Revelation 7:1

The Vision of the Four Angels of the Four Winds. Chap. 7 Revelation 7:1-3

1. four angels Presumably the Angels of the four winds, as we have other elemental Angels in Revelation 14:18; Revelation 16:5. Cf. Psalms 104:4, of which the probable sense is, "Who maketh His Angels winds," i.e. sends them into the air to cause the wind to blow, so that the wind is the manifestation of their presence.

on the four corners of the earth 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 endsof the earth. 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. 3, "I also beheld the four winds which bear up the earth and the firmament of heaven." But St John does not, like Pseudo-Enoch, put forward his imagery as absolute physical truth.

that the wind should not blow 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.