II. The Chariots. If, with the prophet, we ask, What are these? the answer of the Interpreting Angel in ver. 3 is: " These are the four winds of heaven, which go forth from standing before the Lord of the whole earth" We must therefore regard them either as ideal appearances, personifying the forces and providential acts which God often uses in carrying out His judgments on the earth, or, what seems to me the simplest and most natural explana tion, angelic beings, or heavenly powers those invisible " messengers " of His " who excel in strength, and who ever stand in His presence, hearkening unto the voice of His word," and then go forth in willing obedience, as swift as the "winds," to carry out His behests (Ps. ciii. 20, 21, civ. 4).
These, no doubt, are also meant by " the chariots of God, which are twenty thousand, even thousands upon thousands," of which we read in Ps. Ixviii. 17, though the word " angels " (used in the Authorised Version) is not found in the original of that verse. Indeed, there is a striking connection between the first and the last visions. In the first vision (chap. i. 717), at the beginning of this, to the prophet, memorable night, he saw the angelic riders with the Angel of the Lord, Himself mounted on a red horse at their head, appearing in the presence of the Lord, to bring in, as it were, their report after " walking to and fro through the earth " as to the condition of the Gentile nations and their attitude to the people and the land. And now, toward morning, as the visions were about to be brought to an end, he sees the same angelic hosts, now turned into God's war chariots, actually being sent forth (no longer to report) but to carry out the judgments of God upon those nations with whom He is " very sore dis pleased," because " they helped forward the affliction " of His own people, whom, even in the time of their banish ment and scattering, He has never cast off.
III. We now come to the difficult point of the number of the chariots and the significance of the colours of the horses.
