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mind naturally prefers a definite time, as being more emphatic; hence ten days may well be taken for a short, but really indefinite, period. We may compare with such a usage the Latin sex centies (six hundred times), which, in the like way, means a large and indefinite number of times.

It is scarcely necessary to mention, that hour of trial, in Rev. 3: 10, means season of trial; and such is the meaning of the word hour oftentimes in the Old Testament and in the New.

Once more; in Rev. 9: 10 it is said, that the army of locusts from the abyss, commissioned to inflict wounds upon men like those of scorpions, "should have power to injure men five months." Now as the natural locust makes his appearance about the commencement of May, and departs about the close of September, it would seem quite plain that the writer had regard to this, in the limitation of the period during which the locusts from the abyss were to torment men. The design plainly seems to be, to indicate that they shall torment them only for a short period, like to that in which the natural locusts consume the productions of the earth. Of course, a period strictly definite does not appear to be here designated; for plainly such cannot have been the writer's design. We may therefore reckon this among those cases, in which the use of numbers is to be understood in a tropical way. All attempts to show that a day for a year is meant here, would be nugatory; for to what can 150 years in this case be applied? Equally nugatory is it to attempt the making out of any valid proof, that the exact literal five months is here to be insisted on. Any series of historical facts, which would accord well with the account of the ravages of the locusts as here described, never has been, and in my apprehension never can be, satisfactorily made out. The whole is poetic tropical description, intended to show the

aggravated punishment which the persecutors of Christianity will receive.

But the designations of time in the Apocalypse, about which there is any important controversy, may be found in chap. XI. XIII., and in chap. xx. The latter, however, stands by itself; our principal concern is with the former.

In Rev. 11: 2, it is predicted that "the Gentiles shall tread under foot the holy city, forty and two months," which are equal to 3 years or 1260 days. That Jerusalem is here meant, the very epithet given to it (holy city) shows; or if this should be questioned, v. 8th settles the controversy, for it names the city as the place where our Lord was crucified. Besides; the temple of God that was to be measured (11: 1), was there; and in chap. VII., the 144,000 who are to be sealed, and thus exempted from impending evils, are all selected from the twelve tribes of Israel. Declarations such as these must identify the objects of chastisement in view by the writer, in all which he has disclosed in chap. v.—xi., viz. the destruction of the Jewish persecuting power. Jerusalem, as being the metropolis, is, as often in the Old Testament, made the symbol or representative of the whole country or nation. The reader needs only to be reminded, how often Zion and Jerusalem stand, in prophetic language, as the representatives of the Jewish government, polity, land, and nation, in order to accede to the position, that the capitals in the Apocalypse are to be considered as the symbols of the country and of the government to which they belong.

When John therefore predicts, in Rev. 11: 2, that "the holy city shall be trodden under foot 42 months," this of course involves the idea, that the country of which the holy city is the capital, is also trodden under foot. To make their way to the capital, a foreign enemy, coming (as the Romans did) from the north, must have overrun a

great portion of Palestine antecedently to the capture of Jerusalem. The prediction of course includes both, inasmuch as the holy city is made the representative of the country at large.

I understand this prediction as being in substance the same as that in Matt. xxiv., and in the parallel passages of the other Evangelists. The consummation is related in Rev. XI., i. e. the consummation of the event for which preparation had been making; which preparation the Apocalyptist exhibits in chap. v.—x. Let us now resort

to history, and see what the result of an inquiry respecting facts will be.

Previous to the final outbreak of a general war between the Jews and Romans, there had been often repeated tumults and partial insurrections, and a state of great disquiet and insecurity for some time, but especially were all these things greatly augmented in A. D. 66; all of which corresponds well with the descriptions in the Evangelists and in Rev. v.-x. At length in Oct. of A. D. 66, Cestius, the Roman Prefect of Syria, moved by the tumults of the Jews, laid siege to Jerusalem, and captured the lower part of the city; but after a few days he abandoned this enterprise and retreated. The unquiet state of things in Palestine being made known to Nero at Rome, during the winter that followed, he sent Vespasian and his son Titus, to subdue and punish the Jews. In the spring of the following year (A. D. 67), Vespasian having collected his troops made a descent, early in the month of May, upon Galilee. The attack upon Palestine having thus commenced, it was continued thenceforth with unabated fury, until the city of Jerusalem and temple were taken and utterly destroyed, early in Aug. A. D. 70. And although the war was still carried on, after this, against several small fortresses here and there, yet it was considered as

substantially at an end, by the capture of Jerusalem; and such was indeed the fact, for Titus and the main part of his army soon left the country.

Here then are the 42 months in question, with the variations at most of only a few days, or possibly weeks. The time when the imperial power of Rome, i. e. Nero, made a formal declaration of war against Judea and commissioned Vespasian and his son to execute his hostile determination, may be fairly taken as the terminus a quo of the Jewish war; for all that had preceded was but temporary and local insurrection on the part of the Jews, and was resisted only by the subordinate authority and power of the Prefect of the province. This commission appears to have been given in the latter part of the winter of A. D. 67; for we find that Vespasian, who repaired to Antioch after receiving it, in order to collect his troops, was not ready to march upon Judea until some time in the month of May of the same year. If we suppose now that the former part of February was the month when war was declared, or the commission made out, we shall find that three years and six months elapsed, between this period and the taking of Jerusalem and destroying it, on the 10th of Aug. A. D. 70.

During this period, the disciples of Christ, giving heed to the warning of their divine Master (Matt. 24: 16—22), fled from Palestine, and retreated to the wilderness-country east of the Jordan; thus fulfilling, as we shall have occasion to remark in the sequel, the period of flight for safety to the wilderness, which is attributed to the woman (the church), in Rev. 12: 6, 14.

Another period mentioned in Rev. 11: 3 is of the same extent as that which has already been examined, and contemporaneous with it. It was foretold by the Saviour, in Matt. 24: 9-13, that, during the aggressive war made

upon Judea, the spirit of persecution against Christians would rage in an unwonted manner, and many of his disciples perish. Such was indeed the case. The fury of the Zealot-party was without bounds, when the rage of war had enkindled all their violent passions. Although the great mass of Christians fled from before them and the Romans, so as to save their lives, yet all did not and could not retreat. Many remained in their country, faithful confessors of Christianity even unto death. Against these witnesses (see Rev. 11: 3) or martyrs, the great body of the Jews are represented as arraying themselves, in Rev. 11: 3-12, and as persecuting them unto death. For a while, the miraculous powers of some of the Christian teachers overawed their malignant enemies, Rev. 11: 5, 6. But at last the faithful witnesses were destroyed. The period of consummating their destruction is limited, however, in the same manner as that of the subjugation of Palestine. During all the period of Romish invasion, the spirit of hostility to Christianity was active; and yet persecution unto death did not root out Christianity. It continued rising, it triumphed; for "the blood of martyrs was the seed of the church."

The destruction of Jerusalem put an end of course to the Jewish persecuting power in Judea. Consequently the period in which Christianity becomes triumphant over persecution there, is contemporaneous with the destruction of Jerusalem. Nothing can be more clear, than that the period of the two witnesses is the same as that of "treading the holy city under foot by the Gentiles," Rev. 11: 2, 3. Two witnesses, and but two, are specified, as we may very naturally suppose, because "by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word is established."

The sum of Rev. xi. is, then, that the Romans would invade and tread down Palestine for 3 years, and that

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