p. 594“And he gathered them together into the place called Hebraistically, ARMAGEDDON”—Ver. 16.
Let it be noted by the reader, that a gathering of the Powers is the subject of the prophecy in the fourteenth and fifteen verses. In the former, the dæmon froglike spirits are represented as the agencies so operating upon the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable, as to cause a gathering of them for the war of that great day of the almighty Deity: but, from the sixteenth verse it would appear, that the dæmon-spirits did not of themselves alone consummate the gathering; for it is here written “He gathered them.” The case then appears to be this, that the Froglike Spirits begin a work in 1848, which they carry on for twenty or more years, during which, by their policy, they bring the powers of the world into such a situation regarding “the Dragon,” or Eastern Question, and “the Beast and False Prophet,” or Roman Question, as to prepare them for a general move against any power, come from whence it may, that may intervene in the settlement of those questions contrary to their interests, and such a distribution and balance of power as they may approve. Every one may see that this is the present situation of affairs. The Powers are all “armed to the teeth,” with their hands upon their swords, and in a highly irritable or inflammable frame of mind, upon the Roman and Eastern Questions, and ready to do battle against any who might venture athwart the path of their policy or ambition. They are conscripting the cultivators of the soil to a vast extent, and preparing them for war; as though war, and not agriculture, were the normal condition of mankind. Thus, they are beating their ploughshares into swords, and their scythes into spears; and the weak say they are strong; as an indispensable preliminary to the great conflict which is to follow—Joel iii. 10.
But, the unclean dæmon-spirits like Frogs having prepared the situation; and the great river Euphrates being sufficiently dried up; who is He that gathers them into Armageddon? The apocalyptic answer is, the “One Angel standing in the Sun”—ch. xix. 17—the One Angel-Body, invested with omnipotence and glory; the Perfect Man, constituted of “the kings of a Sun’s risings;” to prepare whose way “the water,” or power, of the great Ottoman river has been dried up. This “One Angel,” ἑνα αγγελον, whose “countenance is as the sun shining in his strength” (ch. i. 16; x. 1), has then command of the situation. He cries with a loud voice, “a voice as the p. 595 sound of many waters;” or, “as when a lion roareth,” making proclamation, and saying to all the fowls flying in midheaven, to whom judgment is given, “Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great Deity.” The gathering of the birds of prey which lodge in the branches of the kingdom (Luke xiii. 19), implies the previous gathering of the hosts to be devoured; and also the presence of a power potent enough to give their carcasses to the birds. This is the power that “comes as a thief;” which, having clothed himself with a cloud of brethren, next proceeds to gather, by the policy he develops, the armies of the Beast and kings of the earth for a conflict with the New Power of Teman—ch. xix. 19.
Such is the apocalyptic answer to the question, who is He that gathers them? And the testimony of the prophets is in harmony with it. In Isaiah lxvi. 18, the Spirit saith, “It shall come that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see my glory;” and in Mic. iv. 12, “Yahweh shall gather many nations as the sheaves into the floor” for threshing: “therefore wait ye upon me, saith Yahweh, until the day that I RISE UP to the prey; for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, even all my fierce anger; for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy”—Zeph. iii. 8. The Spirit of Christ also informs us of the place to which he will gather them. In Zech. xiv. 2, he says, “I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken:” and in Joel iii. 2, 14, “I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat—the Valley of Threshing.” These are sufficient to show that it is the Spirit in apocalyptic manifestation who is the gatherer.
But these passages in context also show, that the Spirit in Son of Man, or One Angel, apocalypse, will not be in Jerusalem during the siege and capture of the city: for when it is in the hands of the enemy, he then “goes forth and fights against the assembled nations, as when he fought in the day of battle”—he goes forth from Teman, and having been victorious at Botzra, “he stands upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east,” and also before and above the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
Here then is a manifest interval of time and space; of space, between Teman and the Mount of Olives; and of time, between the completion of the development of the One Yahweh-Elohim Angel-Man ready for action and his arrival at the Mount of Olives. How does he occupy his time in this interval; and what means does he employ to cause “the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable” to “come out as a whirlwind to scatter him” (Hab. iii. 14)? In p. 596 other words, how doth he put hooks into Gog’s jaws, by which he brings him forth, and all his army, horses, and horsemen, against the mountains of Israel (Ezek, xxxviii. 4, 8.)?
It may be remarked here, that there will have been a considerable gathering of Israelites upon the mountains of Israel before the invasion of the country by Gog, and his capture of Jerusalem. This appears from the Spirit’s address to Gog in the eighth verse of this chapter. In this place he says, “In the latter years thou shalt come into the land brought back from the sword, and gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been continually waste; but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.” Gog also is represented in the eleventh verse as admitting that it is a land of unwalled villages, whose inhabitants are at rest and in safety; for an evil thought comes into his mind, and he says, “I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell confidently, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, to take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places now inhabited, and upon the people gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.”
It is evident from these last words, that “the land brought back from the sword” is not the land according to the original Abrahamic grant; but only that “tenth part” of it which Isaiah was informed in ch. vi. 13, “shall return and be grazed.” This tenth in the midst of the land is the locality of Armageddon; and not at all connected with Teman, which lies considerably to the south of it. The return of security and prosperity to this tenth of the land, must either precede the development of the “One Yahweh” man; or be concurrent with the operation in the recesses of Teman: or it may be in progress both then and before. It seems to me that the movement of the Anglo-Indian Merchants of Tarshish upon Abyssinia, and the formation of the Suez Canal, are preliminary to the return of the tenth. How long a time may elapse from the arrival of the Lord Jesus at Sinai, to the perfected development of the יהוה אחד “ONE YAHWEH” Name (Zech. xiv. 9; Deut. vi. 4) does not appear from the record: the interval however, will, I conceive, afford time enough for the development of the divine purpose with respect to the tenth of the land. From the present occupation of Abyssinia, to the finished preparation of the Lamb’s Bride, whose perfected readiness for action is the subject of the “Hallelu-YAH” of her great constituent multitude (ch. xix. 6-19) will afford all the time so facile an international arrangement, in these days of political and scientific miracles, may require. Sardinia became the kingdom of Italy in p. 597 two months; the kingdom of Naples was annexed in less time; Austria was expelled from Venetia and the Quadrilateral in a few days: how soon, then, could a convention between England, Turkey, France, Russia, Austria and Prussia, for the sake of advancing a step in the peaceful solution of the Eastern Question, give population, security and prosperity to the tenth of the land.
Bearing upon some arrangement of this kind, is a remarkable passage in Isai. xliii. 3, 4. The reader can take it as it stands in the English Version, or according to my rendering as follows: “I have given Egypt, Cush, and Seba, thy covering in return for thee; since that thou hast been precious in my eyes; thou shalt become renowned: and I have loved thee; I will therefore give men in return for thee, even to peoples in return for thy life.” Here is the Giver, who, being the proprietor of the earth, and distributor of the nations upon it according to certain bounds (Acts xvii. 26), establishes a new relation of things in the East, in consideration of Israel’s return under cover, or protection, of some particular power. Israel is, as it were, transferred to the Divine Purchaser, that is, to the midst of His land, by a power, whose sway is providentially extended over Egypt, Cush, and Seba, or Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt; so that it obtains command of the Red Sea, from the Straits of Babelmandel to Suez; and from thence to the Mediterranean. Having thus command of both sides of the Straits, being already settled at Aden in Sheba, and possessed of Perim, the highway to India is controlled, and assured to the covering or protecting power.
But what country doth the scripture indicate will extend the shadow of its political protection over the tenth, in the midst of the land of Israel? Whatever land is therein indicated will, I conceive, obtain supremacy in the Abyssinian Ethiopia or Cush; Seba, or Nubia; and Mitzraim, or Egypt; whereby it will find it to be promotive of its commercial and political interests to obtain the resettlement of the central tenth of the Holy Land under the guarantee, perhaps, by the great powers, of neutrality. This would be in the sense of the text, receiving Egypt, Cush, and Seba, in return for the resettlement of the tenth.
The answer to the question proposed is revealed in Isai. xviii. 1, 2, 7, which I translate thus: “Ho! land of widely o’ershadowing wings extending from beyond to rivers of Cush; which sendeth by sea whirling things even upon vessels of fleetness on the surface of waters! Go swiftly, ye fleet messengers, to a nation carried away and oppressed; to a people terrible from this and onward; a nation prostrate and trodden down, whose land rivers have spoiled . . . to the dwelling-place of the Name of Yahweh Tz’vāoth, Mount Zion”—Herald, Vol. III., p. 103.
p. 598 A land of widely o’ershadowing wings is representative of a government of widely extended colonial dominion. It is hailed in the prophecy, which was delivered in Jerusalem, as a power located east of the rivers of Cush, or “extending from beyond;” and in its amplest Asiatic development, extending “to the rivers of Cush.” The reader must bear in mind, that there are two separate and distinct regions known in scripture by the name of Cush; the one, in Asia and now called Cushistan: the other, in Africa, styled Abyssinia and Ethiopia. The latter is at the southwest extremity of the Red Sea; while the Cush of our text is at the north end of the Persian Gulf, where it is watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, and now lying partly in Persia, and partly in Turkey.
The overshadowing power is “from beyond” these rivers. By sea, the communication is direct from Hindostan to Cush, where there is well known to be a power, of widely extended dominion, whose navy is largely composed of fleet, or swift vessels propelled by “whirling things.” Ezekiel styles this power “Sheba, Dedan, the Merchants of Tarshish, and all the young lions thereof”—ch. xxxviii. 13. This is the power to which Egypt, Cush, and Seba, the country of the Sabæans, “men of stature” (Isai. xlv. 14) are given as the price for the resettlement of the tenth in the midst of the land. It is the British Indian Lion of Tarshish, which even now commands the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and is prepared for any advance northwestward towards Syria or Egypt, deemed necessary by the home government for the satisfying of its interests.
How then doth “Yahweh, the Man of War,” so styled by Moses in Exod. xv. 3, occupy his time after his development as the “One Angel” is complete? Let the following testimonies enlighten us. “Behold,” saith the Spirit of Christ in Isai. xliii. 19, “I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. The living things of the plain shall glorify me, swift things and the daughters of voracious ones (the wild Arabs, figuratively “dragons” and “ostriches”): because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people I have created for myself: they shall show forth my praise.” This implies the subjugation of the freebooters of the Arabian desert, and its fertilization, which will make its people glorify the conqueror, and sing for joy.
“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing; the glory of Lebanon (the cedar) shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel p. 599 and Sharon, they shall be the glory of YAHWEH, and the excellency of our Elohim”—Isai. xxxv. 1, 2. And again in ch. xli. 18-20, “I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of waters, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together; that they may see, and know, and consider, that the hand of Yahweh hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.” And “Let the wilderness and the cities thereof exult, the villages that Kedar doth inhabit; let the inhabitants of the rocky country (Arabia Petræa) sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory unto Yahweh, and declare his praise in the habitable lands”—ch. xlii. 11.
Now it must be evident to every one, that before the wild, untamed marauders, who inhabit Arabia Deserta, Arabia Petræa, and Paran, Horeb, Sinai, and the tents and villages of the Kedarite Arabs, can glorify Yahweh, and rejoice with joy and singing, and become the intelligent, happy, and contented population of this newly created Paradise, they must have been subjected to the severe discipline of the sword; to subsequent instruction, as to the true character of the New Power so recently developed in Teman; and made witnesses of the wonderful transformation of their section of Asia from an arid, sandy and rocky wilderness, into a well-watered park of choice, odoriferous, trees and shrubs! And such is the testimony of the prophets. Isaiah, in speaking of the crisis of Messiah’s accession to David’s throne, declares it to be “a day of Midian.” His words are “thou hast broken the yoke of his (the Assyrian’s) burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of the oppressor upon him, as a day of Midian: for every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood: but she shall be for a burning fuel of fire”—the Bride shall be—ch. ix. 4, 5.
The original and appropriate district of the Midianites was on the east side of the Elanitic Bay of the Red Sea. They spread themselves northward along the desert east of Mount Seir, to the vicinity of the Moabites; and on the other side also, they covered a territory extending to the neighborhood of Mount Sinai. Midianites and Ishmaelites are different names for the same people. They are separated from “the tents of Cushan” by the northern extremity of the Arabian Desert.
Midian had a terrible day when, by a panic from Yahweh, they destroyed themselves in the presence of Gideon and his three hundred torch-bearing trumpeters. Another similar day is in reserve for Midian and Cushan, when “Eloahh shall come in from Teman, and p. 600 the Holy One from Mount Paran.” “From before him shall go the pestilence, and flaming fire shall go forth from his feet. He stood, and shall shake the earth: he beheld, and shall cause the nations to tremble; and the mountains of antiquity shall be dispersed; the ancient hills were humbled; the ways of Olahm are for him.” In consequence of this terrible manifestation of supernatural power, Habakkuk informs the reader, saying, “I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.” The lands of Cushan and Midian being within the limits of the land granted to Abraham are among the first to feel the sword of the King who begins his conquering career in Teman. Like his father David, he executes judgment upon the inhabitants of the South, before he obtains the sovereignty over the house of Judah in the midst of the land.
But, it cannot be supposed that, in our time of this, or the rising, generation, when that ubiquitous personage “our own correspondent” is peering and prying into all corners and by-ways of the inhabited earth, so extraordinary an Elohistic Power can have been developed; rejected candidates for constituency therein, cast forth and driven away into exile with shame and contempt into the countries ruled by the Devil and his Angels, to be there tormented with the world, until they have paid justice all it may demand—Matt. xviii. 34, 35; xxii. 13; xxv. 41, 46; 1 Cor. xi. 32; so wonderful a transformation of the wilderness and desert section of the land promised to Abraham into a well-watered umbrageous paradise, can have been created; and the hitherto untamed and ferocious tribes of Midian, Kedar, Cushan and the Rocky Arabia, have become its enlightened, docile, and joyous, inhabitants: it cannot, I say, be supposed, that all this can have been developed in sight almost of that grand and important work, the Suez Canal, and not have become the great and absorbing theme of speculative wonder in all the newspapers and cabinets of the world. Among the latter, the Anglo-Indian Lion of Tarshish, as lord paramount of Abyssinia, Nubia, Egypt, Cushistan, Sheba, Dedan, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, and protector of the Tenth in the midst of the land, must be the first of the great powers to be directly affected by the epiphany of the Davidian Power in Arabia. The presence of this power would be, if in hostile activity, a very disturbing element of the situation; and eminently destructive of British interests in India and the East. It is impossible to speak with certainty of details not revealed. When we touch upon them, we speak only of what may probably be the course of things leading to a specified result. With this understanding, I may say, that the alternative before the British Government, consequent p. 601 upon its maritime disasters visited upon it in the Red Sea—Ps. xlviii. 7—will be that of peace, or war, with the New Arabian Power. If the British Sheba Cabinet have acquired accurate knowledge of its divine Elohistic character, there is sufficient Millenarianism in high places, to counsel and to cause it to seek as a suppliant, the favor of the “greater than Solomon;” so that, as protector of the Tenth in the midst of the land, including the ancient territory of Tyre, it might be accepted, after the examples of Hiram of Tyre and the Queen of Sheba, as the humble servant and ally of “the Great King.” This arrangement, of course only temporary, would fulfill Psal. xlv. 12; “the daughter of Tyre with an offering, even the rich of the people, shall entreat thy favor”—the offering, minchah, being the tenth in the midst of the land—Isai. lxvii. 20; as the earnest, or instalment, of that greater ingathering after the Armageddon overthrow. And again, in Psal. lxxii. 10, “the kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts”—offer the countries over which they rule. “Yea, all kings shall bow down to him; all the nations shall serve him.” Thus, “the merchandise of Tyre will be for them who dwell before Yahweh, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing”—Isai. xxiii. 18.
Now, alliances between powers are often entered into and kept profoundly secret. The alliance between the Son of Solomon and the Anglo-Tyrian, may be unknown to the Mouth of the Dragon, the Mouth of the Beast, and to the Mouth of the False Prophet; that is, to “the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable.” Not knowing the true character of the power in Teman; nor the real nature of the relations subsisting between it and Britain; they will act blindly in their policy respecting it. They will doubtless hear of its making great demonstrations in the East; and of its setting up a New Religion, in its principles and institutions, intolerant and subversive of all other faiths. That it had cut off all communication with Mecca, to which it would allow no more pilgrimages; that the Anglo-Tyrian protector of Palestine seemed to favor its views; and had abolished the exercise of all Greek, Latin, and Mohammedan, religious rites in Jerusalem upon pain of death. It may be supposed, that the British government would not venture upon such a course as this, if it was not assured that there was an almighty power prepared to sustain it. To abolish the Greek and Latin superstitions in Jerusalem, would set the Frogs into violent activity, inflame the two hundred millions of European papists with burning fanaticism, and throw the Autocrat of all the Russias into fierce and furious paroxysms of wrath. The reader will not forget, that the question, “what power shall repair the Holy Shrines in Jerusalem,” involved Britain, p. 602 France, Turkey, Sardinia, and Russia, in war for three years; if such a mighty calamity resulted from so light a cause, what might not be expected from the expulsion by protestant England of every thing from Jerusalem not agreeable to the terrible power of Teman? Would not the False Prophet of Rome make proclamation, that Antichrist had come at last; and that he was aiming like another Mohammed, to destroy the catholic church, and to propagate a new religion by the sword! There is a tradition among papists, that within two years or so, Antichrist will appear, and try to destroy their church. When the true Christ comes, his mission is in part to destroy the Papacy and the Roman Prophet at the head of it. All, therefore, who acknowledge that the Pope is the real Vicar of the true Christ, will be sure to regard the Arabian of Teman as the Antichrist; being assured that the true Christ would not seek to destroy his own Vicar. The Frog power, which has taken the Papacy into its special keeping, and has set itself up as the champion of Latinism in the East, would doubtless in its working upon the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet, urge upon them all, the necessity of providing, by a concerted action, for their common interest; and against a danger that threatens all the states and institutions of Europe. Persuaded of this, an unclean dæmon spirit would go forth from the Mouth, or government, of each to all the kings of the earth, and of the whole habitable, to gather them together for a general crusade against the Arabian Antichrist; and for the deliverance of Jerusalem and the Holy Shrines out of the hands of the infidels. By this time, probably, Russia will have made a movement against Constantinople; and being in the fore front of the line of march from Europe, and extending its dominion far into the north and east, it would be prepared to take the lead in the great movement of the west. As the Gog of the land of Magog, the Autocrat of nations will be prepared to marshal under his banner the forces of Persia, Cushistan, Phut, Gomer, and Togarmah of the north quarters, in addition to those of his hereditary domain of “all the Russias.”
Such will be the formidable coalition developed through the agency of the unclean spirits like Frogs. “Tidings out of the East,” from Jerusalem, Arabia, and Hindostan; “and out of the north,” or, Britain; “shall trouble him”—Dan. xi. 44: “things that come into his mind and cause him to conceive a mischievous purpose: saying, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; to take a spoil and to take a prey; to turn my hand upon the desolate places now inhabited, and upon the people gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land”—Ezek. xxxviii. 10-12. This will not be an idle threat. “They came out,” p. 603 saith the Spirit, “like a whirlwind to scatter ME; their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly”—Hab. iii. 14.
But, Gog does not go forth with the consent of the power under the shadow of whose wings the Tenth in the midst of the land has flourished in security and comfort. It sends forth its forces to meet the invader, who “goes forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many:” for “Sheba and Dedan, and the Merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say to him, Art thou come to take a spoil? Hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? To carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?” These inquiries are equivalent to a declaration from the protecting power, that such a spoliation would not be permitted. It occupies Edom, Moab, and part of Ammon, and Egypt; and we may suppose Jerusalem in strong force. But, the forces of the East are compelled to fall back, and evacuate Egypt; for “he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt.” He now pours in upon the land of Israel like a flood; or, as Ezekiel expresses it, “he ascends and comes like a storm, like a cloud to cover the land;” with the exception of Edom, Moab, and the chief of Ammon, which escape the storm. The headquarters of this storm cloud invasion from the north are between the Sea of Sodom and the Jordan on the east side, and the Mediterranean on the west; and surrounding Jerusalem; as indicated in Dan. xi. 45, to wit, “he shall pitch the tents of his entrenched camp between the seas in the mountain of the glory of the Holy.” In other words, he shall besiege Jerusalem; and to do this, he must occupy the Valley of Jehoshaphat, a narrow glen which runs from north to south, between the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and Mount Moriah, and through which flows the Kidron. Of this valley, it is said in Joel iii. 2, 12, “Yahweh will gather all the nations (that is, the forces of the nations) into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there.” Yehoshaphat, in Hebrew, signifies the judgment of Yah. Joel also styles the glen, the Valley of Threshing: “Multitudes, multitudes,” says he, “in the valley of Threshing: for the Day of Yahweh is near in the valley of threshing.” Apocalyptically, the same locality is styled ARMAGEDDON—“And he gathered them together in a place called Hebraistically, Armageddon.” Yahweh gathered them together without their perceiving the hand that led them on to the slaughter—“I will,” saith he, “gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle.” Various derivations have been given of this mystical name; for such it is, inasmuch as there is no such name of a place in the land of Israel. Micah says, Yahweh shall gather many p. 604 nations as sheaves into the floor, that the Daughter of Zion may arise and thresh them”—ch. iv. 11-13. The floor of threshing of which they are to be made the chaff (Dan. ii. 35) is this valley of Jehoshaphat. Under this aspect of things, they are a heap of sheaves upon the threshing floor; and this idea is represented by the word, ערמה, the first two syllables of the name: the third indicates where this heap is to be, namely, in the גי, valley; and the last syllable, for what purpose the heap is there, namely, for דּוֹן judgment—Arma-gai-don, which in a Greek dress, is, ’Αρμαγεδδων. The reason why the text states, that the place, or valley, is “Hebraistically” so called, is to give us to understand in what country the place is situated—in the country, to wit, the native language of which is the Hebrew tongue.
In conclusion of this exposition of the Sixth Vial, it may be remarked, that the crowning events of the series are the capture of the Holy City; the establishment therein of the Little Horn of the Goat, who thus “stands up against the Prince of princes” (Dan. viii. 25; xi. 45), as the representative of Nebuchadnezzar’s Imperial Image (Dan. ii. 31-35); and its being broken by the Stone not in hands; and no help for him—Dan. ii. 45; xi. 45. Of the capture of the city there is no doubt. “The city shall be taken,” saith Zechariah, “and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.” Such is the situation; the City of the Great King in the hands of the Greek and Latin Catholic crusaders, who cover the land like a cloud; and no safety for any but in Edom, Moab, and Ammon, on the east and south of the Dead Sea.
The career of the Rainbowed Angel already set forth in Vol. ii. ch. x, illustrates the crisis at which we have now arrived. “Yahweh shall go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.” “He shall go forth with whirlwinds of Teman.” “He will march through the land in indignation;” and “tread down the people in his anger at Botzrah, and make them drunk in his fury, and bring down their strength to the earth.” “All the men that are upon the face of the land shall shake at his presence.” “And his feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives, which shall cleave in twain.” “And he will plead against Gog with pestilence and with blood; and rain upon him and upon his bands, and upon the many people with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.” Thus shall Jerusalem and the Holy Land be delivered from “the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable” confederate with Gog. They will fall upon the mountains of Israel, and upon the p. 605 open field, and a sixth part of them only will escape. Thus all the catholic and protestant, and Mohammedan, heathen will see the judgment executed upon them; and “the house of Israel will know that Yahweh is their Elohim from that day forward.” Therefore “sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. Yahweh hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the King of Israel, Yahweh, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more”—Zeph. iii. 14: “then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more”—Joel iii. 17.
12. Act. VII.—The Seventh Vial
17. “And the Seventh Angel poured out his vial into the AIR: and there came forth a great voice from the Nave of the heaven, from the throne, saying, IT IS DONE! 18. “And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings: and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since that men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. 19. “And the Great City came into three parts; and the cities of the nations fell: and Babylon the Great came into remembrance before the Deity, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. 20. “And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. 21. “And great hail as of a talent weight descended out of the heaven upon the men: and the men blasphemed the Deity, because of the plague of the hail; for the plague of it is exceedingly great.”
The Seventh Vial is the concluding period of the Seventh Seal, and of the Seventh Trumpet; in other words, the vial, the trumpet, and the seal, all terminate at the same time. The seal began with “the silence in the heaven about the space of half an hour (ch. viii. 1), A. D., 323; the trumpet, which is called in 1 Cor. xv. 52, “the last trump,” began to sound with the issue of the Great Voice, A. D. 1790; but when, or at what date, the seventh and last vial shall begin to pour out its wrath, I am unable to say. This, however, may be assuredly affirmed, that it will not begin until after the resurrection period, or “time of the dead;” and the capture of Jerusalem by Gog’s forces; and its recovery by YAHWEH ELOHIM, “the Great King.” The casting out of the enemy from Jerusalem is followed by the establishment of the Nave, or Most Holy, and the Throne of David, therein. This must precede the outpouring of the wrath into the Air; because “a great voice” goes forth from the Nave-Throne, saying, “It is done;” which could not be if the throne had not already been set up.
The crowning events of the Sixth Vial put the Lamb with the 144,000 in possession of the Holy City. Their throne is “the great white throne” of the Yahweh Name, “from whose face, the earth and the heaven,” by the judgments of the Seventh Vial, will be caused to “flee away;” for when the white throne receives its full dominion, p. 606 no place, or room, “will be found for them”—ch. xx. 11; Jer. iii. 17—the Gentile “heaven and earth” will be made to give place to the “New Heavens and New Earth” in which Jerusalem will be a rejoicing, and her people a joy—Isai. lxv. 17.
The Seventh Angel is the ETERNAL SPIRIT clothed with the white linen and golden-girdled company of splendid ones, Jesus and his Brethren; who, though incorruptible and deathless, do not let themselves out in their brightness, until they have accomplished the work of this seventh vial upon “the Air.” I am led to affirm this upon the authority of the Spirit of Christ in Zech. xiv. 5, 6, 7, as follows in the original; “And Yahweh my Elohim shall come in; all the saints with thee. And it shall be in that day there shall be no brightness, the splendid ones drawing in; and it shall be one day that shall be known to Yahweh, neither day nor night; but it shall be at the time of evening there shall be brightness.” At the time of evening the day of glory begins. When the judgments of the seventh vial are all exhausted the time of evening will have come. All “the smoke from the glory of the Deity, and from his power” will have cleared away; and then the Saints who have been executing “the judgment written,” will rest from the labors of the war of the great and terrible day; and no longer drawing themselves in, will “shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. xiii. 43); or, as Daniel expresses it, “as the brightness of the firmament; and as the stars for the olahm and beyond”—ch. xii. 3.
The judgments of the seventh vial are all in the future. They are the voices uttered by the Seven Thunders, which succeed the lionroar of the Rainbowed Angel (ch. x. 3, 4), and which issue from the throne—ch. iv. 5. John was commanded not to write their utterances, but to seal them up. Apocalyptically, thunders are significant of wars. Hence, seven thunders are seven wars, which collectively make up “the war of that great day of the omnipotent Deity.” The details of the seven thunders are not given; but the general results are specified in the prophecy of the seventh vial. The ecclesiastical and secular constitution of Antichristendom is the obnoxious subject of divine vengeance. The Powers that be having answered the purpose of their permitted existence; the time has arrived under this vial for their abolition. This can only be accomplished by divine power; hence the war of the Deity, by which Babylon the Great, or the ecclesiastical constitution of the world; and “the Cities of the Nations,” “the islands,” and “the mountains,” or kingdoms, empires, and states of all sorts, are transferred to the Saints; so that the wicked who now sit in the heavenlies, are hurled from their thrones, and sent empty away—Luke i. 51-53.
p. 6071. The Air
“He poured out his vial into the Air.”
The Air is the political firmament, or heaven, of the world. That air and heaven are regarded as synonymous, appears from Matt. xiii. 32, which speaks of “the birds of the air,” as equivalent for what both Matthew and Luke, style the birds, or fowls, of “the heaven.” But better authority than James’ Version informs us, that “the firmament” between the clouds and the earth’s waters, which is the air, or atmosphere, Elohim called “Heaven”—Gen. i. 6-8. When we look into this expanse we see the sun, moon, stars, and constellations, which, though far beyond it, appear to be in the air or heaven. Now, the political world has its air as well as the natural. Like this, the political air, or firmament, “divides the waters,” or peoples who rule, “from the waters,” or peoples who are ruled; and whatever constitutes this division is the air or heaven. The governments of the world are in this air, and constitute the sun, moon, stars, and constellations of the air or heaven. If there were no air in the natural world, there would be no clouds, or “waters above the firmament;” but simply “darkness upon the face of the deep”—all waters would be commingled without order or distinction. Such would also be the case in the political world, if there were no political air or aerial. This air divides the ruling class from the common people or “waters,” called also “the sea,” and sometimes “the earth.” The air, or heaven, is therefore that which divides, or in modern phrase, the constitution, or constituted order of things among the nations.
When the Saracens made their irruption into the Dragon, or Græco-Roman Constantinopolitan empire in the seventh century “the Sun and the Air were darkened” (ch. ix. 2) in all the countries they subdued. In other words, the political authority and constitution which placed them in subjection to the Byzantine Dynasty in Constantinople were eclipsed; as the kingdom of the Beast was “darkened” by the judgments of the fifth vial, but which afterwards became light again when the darkening power passed away.
Paul refers to the Air or Heaven of the Gentile world, or constitution of things, in Eph. ii. 2, where he says, “ye who were dead in trespasses and in sins, in time past walked according to the aion of this kosmos,” or course of this order of things, “according to the chief of the authority of the Air, (which is) the Spirit which now worketh in the children of disobedience.” The spirit that works in the disobedient is the spirit of the flesh, or King Sin. He is the chief, the ruler, or prince, of “the authority of the Air.” The constituted p. 608 authority of an empire, kingdom, or republic, is “the authority of the Air” in those several dominions or states. The Powers that be are the Sin-Powers of the Air, styled by the apostle in Eph. vi. 12, “principalities and authorities, the world-rulers of the darkness of the course of things (αιων, aion) the spirituals of the wickedness in the heavenlies.” These all belong to “the authority of the Air.” The spirituals of the wickedness in his day were the civil, or secular, and the eccclesiastical, world-rulers, who were either Jewish or Pagan; but in our day, they are emperors, kings, magistrates, popes, priests, and parsons, called “the clergy,” of all orders and degrees, of imposture and blasphemy, pretending to be christian. These spirituals of wickedness all, as the dæmons, foul spirits, and unclean and hateful birds (ch. xviii. 2), are the ephemera which roost in the branches of the widespreading upas which poisons the air of the Great City in which it grows.
This Air of the Seventh Vial is the air or heaven of Daniel’s Four Beasts, or dominions. In his seventh chapter it is styled, כל־שמיא, kol shemayah, “all the heavens” (ver. 27) under which the kingdom, dominion, and greatness, exist, which are to be given to the chosen people of the saints. The Air of this vial comprehends all these heavens or aerials. It is the same air or heaven, in which a door is opened, and a new throne established—ch. iv. 1, 2. This door will be opened, and the throne set therein, when the Armageddon victory shall have cast out the enemy from Jerusalem, and have planted the Lamb and 144,000 on Mount Zion. The denouement of the sixth vial opens the door and sets up the throne. There is then a throne in the Air which the air or heaven does not contain at the present time. All other thrones will continue to exist in the air contemporaneously with this new throne, which is the Throne of David restored, until they shall all be taken possession of by the saints of the Most High; when “the kingdoms of the world become our Lord’s and his Christ’s”—ch. xi. 15.
The Air of this Seventh Vial is “the Heaven” of ch. xx. 11, which, in consequence of the wrath poured out into it, “flies away” with “the earth” that stands related to it. Both earth and heaven, as now constituted in church, state, and general society, will all be broken up and abolished; and a New Air, or firmament, constituted, in which will shine only “the Splendid Ones,” the Sun of Righteousness and the kings of his rising, who obtain “the victory over the Beast, and over his Image, and over his Mark, and over the Number of his Name”—ch. xv. 2. These will all meet together with the Lord in the Air, as the “New Heaven,” styled also “the Heaven,” in ch. xviii. 20, which rejoices over Babylon in the disaster of her fall.
p. 609 This New Air, I remark again, is the air in which, and for which, the chosen saints are convened. Paul tells us in 1 Thess. iv. that when “the time of the dead that they should be judged” arrives, the living saints will not anticipate the dead. That is, they will not be gathered together into the presence of Christ before them. When Christ comes, the living will have to wait, until the reproduction of the dead saints is complete. Be the time of this reproduction long or short, the how long is not revealed; this, however, is certain, that “the dead in Christ shall be restored (αναστησονται) FIRST.” He then tells us what is to happen next. “After that, we the living who remain, together with them shall be hurried away in clouds for a convention of the Lord in an air (εις ἀέρα), and so (in that Air) we shall be always with the Lord.” Thus the dead are the subjects of anástàsis, or “restoration” to what they once were; and then, in company with their fellow earthborns in Christ of the generation contemporary with this great anastasis, they go to report themselves for better or worse at the Judgment Seat in Teman. All of them who are approved, or “accounted worthy to obtain that aion” (αιων, course of things, or Air), are “clothed with the house from heaven;” and henceforth, appointed to be with the Lord always in the Air.
2. “It Is Done”
“And there came forth a Great Voice from the Nave of the heaven, from the throne, saying It is done!”
The Nave of the Heaven is “the Bride, the Lamb’s Wife.” The Most Holy Community, the One Body, of which the Anointed Jesus is the Head, in the sense that the Head of Christ is the Deity.” The Nave is the Spirit’s Bride purified from every thing that defiles—ch. xxi. 9, 27. She is represented in ch. iv. 4-11, by four-and-twenty elders and four living ones full of eyes within, before, and behind. These are before the throne, and round about the throne, occupied by the Lord Jesus Christ, who is likened to a jasper and a sardine stone. Hence, what proceeds from the Nave of the Air or Heaven, proceeds also from the throne established on Mount Zion, “the place of the Name of Yahweh Tz’vāoth,” who reigns there and in Jerusalem, before his Ancients gloriously—Isai. xviii, 7; xxiv. 23.
A voice proceeding from this throne in the midst of the Nave of the Heaven must needs be a great voice. And what voice can give utterance to a more important announcement than that all that had been predicted by the prophets is done, is all fulfilled. It reminds us of the words in Ezek. xxxix. 8, “Behold, it is come, and IT IS DONE, saith Adonai Yahweh; this is the Day whereof I have spoken.” That p. 610 is, the day of the outpouring of the seventh vial is “the Great and Terrible Day of Yahweh.” It is the day in which, after the fall of Gog upon the mountains of Israel, Adonai Yahweh will “send a fire on Magog, and among them who dwell confidently in the isles;” and which shall cause them to know that He is Yahweh. “So,” saith he, “will I make my Holy Name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my Holy Name any more; and the nations shall know that I, Yahweh, am the HOLY ONE in Israel.
During “the great and terrible day,” the Nave smokes with indignation against Gog’s land, or Magog, and against Babylon the Great, and other more distant lands. In the Nave is embodied the glory and power of the Deity; so that his fiery indignation smokes from the Nave; and while, therefore, this is in a state of activity—while “the day of trouble” continues, in which “they have no rest day nor night who worship the Beast and his Image, and whosoever receives the sign of his name”—no one engaged in the work of the seventh vial can rest from his labors; nor can the nations walk in the light of it (ch. xxi. 24). The smoke of torment must cease to ascend before the nations can be blessed in Abraham and in his Seed, the Nave; and go up from year to year to worship the King, Yahweh Tz’vāoth, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles at Jerusalem—Zech. xiv. 17. This is the worship of the Nave-State, into which “no man can enter till the seven plagues of the seven angels are fulfilled”—till the seventh vial, therefore, is all poured out; and the wrath of the Deity IS DONE. But, after “it is done,” the Nave-Body will shine forth as the Sun in the kingdom of the Father, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End; and mankind will be permitted to enjoy the light of it in peace; and to attain to a salvation with eternal glory, upon the conditions that then may be prescribed.
“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars,” who have been brought forth from Death’s charnel house, the grave, and have been driven with shame and contempt from the Judgment Seat of Christ; together with all like characters among the living, “shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone:” in other words, shall be subjected to the plague of the seventh vial, which will bring him with torment to a termination of his existence: “which is the Second Death”—ch. xxi. 8. Thus, those who have held the truth in unrighteousness, and so walked after the flesh, “go away into aionian punishment,” in suffering which they are punished with the goat-nations that “make war with the Lamb”—ch. xvii. 14; Matt. xxv. They suffer this in the fiery indignation poured out of the seventh vial. They are scrutinized and condemned under p. 611 the sixth vial, and executed under the seventh. And when the tares among the saints were separated, and commanded to “depart into the aion-fire”—to set out upon the hard road appointed for them to travel, towards the country of their penal servitude and death; the saints who are accounted worthy of the aion, are sentenced to enter into “the house from heaven” from which they shall “go out no more”—ch. iii. 12; xxi. 7. The sentence is executed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, in “the mortal” being “swallowed up of life;” or what is equivalent, “the life of Jesus being made manifest in their mortal flesh”—2 Cor. iv. 11; v. 4.
3. The Great Earthquake
“And there was a Great Earthquake, such as was not since that men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great.”
When this earthquake shall occur, Yahweh Elohim will be enthroned in Jerusalem. This appears from Joel iii. 16, where it is written, “Yahweh shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem”—the Great Voice of this vial: “and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but Yahweh shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.”
This may be called the epoch of earthquakes; for the conclusion of the sixth vial is signalized by an earthquake that divides the Mount of Olives, and projects one half of the mount towards the north, and the other towards the south, and leaves a very great valley between. This shakes the earth while Gog is in the land, and accompanies the presence of Yahweh there, who says, “all the men upon the face of the land shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the towers shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains,” and so forth—Ezek. xxxviii. 19, 20, 21; Isai. xxx. 25. This will be an earthquake in the most literal sense; but it may also be accepted as the earnest of that more terrible and extensive political earthquake of the seventh vial, of which the Spirit speaks in Hagg. ii. 6, 21, saying, “Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the חמדת khemdath of all the nations ובאו uvahu, they shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, saith Yahweh Tz’vaoth.” In the English Version, khemdath is rendered the Desire of; and some Lexicons tell us that the word has no plural. But if this be true, by what rule is it made the nominative of the plural verb vahu, “they shall come?” The Messiah is supposed to be the person desired by all the nations at his coming. But in what sense can he be said to be the Desire of all the nations, when they are all p. 612 to compass him about, and in the Name of Yahweh he will destroy them?—Ps. cxviii. 10; Apoc. xvii. 14. It seems to me that a letter has been dropped in transcription, and that the word should read khĕmdoth in the plural; as, “and the excellencies of all the nations shall come;” but if khemdath in the singular be correct, then the construction is to be accounted for upon the same principle that Elohim, plural, is so often construed with a verb in the singular—“the Excellency of all the nations they shall come,” or as Zechariah expresses the same thing, “Yahweh Elohim he shall come in, all the Saints with thee”—he and all the saints being the Excellency of all the nations.
“I will shake all nations.” This is a nationquake whose shocks are world-wide and affecting the earth, the sea, and the dry land, of the whole political community of the globe. But the heavens are to be shaken likewise. Even the heavens and the earth of the Commonwealth of Israel were not to escape. Paul who wrote the epistle to the Hebrews while the temple was yet standing in Jerusalem, adduced this prophecy in Haggai, in evidence that the Mosaic Heavens, which had waxed old, were to be so shaken as to vanish away—Heb. viii. 13; xii. 26-29. Look then into the land of Israel, and “behold, trouble and darkness, dimness and anguish; and all driven to darkness”—Isai. viii. 22. This state of things has obtained for a long series of ages. There is no Mosaic Heavens and Earth there. All the institutions of Moses have vanished away; and Israel’s Sun and Moon are darkened, and their stars have withdrawn their shining, as the result of the fire and pillars of smoke, the wonders shown in the heavens and the earth when they were shaken; and all this came to pass “before the great and terrible day of Yahweh,” which is not yet quite “come”—Joel ii. 30, 31; iii. 15. What has thus befallen the kingdom of Israel is a striking illustration of what awaits the kingdoms of all the nations of the earth when they come to be shaken by the great earthquake of the seventh vial in “the great and terrible day of Yahweh.” “I will shake the heavens and the earth;” and now behold the consequences of it in the following words: “and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations; and I will overthrow the chariots and those who ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his fellow.” This is a decree against Gog, the Two-Horned Beast, the False Prophet, and the Ten Horns, with all their armies. Into their heaven the vial is to be poured, and its effect will be to shake them and their nations so terribly that there will be no more left of their dynasties, governments, and institutions in church and state, than there now is of Israel’s in the land.
p. 613 As a consequence of this shaking of all the nations, the Great City is resolved into thirds, and ἀι πολεις, the cities, or states, of the nations fall. They fall, because in the shaking, the Lamb and his staff with their army cast them down. The idea is expressed by Daniel in the words, “the thrones were cast down” (ch. viii. 9). In other words, the Lamb and they that were with him conquered the Ten Horns, and took possession of their kingdoms. The kingdoms of the world became Yahweh’s, and his Christ’s. As to the “three parts” into which the Great City Babylon is divided by the shocks of this great earthquake of nations, we are left without positive information. From the subsequent parts of the prophecy, however, it would seem that the Dragon might be reckoned as one third; the Beast, the Ten Horns, and the False Prophet, the second third; and Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and the East, the third third. This eastern third would be the first to fall under the dominion of the throne in Zion: “unto the daughter of Zion shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.” And the Ruler come forth from Bethlehem shall be the peace, when the Assyrian (Gog) shall come into the land. Then the anointed ones shall waste Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof; thus shall He deliver Israel when the Assyrian invades their land—Mic. iv. 7, 8; v. 2-6. Then, after the conquest of Assyria and Egypt by the Saints, “there shall be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land: whom Yahweh Tz’vaoth shall bless, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance—Isai. xix. 23-25.
After this settlement of affairs in the Eastern Third, “Babylon the Great comes into remembrance before the Deity, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.” This is the series of events which succeeds the proclamation of the Aion-Gospel in midheaven—in the Air—announcing that the Hour of Judgment upon Babylon had arrived, and which precedes the Second Angel’s announcement that “Babylon is fallen”—ch. xiv. 8. As the result of this remembrance, the ecclesiastical system of Europe, in its Greek, Latin, and Protestant divisions of spiritual wickedness is abolished; and its ecclesiastical capital, ROME, destroyed from the earth, as fearfully and graphically exhibited in ch. xviii.
The next result of the “very great earthquake” is the obliteration of all “islands” and “mountains” of the political world. A natural island is land entirely surrounded by water; a political island is p. 614 analogous thereto inasmuch as it is a kingdom, or state, insulated from all other “waters,” or peoples, by which it is surrounded. Belgium, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and so forth are political islands, insulated from each other, and from all other peoples by the political constitution peculiar to each.
In Jer. li. 25, the Chaldean emperor of Babylon is styled a “destroying mountain which destroyeth all the earth;” whose destiny was to be rolled down from the rocks, and to be made “a burnt mountain.” The little Stone, or kingdom of Christ, “the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel” (Gen. xlix. 24) is to become “a Great Mountain,” or empire, after it has smitten “the destroying mountain,” in its latter day manifestation, and to “fill the whole earth,” (Dan. ii. 34, 35). A mountain filling the whole earth will leave no room for any other mountains. To declare, consequently, that “the mountains were not found,” is equivalent to saying that the empires of Turkey, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Britain and the United States, were all superseded and abolished, by the New Empire of Israel’s King, then become “the King and Elohim of the whole earth”—Zech. xiv. 9; Isai. liv. 5. The world to come, or future habitable, of which Paul spoke (Heb. ii. 5), will admit of only one mountain, “the mountain of Yahweh’s House, to be established on the top of the mountains, and exalted above the hills; that all” the regenerated “nations may flow into it”—Isai. ii. 2. No rival empires will be permitted to exist; for in that “economy of the fulness of the times,” all things in the heavens or the air, and upon the earth, or the nations, will be gathered together under One Head—Eph. i. 10. The judgments of the seventh vial, executed by the Saints as the omnipotent ministers of the Spirit, will bring to pass this divine determination. They will chase away the fugitive islands, and hurl into the abyss the lofty mountains, that now so proudly and defiantly tower above the political earth and sea. They will accomplish this by tormenting with fire and brimstone “the Devil and his Angels;” in other words, by encountering in war the Beast, and kings of the earth, and their armies—ch. xiv. 9-11; xix. 19; xvii. 14. No island nor mountain powers will be able successfully to withstand them. Their armies will be in the midst of many peoples as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of goats: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver (Mic. v. 8). Thus, “the nations shall see, and be confounded at all their might: they shall lay the hand upon the mouth, their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of Yahweh Elohim, and fear because of thee”—Ibid. vii. 16, 17.
p. 6154. The Great Hail
“And Great Hail as of a talent-weight descended out of the heaven upon the men; and the men blasphemed the Deity, because of the plague of the hail; for the plague of it is exceedingly great.”
It is the Deity in the heaven from whom the hail-plague proceeds. In the heaven into which he introduced himself, when he opened a door therein, and set up his throne. From the political heaven, into which the seventh vial is poured, and in which the throne of David is one among many, upon all of which it makes war, the great hail descends upon the men, who worship the beast and his image. Hail from a political heaven would not be literally frozen waters; but rather something injurious set in motion against the enemies of the hailing power. When a government sends forth its armies to lay waste its adversaries and their countries with fire and sword, its troops are a storm, or plague, of hail; and every individual trooper is a hailstone of a certain weight.
Speaking of the power that should destroy the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, Isaiah says, “Behold, Yahweh hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand”—ch. xxviii. 2. And again, speaking of the time when “Yahweh Tz’vaoth shall come down and fight for Mount Zion,” he says, “And Yahweh shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall show the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones.” The hailstones are an element of the lighting down of the arm of Deity. In Ezek. xiii. 11, we read, “there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind, shall rend the wall, daubed with untempered mortar.” Sirach, commenting upon this, says, “Ezekiel made mention of the enemies under the figure of the rain.” A hail-shower is the enemy of the men upon whom it descends. When the Saints, in the execution of their Third Angel mission (ch. xiv. 9-11), descend like a tempest upon the men who worship the beast and his image, they become an exceedingly great hail, whose average weight is respectively, according to tables in Calmet, “a talent” of one hundred and twenty-five pounds troy. It is evident from Matt. xxv. 24, that a talent and an individual are relative things; and that the one is as fitly represented by the other, as a passenger by rail is by the ticket he bears. After the hail of talent-weights ceases the wrath of the seventh vial burns no more. The Beast and the False Prophet are destroyed, the Dragon is bound and shut down in the abyss, the p. 616 Ten Horns are conquered, and nothing remains but the NEW JERUSALEM GOVERNMENT ruling in righteousness a world of regenerated nations, blessed in Abraham and his Seed for a thousand years—ch.