Revelation 7:1

ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, μήτε ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης, μήτε ἐπὶ πᾶν δένδρον with אP 1. A reads μήτε ἐπὶ θαλάσσης μήτε ἐπὶ δένδρου; Naber proposes to read μήτε ἐπ. θαλ. μήτε ἐπὶ�, which would be plausible but for the fact that ἄνυδρος (Job 30:3; Isaiah 35:7; Isaiah 41:19; Matthew 12:43) means not ‘dry land’ but ‘wilderness’: hence if δένδρου be a corruption of ἄνυδρου, the latter must be a gloss on ξηρᾶς due to a conflation older than all versions of ἐπὶ θαλ.… ἐπὶ ξηρᾶς (cf. Matthew 22:15) and ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς … ἐπὶ τῆς θαλ.; Lach[268] and Treg[269] and Weiss, read ἐπί τι with B2C against the general style of this Book.

[268] Lachmann’s larger edition.
[269] Tregelles.

1. τέσσαρας�. Presumably the Angels of the four winds, as we have other elemental Angels in Revelation 14:18; Revelation 16:5. Cf. Psalms 104 (103):4, ὁ ποιῶν τοὺς�.

ἐπὶ τὰς τέσσαρας γωνίας τῆς γῆς. Probably the four cardinal points, the extreme north, south, east, and west of it. It is hardly likely that the “four winds of the earth” should be conceived as NE., SW., SE., and NW.: in the climate of the Levant, there would not be as much physical truth in such a classification as in our own, and the usage of nomenclature, in Greek and still more in Hebrew, proves that the four winds are N., E., S., W. We therefore cannot argue from the “four corners” that St John conceives the earth is a rectangle—for it would be most unnatural to conceive it as set corner-wise: in Jeremiah 49:36 the four winds blow from the four ἄκρα of heaven. But it appears that the machinery, so to speak, throughout the vision does imply that the earth is conceived as a plane. St John is in Heaven, and is able to look down (or even to go down) to the earth, which he sees spread beneath him like a map, from Euphrates to Rome and very likely further. We have somewhat similar language in Enoch xviii. 2, 3, καὶ τὸν λίθον ἴδον τῆς γωνίας τῆς γῆς· ἴδον τοὺς τεσσάρους�. But St John does not, like Pseudo-Enoch, put forward his imagery as absolute physical truth.

ἵνα μὴ πνέῃ ἄνεμος. Every one will remember Keble’s beautiful illustration of this image, by the natural phenomenon of the “All Saints’ Summer.” But the next v. shews that it is by the Angels’ action that the winds blow, as well as that they are restrained from blowing: we are not to conceive the winds (as in Od. X., Aen. I.) as wild expansive forces, that will blow if not mechanically confined.