The prophecy of this tenth chapter is descriptive of a piece to be performed upon the arena of the fourth-beast dominion. The dramatis personae are the Voice in the heaven, the Angel, and John. “I am the Voice, ’’said John the Baptist, “of one crying in the wilderness.” It is correct, therefore, to say that “the Voice in the heaven” is a person.
In my translation, I have rendered the words eueggelise, as he hath declared the glad tidings. The English Version reads as he hath declared.
The oath is the protestation of the saints-spirit swearing by Spirit — by the all-creating Spirit — concerning the termination of the times attested in the oath of the Spirit in the hearing of Daniel 12:7. This prophet saw in vision a man clothed in linen, standing upon the waters; and John saw a man clothed with a multitudinous cloud, standing upon the sea. They both have their feet upon the waters; which imports that the peoples shall be subject to them whom they represent.
Apocalyptic thunder is significant of war. Seven thunders are either so many distinct wars; or, they are war of complete and intense severity; or the wars are styled seven thunders, because they are the thunderings of the Seven Spirits of the Deity sent forth from before the throne into all the earth (Apoc. 4:5; 5:6). This, I believe is the correct definition.
Synchronical with this “end of the matter” is the blessedness of the dead in “rest from their labors.” The end of the Exodus from Egypt, and the destruction of the fourth beast in all its relations, domestic and foreign, being now attained by their almighty prowess, the end of Micah’s 40 years is duly arrived at. It is, therefore, written by command of a voice from the heaven, newly planted and firmly established (Isa. 51:16): “Blessed at this time are the dead who die in the Lord.
The destruction of the fourth beast of Daniel by the Rainbowed Angel’s pillars of fire will be the dissolution of the European commonwealth. When the old world hath fallen thus, what will be the destiny of the new? Will it escape “the burning flame?” and, when “the kingdoms of the old world become the kingdoms of Yahweh and of his Anointed, ” will the colonial and republican institutions of the American continent remain intact? Why should they so remain? American society is but an extension of European.
These are “the labors” to be performed by the Rainbowed Angel before he can “rest” (Apoc. 14:13). But, before he advances against the daemonial and idol worshippers of “Christendom” so called, “he cries with a loud voice as when a lion roars.” Being “the lion of the tribe of Judah,” his proclamations are the roarings of that lion; and the carrying of them into effect, is the noise of the roaring (Ezek. 19:1-9).
“And he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left upon the earth. ” He set or placed his feet in this position. John does not reveal to us where he was before he set his pedal pillars of fire upon the sea and upon the earth. This has to be learned from other testimonies.
In the second verse of the tenth chapter, John says: “He had in his hand a little scroll which had been opened, ” — biblaridion aneogmenon. This was not like the scroll John speaks of in ch.