David Baron

“ If the very fact of the presence amongst them of the Angel of Jehovah, who in ancient times led His people and brought them into the promised land, and smote all their enemies before them, was intended, as we saw when dealing with the 8th verse, to be in itself a message of comfort to the now oppressed and depressed Israel, how much more full of consolation must have been the fact of His appearing as the Advocate and Intercessor on their behalf?
And He who here cries, " How long, Jehovah of hosts, wilt Thou not have compassion on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah? " ”

“ Surely judicial blindness and hardness of heart: ears which do not hear, are given by God; but, alas! the nations, or so-called Chris tendom, have helped forward their affliction; they have made matters worse a thousand times: and Satan, who hates Israel, has been the author of all things calculated to increase the affliction of this downtrodden nation. Surely the cause of the increased stiff-neckedness and the increased blindness of the Jewish people is one which is traceable to the nations. ”

“ This description of the Gentile world was intended by contrast to bring more strikingly to light the mournful condition of Israel. All the nations lived in undisturbed peace and prosperity. In short, all were at rest except the " tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast "; who, though a remnant of them had returned, were ground down under the yoke of the Gentiles, while Judea was still, for the most part, lying waste, and Jerusalem was still without walls exposed in a most defenceless manner to all the insults of Israel's enemies. ”

“ And not a few can tell us of their own sufferings in being banished from foreign lands. Hardly a month passes without some new outrage upon this people. Cruelty, injustice, wickedness, and crime are practised against them, and thus their affliction has been increased."
And all this the Gentile nations have done to Israel out of cruel, selfish motives, and not out of regard for God at all. We are sometimes asked, " But have not the sufferings of Israel all been minutely foretold by Moses and the prophets in advance? ”

“ The red is significant of judgment, blood, vengeance. It is to an angelic rider on a horse of this colour that a great sword is given, in Rev. vi. 4, to take peace from earth, so that men the enemies of God and of His Christ should slay one another; and in Isa. Ixiii. it is in garments dyed red that the Messiah goes forth in the day of vengeance to tread the nations in His anger, and to trample them in His fury. In our vision it doubtless signifies the same thing namely, the readiness of the Angel of Jehovah to go forth with His angelic cohorts to execute swift judgment on Israel's oppressors. ”

“ In our vision, however, the swift messengers were in the first instance only sent out to reconnoitre the earth and the state of the nations in their relation to the land and people of Israel; for, as far as God's governmental dealings with the nations are concerned, all things must be viewed in their relation to that people in whom are bound up the purposes of God for all mankind. ”

“ We see, then, that " the angel that talked with me " is not the same as the Divine Angel of Jehovah the Messenger of the Covenant but an attendant angel whose mission it was to be God's expositor to the prophet of the meaning of the visions.
The answer to the prophet's question, " What are these? " in ver. 9, is given by " the man " that stood among the myrtles, in the 10th verse: " These are they whom Jehovah hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth" How full of consolation for God's people is a statement like this! ”

“ And the vision of the legions of angels mounted and ready to obey the command of their great Captain was doubtless intended to convey to the prophet the message which he was to impress on the people, that " the chariots of God are twenty thousand, even myriads of angels " ”

“ Divinely communicated visions were one of the " divers manners " in which God spake in times past in the prophets to the fathers, even as we read in Num. xii. 6:
"If there be a prophet among you, I, Jehovah, will make Myself known to him in a vision; I will speak with him (literally, in him ) in a dream." ”

“ For to that end was the city restored, that in it by the ordinance of Christ, for calamity, should abound bliss; for desolation, fulness; for sorrow, joy; for want, affluence of heavenly goods " all which is beautiful and true; but to deny that in its fulness it will yet find an exhaustive fulfilment in the Jewish people, which for nearly two thousand years has been in much greater bondage than they were during the seventy years in Babylon, is to misapprehend and misinterpret the scope of this as of all the other visions. ”

“ In its fulness this promise will only be fulfilled when " this same Jesus," whom at His first coming they handed over to the Gentiles to be crucified, and who, after His resurrection, ascended back into heaven into the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, shall " return " in the manner and under the circumstances described by this same prophet in the last three chapters of this prophecy. Then, in the once marred face, and in the wounded hands and feet of Him whom they once pierced, shall they fully learn the fulness and manifoldness of God's " mercies." ”

“ That the nations from the very commencement of " the times of the Gentiles " have been guilty of helping forward the affliction, let the history of Israel, written for the most part in their blood, testify. God scattered Israel (Jer. xxxi. 10) ; but the nations among whom they have come trampled upon them, and put a yoke of iron upon their necks, and made them " to howl " all the day long (Isa. Hi. 5) , because of their oppressions. God gave them over to punishment, but, at the same time, warned the nations, saying, " Make not a full end" (Jer. v. 10) ”

“ He will comfort all her waste places, and He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Jehovah; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody " (Isa. li. 3) . ”

“ III. Lastly, before passing on from the 8th verse, just a few words on the significance of the colours of the horses. That they symbolise the mission on which these angelic hosts are about to be sent forth, there can, I think, be no doubt, in spite of Dr. Wright's confident statement that " any attempt to assign any grounds for the employment of the special colours is futile." ”