Judea, as at this day. These “Four Carpenters” are, therefore, not Gentile, but of Jewish nationality; and are yet to be apocalypsed, or revealed. We may here say in passing, that they are the Brethren of the Carpenter’s Son; the squadrons of the Man in the midst of the myrtle-trees; the Seraphim of Isaiah; the Four Cherubim of Ezekiel; and the Four Living Ones of the Apocalypse.

These are they by whom the Horns of the Gentiles are to be broken, and the Holy Land and City are to be avenged, and Zion comforted. But the prophet and his friends would, doubtless, delight to know “the times and seasons” when Jerusalem should be exalted to the dignity of “Jehovah’s throne”—Jer. iii. 17. Might this happen in Zechariah’s day; or when Ezekiel’s 430 years were expired during which Judah and Israel were to eat defiled bread among the Gentiles (iv. 4-6, 13); or were there any times measured off that must expire before the work of the Four Carpenters could be commenced?

To afford them some idea of the fact in relation to this matter, another vision was granted to the prophet. He saw a man with a measuring line in his hand, who told him he was going to measure the length and breadth of Jerusalem. He saw by this that there were measurements, and that the fortunes of the city were not abandoned to accident or caprice. He was told what the line of Jerusalem’s humiliation extended to; but he was not informed of the number of the years that humiliation should continue. He could not discern from what he saw, whether the treading of Jerusalem under foot by the Gentiles should terminate in A. D. 35, when the apostles inquired if the kingdom should then be restored again to Israel; or in A. D. 1864-8, to which we look with earnest expectation. Zechariah was told what the line was for, but he was not informed of the details of the measurements. These details were reserved by the Father, to be communicated afterwards to the Anointed Jesus, that he might send and “indicate them by sign,” represent them symbolically, to his servant John. The apocalypse, however, to which the “measuring line” extended, was communicated to Zechariah. He was told these words, “Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls, for the multitude of men and cattle therein:” and the reason given why it should be so secure in such a country was, “Because, saith Jehovah, I will be unto her a Wall of Fire (the Jasper-wall of Apoc. xxi. 12, 14, 18) round about her, and will be the Glory (the Jasper-stone, clear as crystal—ver. 11) in the midst of her.”

p. 57 He perceived from this, as we may also perceive, that Jehovah would appear in Jerusalem at the end of the measuring line. He found also, by attending to the words spoken, that when he should be therein apocalypsed or unveiled, he will make a proclamation to the Israelites dwelling in the countries north of Jerusalem, called “the Land of the North,” the territory under the dominion of Gog, the then Head of the Little Horn Babylon of our future. The Israelites dwelling in this Babylon-Confederacy of Greeks and Latins are thus addressed in the proclamation stirring them up to war, “Ho! ho! Come forth and escape from the land of the north, saith Jehovah; for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heavens. Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.” Here is a call upon the Jews to rise against the governments of the nations, and doubtless because those governments will not regard the proclamation of the Apoc. xiv. 6, 7. Zion, thus appealed to, will respond to the invitation; and in concert with the Four Carpenters (the resurrected saints and the true believers living at the time of the proclamation) proceed to break in pieces and consume the power of the nations. These are to be spoiled and subjugated by their servants, the Jews; and after that the glory will be apocalypsed. Things will proceed very much upon ordinary principles before the public; only those who carry on the insurrection, or revolution, will know the reality of things. This is the import of the words spoken to Zechariah in connection with the call upon Zion to “arise and thresh the nations”—Mic. iv. 13. “After the glory he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you; for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of Jehovah’s eye.” “For, behold, I will shake my hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants; and ye shall know that Jehovah of armies hath sent me,” the Christ. “After the glory” is apocalypsed in Jerusalem, in other words, after Messiah effects his entrance into Jerusalem, the work begins that is to result in removing the veil from the mind of Israel with respect to Jesus; in their restoration to Palestine; in the subjugation of the nations; and their subsequent enlightenment. When this work is accomplished the apocalyptic millennary is introduced, in which the things expressed in the following words of Zechariah become the order of the times: “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for, lo! I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith Jehovah; and many nations shall be joined to Jehovah in that day (the Day of Christ), and shall be my people; and I will dwell in the midst of thee; and thou shalt know that Jehovah of armies sent me (Jesus) unto thee. And Jehovah shall inherit Judah, his portion in the Holy Land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. Be at rest, O all flesh, from before Jehovah; for he is risen up from the habitation of his holiness”—ch. ii. 13.

p. 58 The mind of the prophet having been thus fixed upon Him who is to deliver Israel, and to rule over them in Jerusalem, becomes the subject of a vision in which is brought before him the Apocalyptic Stone, the Jasper and Sardine Stone, with Seven Eyes, the Head Stone, whose graving is of Jehovah; and which being laid before Joshua and Zerubbabel, men of sign, is representative of the Divine Governor and High Priest of the house of David. He sees Joshua, the High Priest of the Restoration, angelized, and clothed in filthy garments. That is, he represents the Christ, in the capacity of Jehovah’s Messenger, “the Angel of the Covenant,” clothed with “the flesh of sin,” in which, Paul tells us, “dwells no good thing.” While Joshua was in these filthy garments, Zechariah sees the Adversary at his right-hand; that is, in power, standing to resist him. This represents the resistance of power that would be brought to bear against the Christ in the days of his flesh. But that the Adversary should not finally prevail is indicated by the words of Jehovah to the Adversary, saying, “Jehovah shall restrain thee, O Satan; even Jehovah that hath chosen Jerusalem shall restrain thee: Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” That is, that although the Adversary that possessed Jerusalem might resist the High Priest of the Order of Melchizedec, and wound him in the heel, He shall, nevertheless, wrest Jerusalem from his grasp, and restrain, or bind him, as is apocalyptically represented in ch. xx. 1-3.

While Zechariah was beholding, he saw the garments of Joshua, the High Priest, changed; and was instructed that the action represented the putting away of iniquity which the priest is supposed to bear. In this we see, by the light of the New Testament, the change of nature, or body, in relation to the Christ, “whom,” says Paul, “we know henceforth no more after the flesh.” He was crucified in “flesh of sin;” and then sin was “condemned in the flesh.” But when he rose again he became spirit-body, called by Paul πνευμα ἁγιωσυνης, spirit of holiness—Rom. i. 4. He is now the Angel-High Priest of Jehovah, no longer oppressed with our filthy nature, but “clothed in a garment white as snow” (Dan. vii. 9) reaching to the foot (Apoc. i. 13): and the words of Jehovah are now addressed to him, saying, “If thou wilt walk in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then thou shalt also judge my house (rule my kingdom), and shalt also keep my courts (be High Priest of Israel), and I will give thee places to walk among those that stand by,” the Angel Princes, or Elohim, we read of in Daniel.

The Stone and the Mountain

But there was yet another incident beheld by Zechariah. He saw Joshua and his associate priests, whom he styles “men of sign,” as were p. 59 Isaiah and the children Jehovah had given him—viii. 18; Heb. ii. 13. He saw A STONE laid before Joshua, upon which were Seven Eyes, which are declared to be the Eyes of Jehovah; therefore that Stone represented Jehovah the High Priest; the servant of his Father Jehovah, and named the BRANCH. Concerning this Stone, the reader can consult the following texts:—Ps. cxviii. 22; Isai. xxviii. 16; viii. 14; Gen. xlix. 24; Dan. ii. 34. This Stone is Jehovah’s signet, the inscription upon which is “HOLINESS TO JEHOVAH,” an engraving inwrought by the workmanship of Jehovah himself, as Zechariah was informed; and through which he will remove the iniquity of the land of Israel in one day; upon which every man therein shall call to his neighbor under the vine and under the fig-tree, emblems of the kingdom of the heavens.

But the mission of the Stone is not exclusively to take away the iniquity of Israel. He has to level the “Great Mountain,” which, at his apocalypse, will be found “destroying the earth.” The Chaldean Babylonish empire is styled by Jeremiah “the destroying mountain which destroyed all the earth”—li. 25. Zerubbabel was contemporary with it, but it did not become a plain before him; he died without witnessing such a result. Nevertheless, it is written, “Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain; and he shall bring forth the Head Stone with shoutings of Grace, grace unto it.’” Here, then, is a work still to be accomplished. A great mountain to be levelled in the presence of Zerubbabel; and consequently, to be levelled after his resurrection, when he shall have wakened out of his sleep: for then, as we have seen in Haggai, “Jehovah will shake the heavens and the earth, and overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations.” These make up the great mountains to be levelled, or abolished, as symbolized in Apoc. xvi. 20.

The Four Carpenters, of which Zerubbabel is an element, are “to cast out the horns of the Gentiles;” and are therefore to level this great political mountain. Now the resurrection of the dead is as necessary for their development as for his. This being so, their resurrection is dramatically foreshadowed by Zechariah, another constituent of the Four, being awaked by the Angel. He says, “The angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep”—c. iv. i. This is the resurrection of the prophet; so that what he saw after he awoke is to be referred to the time after the resurrection for its accomplishment.

p. 60The Seven-Branched Lampstand and Olive-Trees

Now being awake, he saw a Seven-Branched Lampstand of gold, standing between Two Olive-Trees, a branch from each tree connected with the lampstand by a golden pipe, making Two Branches and Two Golden Pipes, through which pipes the golden oil was transmitted from the Branches to the bowl of the Lampstand for the supply of the Seven Lamps. The prophet was told, that “these Seven” are the Eyes of Jehovah, which run to and fro through the whole earth, as the horsemen in the myrtle grove are said to do: and that the Olive Branches are the Two Anointed Ones that stand beside the Adon, or Lord, of the whole earth.

By the light of the New Testament we are able to arrive at an understanding of this enigma, which symbolically represents the nature and character of the power destined to “establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” The symbol as a whole is an apparatus of brightness; and the Golden Oil in combustion upon the seven burners, styled in the Apoc. iv. 5, “Seven lamps of fire burning before the throne,” is the Spirit of God, which, in its sevenfold distribution, is styled in Apoc. v. 6, “Seven Eyes, which are the Seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.” Hence, what is accomplished “in all the earth,” namely, the levelling of the great Babylonish mountain, and the bringing forth the Head Stone to lordship over the whole earth, as the word of Jehovah says to Zerubbabel, is “Not by army, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah of armies;” that is, the effectuation of these results by such means alone as one nation employs to overturn the power of another, in which its success depends upon numbers, discipline, artillery, and so forth, courageously and scientifically applied, is impossible. Jerusalem will never attain to her destined exaltation as Jehovah’s throne, by the mere prowess and strategy of an Alexander or a Napoleon. It is to be accomplished by “Zerubbabel,” in whose hand is the plumb line, which distinguishes him as the Builder of David’s tabernacle—of “the City which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God”—Heb. xi. 10. “By my Spirit,” saith Jehovah, “it shall be done,” even by those Seven Eye-Lamps of Jehovah.

But shall this post-resurrectional work be performed by Jehovah’s Spirit unclothed; by pure naked spirit, as a psychologist would prevail over a subject—by afflation, and a simple exercise of will? The answer from the testimony before us is, by no means. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit”—Jno. iii. 6. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joshua the High Priest, Zerubbabel, and all the prophets, which includes Jesus and the Apostles, together with many from the east, west, p. 61 north, and south (Luke xiii. 28-30) will be born of the Spirit in the resurrection, and will therefore be “Spirit”—πνευμα ἁγιωσυνης, as Jesus is now, ισαγγελοι, as angels, “walking among those that stand by:” “when He (Jesus) shall appear,” says John, “we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is”—1 Ep. iii. 2. By Spirit in organic manifestation the face of the world shall be changed, and Jerusalem shall be made to shine; for “Her Righteousness (Jer. xxiii. 5, 6; xxxiii. 15-17) shall go forth as Brightness; and her Salvation (that which effects her deliverance) as a Lamp that burneth”—Isai. lxii. 1.

Now the Organic Manifestation is represented by the Lampstand, with its Bowl on the top, and Seven Pipes projecting from it, and terminating in Seven Burners; by the Two Olive-Trees, Two Branches of the same, and Two Golden Pipes passing from the branches to the Bowl. We are told that the Seven Burnings are the Eyes of Jehovah, which leads to the conclusion that the Lampstand, with its Bowl and Pipes, is representative of Jehovah as manifested in David’s Son and his brethren. This conclusion is ratified by Psal. cxxxii. 17, “There (in Zion, ver. 13) I will make to spring a Horn for David; I have prepared a Lamp for my anointed.” David was Jehovah’s anointed; and David’s Son and Lord, JESUS, is the Lamp Stem, and the Lamp Bowl, or Reservoir, of the Anointing Spirit, which is thence distributed to the Seven Burners.

“Ye are the Branches,” said Jesus to his disciples; “and severed from me ye can do nothing.” This is true, whether Jesus be regarded as a Vine, or as a Seven-Branched Lampstand. The branches of the Olive-Trees are connected with the Bowl by the two golden tubes, which makes them thus Branches of the Lamp. The Olive-Trees represent Israel after the flesh, and Israel after the Spirit, in their postresurrectional relation to the Lamp of David’s house. “The iniquity of that land being taken away in one day” (Zech. iii. 9) then, says Jehovah, “I will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall blossom as the lily, and strike forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the Olive-Tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under His shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and blossom as the vine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard, and observed him; I am like a green fir tree. From me (O Ephraim) is thy fruit found. Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? Prudent, and he shall know them? For the ways of Jehovah are right, and the just shall walk in them; but the transgressors shall fall therein”—Hosea xiv. 5-9. Here, then, is one olive-tree—Israel in post-resurrectional relation to the Lamp of p. 62 David’s house; the other olive-tree is the Wild Olive-Tree also in its post-resurrectional relation to the same. In Rom. xi. 17, Paul tells us that the Gentiles are represented by this tree. Thus we are left without doubt as to the two olive-trees.

But Zechariah saw something more in detail than the Two Trees and Lamp. He saw also “two olive-branches,” and “two golden tubes.” By these branches and tubes a connection was established between the Lamp-bowl and the two trees. The golden colored olive-oil is exuded from the two branches through the golden tubes into the Lamp-bowl, from which it is combusted through the Seven Burners, for the illumination of all the nations of the earth, then “blessed in Abraham and his Mystical Seed,” which is the Christ and all in Him.

Zechariah was told that these two branches represented the Anointed Ones, or Sons of Oil, standing before the RULER (Adon) of all the earth. In other words, these two branches represent the Saints, who are separated, first, from the Israelitish Olive-Tree; and secondly, from the Gentile Olive-Tree, by nature wild. The Two Branches are not to be confounded with the Two Trees. These are not the Anointed Ones, but only the nationalities whence the Two Branches are developed. These two branches stand before the Ruler of all the earth. They rule with him as Kings and Priests, being all anointed with the Holy Spirit from the throne of the Invisible Father. They are his eyes, hands, body, and feet, in the subjugation and government of the world. He fills them with his spirit; in fact, they are His spirit corporealized—condensed, if we may so speak, into a multitude of living, incorruptible, and intelligent personages: “That which is born of the Spirit IS SPIRIT”—the multitudinous Spirit-Man.

These symbols, then, seen by Zechariah after he was waked up by the angel out of his typical sleep, are representative of the Spirit of Jehovah; that is, of that Spirit’s manifestation in the resurrected Sons of God, who are spirits. Let me simplify this idea, if possible, yet more. When a true believer dies, he falls asleep in Christ. He corrupts; and when the process of decomposition is complete, he is reduced to dust, which is all that remains of his former self. Nevertheless, he reappears, his restored consciousness claims his former self as his. The dust to which he is reduced is at once the débris of his former, and the nucleus of his future, self. In reference to this nucleus, or detritus of the animal body sown into the grave, Paul says in 1 Cor. xv. 53, “It is necessary that this corruptible put on incorruptibility, and this mortal put on deathlessness.” This putting on, he tells us in Rom. viii. 11, is effected by the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from among the dead. The Spirit operates upon the dust of the former man, and fashions it into a new man, after p. 63 the image of Jesus as he now is. Being formed, the formation is caused to live. In commencing life again at this epoch, this renewed man is said to be “waked as a man that is wakened out of his sleep.” At this awaking, he is as Adam was before he fell; because, having been pardoned, or justified from all sin by an obedient faith, perfect in kind and degree, in his former lifetime; and after that, “walked worthy of God” to the end thereof; in the resurrection he is awakened as a man without sin. Being thus renewed, he is still in the image of the earthy Adam, but before he fell. But he is not always to continue in this image; for Paul says, “As we bear (εφορεσαμεν, 1 aor.) the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” A change must, therefore, take place; as a change must have been operated upon the first Adam in order to transform him from “a living soul or animal, into an incorruptible and deathless creature, or SPIRIT. In his case, this would have resulted from eating of the Tree of the Lives in Paradise, if he had been permitted. Through that appointed medium, the Eternal Spirit, self-named Jehovah, would have changed the body of his lower estate, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” into a like form with that which Jesus now possesses, and the Saints are hereafter to possess. But transgression prevented this; and postponed the spiritualization of the Adamic Nature until the resurrection era, in which, instead of two persons only becoming spirits, a multitude of their descendants, numerous as the stars of heaven, will bear the image of the heavenly, who is “the Lord the Spirit.”

The dead saints being awakened to renewed bodily existence, they are prepared for bodily change. “This corruptible must put on incorruptibility; and this mortal, immortality;” but at what precise moment, or point of time, after being brought up out of their graves the saints shall be immortalized, does not appear to be explicitly revealed. This is certain,—those who are among the dead will be awakened first; and afterwards the saints among the living will be, “together with them,” exalted to the Aerial, where the Ruler will have appeared. This “together with them” indicates to my mind, that the saints from among the dead and the living will be simultaneously exalted to dominion, and therefore immortalized in the same epoch; the saints among the living must wait for their glorification, till the saints are awaked from among the dead; but how long it will be from the awakening to the immortalization of the whole body, does not distinctly appear. I say, exaltation to dominion, and therefore immortalization, because “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” Now, the “meeting the Lord in the Air,” as Paul expresses it, is in the style of Daniel, “the Saints possessing the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the p. 64 kingdom under the whole heaven; which they cannot do until immortalized, or flesh and blood be changed into spirit. Neither will this dominion be possessed till it is conquered; for, it is a great mountain, that has to be reduced in the presence of Zerubbabel to a plain. This reduction, I apprehend, occurs before the saints are glorified, and after their resurrection; so that several years may intervene after the awaking from death to the shining as the sun in the kingdom.

This seems to be indicated in Zech. xiv. 5; there he says, “Jehovah my Elohim, all the saints shall come with thee. And it shall be in that day there shall not be brightness, the splendid ones drawing in. And it shall be one day that shall be made known by Jehovah, neither a day nor a night; but it shall be at the time of evening, there shall be brightness.” From this we learn, that the Eternal Spirit, or Jehovah, and the saints will be in the midst of mankind in a period called “the time of evening,” or Daniel’s “time of the end;” but that when here they will not therefore be in their brightness, after the example of Moses’ face, and that of Jesus when transfigured. To shine out thus, would be incompatible with the work to be performed upon the nations, and upon Israel; which is to be conducted on the principle of faith and judgment. This will require that mankind at large should have to deal with the saints as if they were contending against ordinary men. They must “walk by faith and not by sight;” and they must come to know the power of the saints, by feeling the sharpness of the two-edged sword to be placed in their hands for judicial purposes. When the Saints shall have “executed the judgment written,” the “moment” of the Evening Time will have arrived for them to draw themselves in no longer, and “brightness” will be displayed; and thenceforth they will be resplendent in glory as well as immortal.

“In a moment we shall be all changed,” says Paul. The judgments of the last trumpet being exhausted, Jehovah’s changed ones enter into their glory. But the judgments must first be finished; and while these are smoking from the glory of the Eternal Spirit, and from his power, “no man can enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the Seven Angels be finished”—Apoc. xv. 8. To enter into that temple is to rest from labor in glory. The epoch comes, then, at the end of the Seventh Seal; at the end of judgment; and consequently, not at the instant of awakening from death.

To be in glory is to have eaten of “the Wood of Life,” when quickened, and to enter into the peaceful and glorious rest of the Millennium. This is the consummation. As the leaves and branches feed upon the sap that circulates through the vessels of the tree; so do the saints, as the Leaves of the Wood, feed upon the Spirit, which will circulate p. 65 through the Two Branches of the Two Olive-Trees; through the leaves of which branches the spirit will breathe its healing influences upon the nations.

The Lamp and Olive-Trees, then, are an organization of spirit manifested in the Saints and nations of the earth blessed in Abraham and his seed, after the resurrection—the Spirit in full evening tide manifestation. The symbol does not exhibit the details of spiritualization spoken of above, and occurrent between the waking up of the saints, and the establishment of blessedness in all nations consequent upon their enlightenment. The Eternal Spirit, or Jehovah, is to do everything;—but through what organization? By his spirit through the Two Olive-Branches, or Jesus and His Brethren, as represented in the visions of the Apocalypse. If this be understood, the connection between the question and answer in Zech. iv. 5, 6, will be readily perceived. The angel asked the prophet, if he knew what the Lamp and Olive-Trees signified? He replied, “No, my Lord.” The angel said no more about them at that time; but proceeded to remark saying, “This is the word of Jehovah unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by power, nor by strength, but BY MY SPIRIT, saith Jehovah of armies.” That is, as indicated in the seventh verse, there will exist contemporary with the resurrection, when Zerubbabel shall stand up again, “a great mountain” in the political world, which is to be reduced to “a plain.” But that this will not result by the power and strength of Israel under any organization they might constitute; for at that crisis their power and strength will have been utterly scattered; but it shall be accomplished by Jehovah’s Spirit, which will raise Zerubbabel and his companions from among the dead, to be the captains of Israel together with the living believers; and will be the strength and power energizing them all to the complete reduction of the Great Political Mountain of the Gentiles to the level of a summer threshing-floor: even to cause to go forth the Head, or Chief Stone, with shoutings of “Grace, grace unto him!”

In the vision we have been considering, the prophet contemplated a great crisis, which may be termed, the fall of GENTILE DOMINION; and the full establishment of THE KINGDOM OF GOD. Such is the future catastrophe of the vision of the Great Mountain, and the Lamp and Olive-Trees. But the vision had not revealed to him any particulars concerning the mountain. Contemporary with his own times, the great Gentile dominion that dominated Jerusalem and Judah, and all the rest of “the Earth” from India to Ethiopia, being one hundred and twenty-seven p. 66 provinces, under the three presidencies, or “ribs in the mouth, and between the teeth of it” (Dan. vii. 5), was that of THE BEAR under the dynasty of Darius the Persian. Zechariah knew from Daniel that this was not the “Great Mountain” to be destroyed before Zerubbabel; but by the Leopard-power that would succeed it. He also knew from Jeremiah, and the history of his own times, that the Lion, standing upon its feet, with a man’s heart, was not the constitution of the Mountain Power under which it is to “become a plain before Zerubbabel.” This Lion-manifestation of the great mountain had passed away before Zerubbabel had become Governor of Jerusalem. Jehovah had said concerning the Chaldean Babylon that had done evil to Zion in the days of Jeremiah, “Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith Jehovah, which destroyest all the earth; and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a Burnt Mountain. And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolations of an Olahm, saith Jehovah”—Jer. li. 25, 26. In this decree was the sentence which has been practically illustrated for the past 2400 years. From the capture of Babylon by Cyrus, the Chaldeans and their city began to decline, until the two have ceased to have any more existence racially, politically, or architecturally, than if they had never been. The site of the old city of Nimrod on the Euphrates is literally “a burnt mountain—a mound of ruins made by fire; and a type of the dominion peculiar to the Chaldee race and dynasty, in all the countries where they formerly ruled in power and great glory. Architecturally, a stone of the ruins has not been taken for the corner and foundations of any new edifices; nor has a Chaldean, by his own prowess, nor by the voice of a people, been made the corner, or foundation stone of a new political institution. This is what has not been for 2400 years; and the prophecy decrees the continuance of the same condition without limit, in saying to the Burnt Mountain, “desolations of an Olahm shalt thou be, saith Jehovah”—an Olahm, which began with the building of Babel, and ended with the fall of Belshazzar, Lucifer Son of the Dawn, who was hurled from the heavens by Jehovah’s “sanctified ones,” the Medes and Persians, under Cyrus his Anointed Shepherd—Isai. xiii.; xiv.; xliv. 28; xlv. 1-4. Many of Zechariah and Haggai’s countrymen, who had witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple of Solomon by the Chaldeans, had lived to see the fall of Nebuchadnezzar’s dynasty, and the completion of the new temple, which was finished shortly after Zechariah had the vision of the Lamp and Olive-Trees—Hag. ii. 3. They knew that the Burnt Mountain was among the things of the past; and that Zerubbabel had had nothing to do with its burning, and its downfall p. 67 from the rocks: what, then, could the eternal spirit mean by the “Great Mountain” he apostrophized, as destined to become a plain before Zerubbabel after his resurrection from among the dead? It was not the Chaldean, nor the Bear, nor the Leopard; for they saw by Daniel that all these were removed by conquest in the ordinary way. What else could it be, then, but that Fourth Beast dominion which is to be destroyed by the Saints? To this, then, Zechariah’s attention was turned. The dominion was “diverse” from all that preceded it. “It spoke great words against the Most High, and wore out the Saints of the Most High Ones, and thought to change times and laws.” This was a very peculiar dominion; and it was judged proper to give the prophet, and his readers, some idea of its origin; of the original of its peculiarity. Hence, the prophecy of the “FLYING ROLL” and “THE EPHAH.”

The Harlot of the Ephah

In Zech. v. i., the prophet tells us that he “turned.” In doing this, he occupied an altered position, which caused him to face new objects. The Lamp and Trees were behind him; and on lifting up his eyes, and looking, he beheld “a roll twenty cubits long, and ten cubits broad, flying.” On this roll a curse was inscribed; it is, therefore, styled “the curse.” The flying of the roll indicated its progress, which became coextensive with the whole earth. The angel’s words express this. In telling the prophet what it signified, he said, “This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of all the earth:” not of all the globe; but of “all the earth” in the sense of the phrase as it is used in Dan. ii. 39; iv. 22. In these places, the dominion of Nebuchadnezzar is said to extend “to the end of the earth;” and the brazen kingdom of the Greeks to “bear rule over all the earth:” the extent, however, of these two dominions was unequal; and neither of them included the countries now known as China, Burmah, Central India, Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, the British Isles, and other countries. We need not, therefore, look for something coextensive with the globe as the significancy of the symbol; but coextensive with that section of it over which the subject of the symbol prevails. This is “all the earth” in relation to it, though of very limited extent in regard to the globe at large.

The roll contained cursing on both sides upon certain criminals designated as thieves and perjurers. These were not common criminals; but “the prophets that steal my words, saith Jehovah, every one from his neighbor, and use their tongues, and say, “He saith”—Jer. xxiii. 30. These prophets were not only thieves, but also swearers—they invoked the name of the Lord falsely. “Both the prophet and the priest were p. 68 profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith Jehovah.” This was the moral condition of the leaders of the Jews who caused them to err, and brought the Chaldean desolation upon them, from which a remnant had just been saved. The roll, therefore, which Zechariah saw, related not to the past, but to the future; when the prophets and priests in Jehovah’s house should become thieves and swearers falsely by his name. In due time the curses of the roll would be brought forth upon them to their utter destruction—“they shall be consumed, together with the timber and stones of their house”—Zech. v. 4.

The resemblance of these ecclesiastical thieves and false invokers of Jehovah’s name, is an “Ephah going forth.” It is the measure of their wickedness, which, when filled up, would cause them to be brought forth from their land, as their fathers were. “This ephah is their resemblance over all the earth.” But their wickedness which filled the measure is personified by a Woman, who is confined within the measure by a leaden weight, indicative of their being destined for the furnace of Jehovah’s anger, which should blow upon them like fire, and melt them as lead—Ezek. xxii. 18-22. A measure of wickedness subjected to the melting fury of Jehovah inscribed upon the sides of the roll is the signification of the Talent of Lead, the Woman, the Ephah, and the Roll. But, in order to show whose wickedness is contained within the ephah, Ezekiel’s Two Women are attached by the Spirit to the ephah. They were seen by Zechariah “lifting up the ephah, between the earth and the heavens;” that is, exalting wickedness to high places. These women are Aholah, or Samaria, and Aholibah, or Jerusalem—Ezek. xxiii. 4, 5; the two capitals put representatively for the nation. At a future period of their history, Zechariah saw them in vision, “going forth,” and “carrying the ephah,” or measure of their wickedness, with them into the land of the enemy, that rends them with its “great iron teeth”—the land of their captivity, where they build for their wickedness “a house which should be established upon its own foundation;”—a house destined, with its occupants, to be consumed “to the timber and stones thereof.”

The two women are represented with wings, like the wings of a stork. Moses classed the stork with unclean birds; so that for them to have such wings, shows that they were lewd, or unclean, women or communities. The stork is also a bird of passage, migrating from one country to another, at an appointed time; hence the women-bearers of the ephah being storklike in their means of flight, were to migrate at an appointed time from the land of their uncleanness. The last feature of the symbol to be named is that “the wind was in their wings.” Wind is air in motion. When birds fly the air fills their wings, and eddies p. 69 into them, so as to waft them onwards in the course of flight. The wings of the two women indicate that they were fugitive; and being storklike, as we have said, that they were unclean and migratory. But wings are of no use without air to fill them; and no bird can pass through the air without setting it in motion, or producing wind. A bird could not fly in vacuo. Hence these unclean, and fugitively migratory communities must be propelled by wind. What is “wind” in relation to such? “Terrors,” says Job, “pursue my soul as the wind”—xxx. 15. In Jer. iv. 11-13, the coming in of an army swiftly and fiercely, destroying all before them, is expressed by a dry wind, and a full wind. Thus, “It shall be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A dry wind of the high places in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse: even a full wind from those places shall come unto me. Now also will I give sentence against them. Behold, he (the Destroyer of the Gentiles) shall come up as clouds, and his chariots as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled.” This was the kind of wind that was in the storklike wings of the two ephah-bearing women. They were borne on the wings of the wind, into the land of the spoiler.

Here, then, in the vision of the Roll Flying, and the Ephah, was a symbolical representation to Zechariah of a captivity of Jerusalem and Samaria, in a period of judgment subsequently to his time. Hence, in searching out the meaning of the vision, we have to consult the history of the Jews posterior to the times of the prophet, and to ask of it this question—What “going forth” or captivity, on account of wickedness, has happened to Judah, since her return from the seventy years in Babylon? The only answer that history gives, and therefore the only answer that can be given, is, the “going forth,” compelled by that dry and full-destroying wind which swept over the land as a whirlwind when the legions of the LITTLE HORN OF THE GOAT came from the eastern frontiers of the empire; and planted their Eagles before the walls of Jerusalem, under VESPASIAN and TITUS.^a It was the prophecy of Daniel in ch. viii. 9-12, 23-25: ix. 26, 27, symbolically reproduced before the mind of Zechariah; and embodied by the Lord Jesus in his denunciations of the ecclesiastical thieves and perjurers, who “filled up the measure” or EPHAH “of their fathers” in crucifying him, in rejecting and perverting the glad tidings of Jehovah’s Kingdom and Name; and in imprisoning, banishing, and killing the apostles whom he sent to them: so that upon Jerusalem and Samaria, with all that adhered to their wickedness, personified p. 70 in the Apocalypse as “that woman, Jezebel, who styles herself a prophetess, teaching and seducing the Lord’s servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols”—ch. ii. 20;—upon her came all the righteous blood shed upon the land, from the blood of righteous Abel even to the blood of Zechariah, son of Barachus, whom they slew in the siege between the temple and the altar—all came upon this generation—Matt. xxiii. 32-36.

But the wind in their wings was not to fan nor to cleanse, but to spoil, and send the women and their wickedness of the ephah, forth from the land they had defiled. That “wicked generation” was as a man exorcised of an unclean spirit; but afterwards repossessed of one seven times more wicked, John the Baptist had ministered to all “Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jerusalem,” the immersion of repentance, on the confession of their sins; and many of the Pharisees and Sadducees even came to be baptized—Matt. iii. 5-7. This was a great national repentance; a casting out of the unclean spirit—an emptying, sweeping, and garnishing of the house of Judah, which now waited for the manifestation of the King of Israel, whom John proclaimed to be in their midst, though unknown to him and them. But when their attention was directed to Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Mary,—who was claimed by a voice from heaven, and designated by the descending Spirit in dovelike form, as Son of God,—they “saw no form nor comeliness; no beauty in him, that they should desire him.” This national feeling of disappointment was aggravated by the rulers, whose hypocrisy he unveiled and denounced. The old spirit of evil, sevenfold increased, effected its entrance into the house of Judah, and dwelt there. Under its inspiration, Jesus was despised and rejected; they hid their faces from him, and esteemed him not. They oppressed and afflicted him; and though he had borne their griefs, and carried their sorrows, healing their diseases; yet they scourged, imprisoned, and ignominiously crucified him between thieves—Isai. liii. Thus Jerusalem, that killed the prophets, and stoned those that were sent unto her, when she had added to her crimes the death of Jesus, and the iniquity of the subsequent forty years, had attained to the consummation of transgression; and nothing remained but for “her house to be left to her desolate.” So that, though the first of that generation was bad enough, its last condition was worse. In the green tree they had crucified the Holy and the Just One; in the dry, there was no abomination they eschewed. The ephah was filled, and the lead for the furnace rested upon it, to be melted when the fire should be kindled in Zion.

But before the fire was kindled, Jerusalem and Samaria had received the word of the Lord—Acts viii. 14; v. 28; vi. 7. They did not, however p. 71 long continue faithful; but began to steal the words, and to swear falsely by the name of the Lord. They began to teach contrary to the wholesome words of the Lord Jesus; and to assume authority in rivalry of the apostles themselves. They were opposed to the glad tidings of the kingdom being preached to any but Jews; but not being able to prevent it, they contended that all Gentiles ought to be circumcised, and to keep the law of Moses, as well as to believe the gospel and be baptized, or they could not be saved—1 Thess. ii. 16; Acts xv. 1-5. These Judaizers were particularly troublesome to the apostles. They commended themselves and gloried after the flesh, saying that they were Hebrews, and Israelites, and the seed of Abraham, and apostles, and ministers of Christ—2 Cor. x. 12; xi. 13, 18, 22. But Paul says that they were false apostles, deceitful workers, and ministers of Satan, who perverted the truth, and preached another Jesus, another Spirit, and another Gospel; and that therefore they were accursed—Gal. i. 6-9; ii. 4; iv. 17; vi. 42. These accursed Judaizers were indefatigable in exalting themselves to the exclusion of Paul and the other apostles. Peter, James, John, and Jude are very hot against them in their epistles; and in the letters to the seven ecclesias, they are denounced as pretended apostles, Nicolaitans, the Synagogue of Satan, holders of the doctrine of Balaam, Jezebel the pseudo-prophetess, Satan, liars, and so forth. They were evil men and seducers, deceiving and being deceived; having forsaken the right way; and therefore “cursed children.” These were the “false prophets” that Jesus predicted would arise, and deceive many. The effect of their teaching was to cause the spread of iniquity in all the cities of the land; and because of this the love of the many became cold; and the congregations in Judea became as apostate as the faithless generation whose carcasses fell in the wilderness. Jerusalem and Samaria had again earned for themselves the character of Ezekiel’s Aholah and Aholibah, two women of lewd and treacherous demeanor. The Judaizers had corrupted them, and nothing remained but for them to be brought forth from the land with judgment, according “to the curse,” or Roll in flight.

When the Apostasy in Judea was fully matured, the Ephah contained the Woman under the Talent of Lead; and when the Mosaic Law and institutions had vanished away as the result of the desolation of the Temple, all that were not slain or imprisoned, became sojourners in the lands of the Little Horn of the Goat. This national dispersion of the Jews was the flight of the two women into the countries of the Fourth Beast dominion, then pagan. In their flight, the Judaic Apostasy from the Christian Faith was not left in Judea, to grow up into a papacy there. But having been formed and organized in that country, and p. 72 propagated from that centre, it was expelled from thence, and driven by the national calamity, the wind in the storklike wings of the two women, out of Canaan, that “they might build for her a house in the land of Shinar.”

This saying connects the Judaic Apostasy with the Babylon of the Apocalypse—that “they,” the Harlot-Judaizers of Judea and Samaria, “might build for her,” the Wickedness, or Falsehood, רשעה rishah, systematized by them, and symbolized by the Ephah, Woman, and Lead, they bore with them in their flight, “a house,” or kingdom, “in the land of Shinar,” into which they were expelled. The house of Judah, in which Christianity was born and nourished, and transformed by “false brethren” into a system of falsehood, had been demolished. If this had not come to pass, they would, doubtless, in process of time, have got the upper hand in the Jewish State; and have built for their Harlot of the Ephah a kingdom in the native land of Christianity. But the demolition of Judah’s Commonwealth, and the dispersion of all Jewish communities from Judea and Samaria, compelled the adherents of the Harlot of the Ephah, or Jezebel the Prophetess, to build for her a house in some other region than the Holy Land. This other region is styled in Zech. v. 11, ארצ שׁנער[?] eretz Shinar. This phrase is as symbolical, or representative, as the ephah, the woman, the lead, and so forth; and consequently is no more to be interpreted of the Shinar where Nimrod flourished, and his contemporaries built the Tower of Babel, than that “Ephah” is to be interpreted of three pecks and three pints; or the woman therein, of a literal woman shut up in a three-peck measure under a cover of lead. The literal and typical land of Shinar was that country into which Aholah and Aholibah had gone forth, because of profanity and falsehood against the Mosaic Law; and from which they had returned before Zechariah saw the vision of the Harlot of the Ephah. That was the Shinar of the past—the Shinar of the Chaldeo-Babylonian Olahm, beginning with Nimrod and ending with Belshazzar. The Chaldeans, the rod of chastisement in Jehovah’s hand, had blindly punished Judah and her companions for their apostasy from Moses; and had afterwards been punished in turn for their own crimes by the Medes and Persians. Thus, the Chaldeans being set aside, Judah and the nations entered upon a new cycle. The judgment on Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and the judgment on Babylon by Cyrus, had avenged the past. A new era was now commenced, as indicated in Jehovah’s words by Haggai, saying, “Consider, now, from this day and forward; from the four and twentieth of the ninth month from the day that the foundation of Jehovah’s temple was laid, consider. Is the seed yet in the barn? As yet the vine, and the fig-tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive-tree have p. 73 not brought forth: from this day will I bless”—ch. ii. 19. Judah was thus invited to faithfulness, and consequent blessedness. Nevertheless, Jehovah, foreseeing that, when Messiah should appear among them, and cause that system of truth to be proclaimed, which was the great burden of the Law and the Prophets, they would become more wickedly apostate even by sevenfold than when carried off the land to Babylon,—revealed it to Zechariah in the vision of the Harlot of the Ephah, who should dwell in a future Shinar, antitypical in its relations to Judah and her Apostasy from Jehovah to the Shinar of the past.

The word Shinar is derived from the nouns שן shain, a tooth, and ער ar, an enemy; it means, therefore, Enemy’s Tooth; as Shinab signifies Father’s Tooth. Hence the phrase eretz Shinar, means “the Land of the Enemy’s Tooth.” This was a very appropriate appellation for the region into which the Harlot of the Ephah was to be transplanted; and to acquire a house set up upon the foundation of her own wickedness. The Fourth Beast of Daniel’s vision, the beast of the “GREAT IRON TEETH,” had been a wind in the storklike wings of the two women by whom the Harlot of the Ephah was carried forth; and the testimony of the Apocalypse, as we have already seen, reveals her subsequent existence with all the impudence of a harlot and pretended prophetess, in the midst of the Seven Ecclesias of Asia Minor. This was a province of the dominion of the Great Iron Teeth; the enemy of Jews by nature, and of Jews by grace; in other words, the land of the enemy’s tooth, or Shinar’s land, where “Babylon the Great” was to be built up for Jezebel, the Harlot of the Ephah, by those “who say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie, and are of the Synagogue of Satan”—Apoc. ii. 9; iii. 9—the two women that carry the Ephah.

When John was in Patmos, the Judaic Apostasy as leaven was leavening the whole lump. It was on this account that the seven letters were written to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. It was an era of contending elements, from which a new civil and ecclesiastical order of things was to “be established, and set upon her own foundation in the land of the Great Iron Teeth.” At the epoch of the Apocalypse, the Iron Teeth were a pagan power; and ready to rend all that were not pagans. The Jews were divided between the Synagogue and the Church; and though the former boasted in Moses, and the latter in Jesus, the Iron Teeth regarded them all as Jews, and was the enemy of both. But in John’s day, the Jews of the Church were divisible into two classes; first, those who were Jews inwardly without regard to flesh; and secondly, those who said they were Jews, but were liars. The first class were in scriptural fellowship with the apostle, but rapidly falling into the minority; so p. 74 that in Sardis, for example, only “a few names” remained undefiled. It was the second class of Jews that constituted the great majority of those who passed current by the name of Christian. It was these who labored indefatigably in building a house for the Harlot of the Ephah. They became a powerful. political faction in the land of the enemy; and having found a warrior to their mind in Constantine, they placed themselves under his leadership; and in A. D. 324, became the sole ruling power “in the land of Shinar” as defined.

The twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse opens with the exhibition of Jezebel the Prophetess, tricked out with the paraphernalia of royalty—not the royalty of the Kingdom of God, but the royalty of “the Twelve Cæsars.” In this chapter, the two classes of Jews are necessarily comprehended in the same symbol until the birth of the Man Child, after which a separation ensues; or rather, is symbolically manifested. Those who are Jews inwardly are represented by the fugitive woman, a persecuted community, defended by “the earth,” and nourished in the wilderness for 1260 years. But the Jezebel faction, commonly styled “Catholic,” and “Holy Catholic Church,” had become the Harlot of the State. Her palace was built in the land of the enemy’s tooth; for the Fourth Beast dominion had become her habitation to dwell in.

But she was not content to be subject to the civil power. She aimed to be THE STATE; and the State she at length became. Her growth was rapid, and her power became supreme over the Kings of the earth. She is brought out in this relation in Apoc. xvii. and xviii. There she is seen in her house or kingdom, as the Great Harlot, ruling over many peoples, multitudes, nations, and their Kings; drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus; and saying, “I sit queen, and am not bereft, and sorrow can not at all behold.” Such is the Harlot of the Ephah in the apocalyptic manifestation of Zechariah’s vision. She is a ruling element in that “Great Mountain” which is to become a plain before Zerubbabel, according to the vision of the Lamp and Olive Branches—the Anointed Ones that stand before the Ruler of all the earth.

The Four Spirits of the Heavens

Having beheld the Harlot of the Ephah keeping house in the land of Shinar, the prophet again informs us, in chap. vi. 1, that he “turned”—“I turned,” says he, “and lifted up mine eyes, and looked.” This indicates that his attention was directed to new objects, which he describes in the following words:

“I looked, and behold Four Chariots going forth from between two of the mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass. In the first p. 75 chariot red horses, and in the second chariot black horses; and in the third chariot white horses; and in the fourth chariot spotted horses, and fleet. Then I responded and said to the angel speaking with me, What are these, my lord? And the angel replied and said to me, These are the Four Spirits of the Heavens going forth from standing by the Ruler of all the earth. The black horses which are in that are going forth to the land of the north, and the white went forth to follow them; and the spotted went forth to the land of the south. And the fleet ones went forth; and they asked to go for to run to and fro through the earth: and he said, Go, run to and fro through the earth! So they ran to and fro in the earth,

“Then he proclaimed to me, and spake unto me saying, Behold, those going forth to the land of the north have caused my Spirit to rest in the land of the north.”

Here is an amplification of the vision of the Two Olive-Branches, or Anointed Ones, that stand by the Ruler of all the earth. The reader will perceive that the Two Branches and the Four Chariots and their Horses, all relate to the same agents, by comparing Zech. iv. 14 with ch. vi. 5. In these places they are all said to “stand by the Ruler of all the earth.” In both these chapters they are represented as symbols of Jehovah’s Spirit—“These,” the chariots and horses, said the angel, “are the Four Spirits of the Heavens going forth from standing by the Ruler of all the earth.” In the first passage they are in the standing position; in the last, they are in motion from thence, on their appointed mission.

These four chariots are the cherubim of glory, which constitute the Chariot of Jehovah. In speaking of the four-faced figures with wings outstretched over the Mercy Seat of the Ark in the Most Holy Place, David styles them in 1 Chron. xxviii. 18, “the Chariot of the Cherubim.” The Spirit of Jehovah rested in the form of a cloud between and upon their wings, from the dedication of Solomon’s temple until the Glory took its departure in the days of Ezekiel, and shortly before its destruction by the Chaldeans. Alluding to this cherubic incumbency of the Spirit, David says in Psal. lxxx. 1, “O Shepherd of Israel inhabiting the Cherubim, shine forth. Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh arouse thy might, and come for salvation to us. O Mighty Ones (Elohim), turn us, and cause to shine thy Faces, and we shall be saved.” The Cherubim were the typical throne of Jehovah in Jerusalem, before which the High Priest presented himself on the occasion of the annual covering of the sins of the nation.

In the first and tenth chapters of his prophecy, Ezekiel shows what they typify or represent. Let the reader peruse these chapters in connection with Apoc. iv. and v.; and he will find that the cherubim are p. 76 representative of the Spirit corporealized and manifested in the Saints, the Elohim of Israel—the One Eternal Spirit in multitudinous manifestation. “Whithersoever the Spirit was to go, they went;” “they ran and returned as a flash of lightning;” “and the noise of their wings like the noise of great waters, as the voice of Mighty Ones in their going, the voice of speech, as the noise of a camp.”

Zechariah’s Four Chariots are identical with these. They represent the resurrected saints in the execution of the judgment written, Ps. cxlix. There are “four” of them, because there were four faces to the typical golden cherubim of the Ark of the Covenant in the temple; and “four living creatures” in Ezekiel’s vision; and “four living creatures” in the Apocalypse; and the reason why there are four, and not three or five, is because in the military organization of Israel the twelve tribes were set off into four camps; the Camp of Judah, the Camp of Reuben, the Camp of Ephraim, and the Camp of Dan. The standard of Judah’s camp or host, was a Lion; that of Reuben, a Man; that of Ephraim, an Ox; and that of Dan, an Eagle; and the faces of these four were united in the Two Cherubims of the Most Holy Place; and became the Elohim-Faces of the Eternal Spirit, self-named Jehovah, which stood by the Ruler of all the earth, while he dwelt in them anterior to the Babylonian captivity.

Now, as the Saints, without regard to the accident of their fleshly descent, are all Israelites by adoption through Christ, their organization is based on that of the twelve tribes; so that they come thereby to be represented by the standards of Israel’s camps. In vision, the four camps of the Saints, constituting, nevertheless, one encampment, occupy the position of the four camps of Israel in the wilderness—Judah on the east side; Reuben on the south; Ephraim on the west; and Dan on the north. For this reason, Zechariah’s Four Chariots are termed “the Four Winds,” or Spirits, “of the Heavens;” and in their New Jerusalem symbolization, the Saints’ city is said to “lie four square.”