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Introduction.

At this awful moment there flashes out an assurance of the unchanging righteousness and love of the Eternal. Before the sounding of the next trumpet the seer beholds once more in his beauty the strong angel who holds the sealed book. The seer is about to write, but is held back. There are mysteries in the Providences and Rulings of God which cannot as yet be unveiled. He is above all; and Eternity itself shall never exhaust the wonder and love of His people. And the angel goes on to declare that the time is near at hand for the fulfilment of the words of the ancient prophets, that there shall be no delay.1

The next passage (x. 8-11) is parallel with Ezek. iii. 1-3, where the roll which the prophet was commanded to eat was full of mourning and woe, foretelling the desolation of Jerusalem and its restoration. St. John now sees the book also telling of the fate of the ancient city, and also of the new Jerusalem which is to rise out of it. There was a sweetness in the very consciousness of a revelation from God, and sorrow in knowing that judgment is to be declared against the city and temple that he loves. But he receives the assurance that the terrible calamity shall not be the end, he has further messages of God to deliver.

The Measuring of the Temple. The progress of events seems in suspense, for the seventh trumpet has not yet sounded when he is bidden to measure the Temple (xi.), but not the court surrounding it, for it is given to the Gentiles to trample down. The forty-two months, or 1260 days, is the period which elapsed between the outrages of Gessius Florus, which excited the Jews to madness and the destruction of the city by Titus, a period of horrible misery and agony. It was so not 1 This, the marginal reading in the R.V., is certainly right.

only in Jerusalem, but at Rome. The Capitol was burnt, and the vices of Vitellius horrified the world. But the very command to St. John to measure, interpreted as it is by Ezek. xl., was a promise that a new and holy city should supersede that which was falling. In fact, the rest of the book is the assurance of that new Temple of God. The 'two witnesses' (3) are evidently the counterpart of Joshua and Zerubbabel, the judge and priest, in Zech. iii. and iv., the guardians of the temple against Satan at that crisis. They point to the Everlasting Law of the righteous God, and the Priesthood, the living Communion between Him and His creatures. They will deliver their testimony in the midst of the guilty and doomed city, but the beast of ungoverned lust and self-will will rise against them and slay them. The records of the Jewish historian vividly and terribly explain this. The city became like Sodom in its ungoverned lust, like Egypt, the land of darkness and cruelty (8). And so there, in the city which had once been the holy, now law and worship lay dead, and the heathen around in their contempt made merry, and mocked at the destruction of those who had rebuked their sins. But it was only for a little while. When the world thought them dead the Divine voice called them to life, and exalted them in the presence of their enemies (12). Again history offers the explanation. The frightful confusion caused by the crimes of Nero and Vitellius was ended by Vespasian. A'great fear' (11) fell upon the Roman world, which accepted a righteous and orderly government again, or, as the prophet puts it (13), did homage to the God of heaven. Thus the great earthquake in Rome was over, the fall of the Temple of Jerusalem almost immediately followed. The seventh trumpet sounded, and on the catastrophe simultaneously the heavenly

Introduction.

At this awful moment there flashes out an assurance of the unchanging righteousness and love of the Eternal. Before the sounding of the next trumpet the seer beholds once more in his beauty the strong angel who holds the sealed book. The seer is about to write, but is held back. There are mysteries in the Providences and Rulings of God which cannot as yet be unveiled. He is above all; and Eternity itself shall never exhaust the wonder and love of His people. And the angel goes on to declare that the time is near at hand for the fulfilment of the words of the ancient prophets, that there shall be no delay.1

The next passage (x. 8-11) is parallel with Ezek. iii. 1-3, where the roll which the prophet was commanded to eat was full of mourning and woe, foretelling the desolation of Jerusalem and its restoration. St. John now sees the book also telling of the fate of the ancient city, and also of the new Jerusalem which is to rise out of it. There was a sweetness in the very consciousness of a revelation from God, and sorrow in knowing that judgment is to be declared against the city and temple that he loves. But he receives the assurance that the terrible calamity shall not be the end, he has further messages of God to deliver.

The Measuring of the Temple. The progress of events seems in suspense, for the seventh trumpet has not yet sounded when he is bidden to measure the Temple (xi.), but not the court surrounding it, for it is given to the Gentiles to trample down. The forty-two months, or 1260 days, is the period which elapsed between the outrages of Gessius Florus, which excited the Jews to madness and the destruction of the city by Titus, a period of horrible misery and agony. It was so not 1 This, the marginal reading in the R.V., is certainly right.

only in Jerusalem, but at Rome. The Capitol was burnt, and the vices of Vitellius horrified the world. But the very command to St. John to measure, interpreted as it is by Ezek. xl., was a promise that a new and holy city should supersede that which was falling. In fact, the rest of the book is the assurance of that new Temple of God. The two witnesses' (3) are evidently the counterpart of Joshua and Zerubbabel, the judge and priest, in Zech. iii. and iv., the guardians of the temple against Satan at that crisis. They point to the Everlasting Law of the righteous God, and the Priesthood, the living Communion between Him and His creatures. They will deliver their testimony in the midst of the guilty and doomed city, but the beast of ungoverned lust and self-will will rise against them and slay them. The records of the Jewish historian vividly and terribly explain this. The city became like Sodom in its ungoverned lust, like Egypt, the land of darkness and cruelty (8). And so there, in the city which had once been the holy, now law and worship lay dead, and the heathen around in their contempt made merry, and mocked at the destruction of those who had rebuked their sins. But it was only for a little while. When the world thought them dead the Divine voice called them to life, and exalted them in the presence of their enemies (12). Again history offers the explanation. The frightful confusion caused by the crimes of Nero and Vitellius was ended by Vespasian. A 'great fear' (11) fell upon the Roman world, which accepted a righteous and orderly government again, or, as the prophet puts it (13), did homage to the God of heaven. Thus the great earthquake in Rome was over, the fall of the Temple of Jerusalem almost immediately followed. The seventh trumpet sounded, and on the catastrophe simultaneously the heavenly

Introduction.

At this awful moment there flashes out an assurance of the unchanging righteousness and love of the Eternal. Before the sounding of the next trumpet the seer beholds once more in his beauty the strong angel who holds the sealed book. The seer is about to write, but is held back. There are mysteries in the Providences and Rulings of God which cannot as yet be unveiled. He is above all; and Eternity itself shall never exhaust the wonder and love of His people. And the angel goes on to declare that the time is near at hand for the fulfilment of the words of the ancient prophets, that there shall be no delay.1

The next passage (x. 8-11) is parallel with Ezek. iii. 1-3, where the roll which the prophet was commanded to eat was full of mourning and woe, foretelling the desolation of Jerusalem and its restoration. St. John now sees the book also telling of the fate of the ancient city, and also of the new Jerusalem which is to rise out of it. There was a sweetness in the very consciousness of a revelation from God, and sorrow in knowing that judgment is to be declared against the city and temple that he loves. But he receives the assurance that the terrible calamity shall not be the end, he has further messages of God to deliver.

The Measuring of the Temple. The progress of events seems in suspense, for the seventh trumpet has not yet sounded when he is bidden to measure the Temple (xi.), but not the court surrounding it, for it is given to the Gentiles to trample down. The forty-two months, or 1260 days, is the period which elapsed between the outrages of Gessius Florus, which excited the Jews to madness and the destruction of the city by Titus, a period of horrible misery and agony. It was so not 1 This, the marginal reading in the R.V., is certainly right.

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