7:1: “And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.”
The four winds represented the divisions of the earth in Rabbinic thought as illustrated by the following quotes:
Davies, [55]: The ‘four winds’ represent the four directions, or ‘corners’ of the earth. The speculation of the Rabbis on the creation of Adam ranged from grotesque to fantastic. Basically, they saw Adam as representing universality, — that the dust he was made of came from various parts of the earth, that the four letters of his name represented the four directions.
“…. Paul accepted the traditional Rabbinic doctrine of the unity of mankind in Adam. That doctrine implied that the very constitution of the physical body of Adam and the method of its formation was symbolic of the real oneness of mankind. In that one body of Adam east and west, north and south were brought together, male and female, as we have seen. The ‘body’ of Adam included all mankind. Was it not natural, then, that Paul when he thought of the new humanity being incorporated ‘in Christ‘ should have conceived of it as the ‘body’ of the Second Adam, where there was neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, bond nor free. The difference between the Body of the First Adam and that of the Second Adam was for Paul that whereas the former was animated by the principle of natural life, was nephesh, the latter was animated by the Spirit. Entry upon the Christian life is for the Apostle the putting off of the old man with his deeds and the putting on of the new man. The purpose of God in Christ is ‘in the dispensation of the fullness of time’ ‘to gather together in one all things in Christ’, i.e. the reconstitution of the essential oneness of mankind in Christ as a spiritual community, as it was one in Adam in a physical sense.” [57]
“(… division was a denial of that oneness which should characterize the people of Yahweh.) …. Throughout the later prophets and in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha the theme recurs that all Israel must again be gathered from the four corners of the earth: its divisions must be healed: the Lord is to be One and His people One. The evidence for this is abundant.
(Note 2: “Cf. I Enoch 89.51; Test. Zebulun 9.1f.: ‘Observe, therefore, the waters, and know when they flow together, they sweep along stones, trees, earth and other things. But if they are divided into many streams, the earth swalloweth them up, and they vanish away. So shall ye also be if ye be divided.'” [80].)
Davies reviews the theme of ingathering, restoration and unity through Jeremiah, Isaiah and Ezekiel. “The ingathering of all scattered Israelites then is a constant theme in Ezekiel; the reassembled nation will be purified in heart and spirit, there will be one flock under Yahweh as the shepherd.”
“…. As for the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha there is abundant material to show that the idea grew in intensity …. perhaps the most well-known expression of this idea is found in the Psalms of Solomon. Speaking of the Son of David whom the Lord shall raise up the author writes:
‘And he shall gather together a holy people, whom he shall lead in righteousness, And he shall judge the tribes of the people that has been sanctified by the Lord his God. And he shall not suffer unrighteousness to lodge any more in their midst Nor shall there dwell with them any man that knoweth wickedness, For he shall know them, that they are all sons of their God. And he shall divide them according to their tribes upon the land And neither sojourner nor alien shall sojourn with them any more. [Psalms of Solomon 17.28f.’]
“The literature of the first century AD contains the same idea,9 and our Rabbinic sources reveal the hope and longing for the day when Israel shall be restored to its true position. The liberation of Israel (p. 82) from oppression and the ingathering of the dispersed to their own land has a place in the oldest prayers of the synagogue: ‘Sound the great horn (as a signal) for our freedom; 1 lift up the standard2 for the assembling of our exiles’ with the response ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who gatherest the dispersed of his people Israel.’3.”
{Note 9, p. 81: “The evidence may be grouped thus: (1) For the period 200-100 BC cf. Ecclus. 36.11, 48.10f.; Tobit 13.6f., 14.7; (continued on p. 82:) I Enoch 90.30; Test.Reuben 6.8; Test. Levi 16.5; Test.Asher 7.4; Test. Benjamin 9.2; Jubilees 1.15. (2) For the period 100-1 B.C., 2 Macc. 1.6, 18; Ap. and Ps. vol. 1, p. 133; I Enoch 57; Psalms of Sol. 8.27, 11.1, 17.1f.,56. (3) For the period AD 1-100, 2 Baruch 77f., 78.4f.; 4 Ezra 5.41.”}
{Note 1, p. 82: “Isa.27.13; cf. Zech.9.14.” Note 2: “Isa.11.12.” Note 3: “…. cf. b. Meg. 17b-18a.”}” [81-2]
7:3. “…Hurt not…the trees…” (See also Revelation 8:7.)
The word ‘hurt’ signifies also to deal unjustly. It may signify something that causes hurt to the person acting, or to the person acted against. [3:159] (See also my WS at Rev. 2:11.)
At the Feast of Tabernacles every person gathered branches of the trees to make a booth (tabernacle) for himself. At this Feast, they customarily sang the Great Hallel, that is, Psalms 113 through 118. At certain points in the singing, the people would all shake and brandish their bundle of branches.
“‘The reason of the bundles was this, because it is written, ”Then let all the trees of the wood sing,” (Psalm xcvi.12.) And afterward it is written, ”Give thanks unto the Lord because he is good, (Psalm cvi.1.) And afterward, ”Save us, O Lord, O our God,’ &c. (Psalm cvi.47.) And the reason is mystical. In the beginning of the year, Israel and the nations of the world go forth to judgment; and being ignorant who are to be cleared and who guilty, the holy and blessed God commanded Israel that they should rejoice with these bundles, as a man rejoiceth who goeth out of the presence of his judge acquitted. Behold, therefore, what is written, ‘Let the trees of the wood sing;’ as if it were said, ‘Let them sing with the trees of the wood, when they go out justified from the presence of the Lord,’ &c.” [2:272]
7:3. “… till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.” Also 14:1. “…an hundred and forty-four thousand having his Father’s name written in their foreheads.” In context, this may indicate the number of Jews who were martyred for the sake of their Christian witness in that first century as seen from the following quotes:
“…The Jews speak much of the seal of God…. ‘… What is the seal of the holy blessed God? R. Bibai, in the name of R. Reuben, saith … Truth. …But what is truth? R. Bon saith … The living God and King eternal….’
“There is a story of the great synagogue weeping, praying, and fasting; … ‘At length there was a little scroll fell from the firmament to them, in which was written … Truth. R. Chaninah saith, Hence learn that truth is the seal of God.'” [3:303]
Davies, [265] “… R. Simeon b. Azzai (AD120-40) explained ‘with all thy soul’ in Deut.6.5, thus: ‘Love Him to the pressing out of thy soul.’2 The view that death placed the seal on obedience and showed complete readiness for God’s perfect will, clearly played a prominent part in the martyrdoms of the second century AD and throughout the first century.” [Note 2: “Sifre Deut. on 6.5,¶32….”]
7:4-8. “…And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.”
“…’It is a tradition of the Rabbins, that the ten tribes shall not have a part in the world to come; as it is written, ‘The Lord rooted them out of their land in anger and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them out into another land. He rooted them out of their own land in this world, and cast them out into another land in the world to come.’ They are the words of Rabbi.’
“But in truth, when the true Messiah did appear, the ten tribes were more happily called (if I may so speak), that is, with more happy success than the Jews; because amongst those Jews that had embraced the gospel, there happened a sad and foul apostasy, the like to which we read not of concerning the ten tribes that were converted.'” [3:348-50]
Davies, [83]: “According to the Assumption of Moses1 God created the world for the sake of Israel and henceforth this became the prevailing attitude of Judaism.2“ [Note 1, p. 83: “I.11,12. Also 4 Ezra 6.55,59,7.11; 2 Baruch 14.18; created for sake of righteous in Israel 2 Baruch 14.19,15.7,21.24; Ap. and Ps. Vol. 1, p. 415.” Note 2: “The following is a list of references for the peculiar relation which is eternal between Israel and Yahweh:
(1) 200-100 B.C.: Ecclus.17.7f., 24.4-10, 47.22; Judith 7.30; Song of the Three Children 1.12; Susanna 6.23, 16.5f.; Test. Levi 14.3; Test. Judah 23; Jubilees 1.17, 2.19ff., 15.1,19.18, 19, 28, 22.9, 33.20.
(2) 100-1 B.C.: 2 Macc. 7.32, 14.15; 3 Macc.6.3; Psalms of Sol.7.5f., 9.17.
(3) AD1-100: 2 Baruch 48.20, 78.7f.; 4 Ezra 3.17, 4.25, 5.23, 32, 6.55,58.]”
[84]: According to Judaism, the resurrection and final blessedness was to be for a community of Israelites. “Thus each of the patriarchs would be raised at the head of his tribe, ….”3 [Note 3: “Test. Judah 25. Also Test. Zebulon 10.2; Test. Benjamin 10.7.”]
“Thus Rabbi Meir 6 could say that the Jews ‘whether or not they carry on as children are always children’, and when we read in Mishnah Sanhedrin 10.1, that ‘all Israel has a part in the world to come’ we are probably to take it to mean that all Jews after the flesh are destined to share in that world.” [Note 6: “b. Kidd.36a; ….”]
[85]: “When the Apostle [Paul] claimed that it was the being ‘in Christ‘ that was fundamental, and not the being ‘in Israel‘, for sharing in the Age to Come, and that it was the dead ‘in Christ’ who were to be raised up to share in its glories, and therefore that it was not Israelites as such but only those ‘in Christ’ who were being ingathered into the people of God, he was running counter to an integral part of the message of the great prophets as well as of his Rabbinic contemporaries …. his emotional reaction to the exclusion of the greater part of the Old Israel after the flesh from the New Israel after the Spirit, only becomes fully intelligible in the light of the expectation of a restored and united people and a passionate belief in an eternal bond uniting the Old Israel and her God, together with a sense of national solidarity that is possibly, in its intensity, unique in world history …. not the suppression but the sublimation of nationalism that is to be desired.”
Davies [206-7]: “… It will be seen in the light of this that the geographical limitation of the activity of the Holy Spirit is bound up with its communal character, it comes to a community and therefore to the abode of that community.”
[Note 3: “In Pesikta R. 160a, we read: ‘When the Temple was rebuilt, the Shekinah did not rest upon it. For God had said, ‘If all the Israelites return [from Babylon] the Shekinah shall rest upon it, but if not, they shall be served only with the Heavenly Voice.’ ‘…. H. Loewe comments on this: ‘This interesting passage implies that there can be no full revelation when Israel is divided…’ –this confirms what we have written above: community is essential to the activity of the Holy Spirit.”]
7:9. “… of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, ….”
Commenting on Rom. 11:1: “… Hath God cast away his people? … We may observe what it is the apostle propounds to discourse, viz. not of the universal calling in of the nation, but of the non-rejection of the whole nation: hath God so rejected his people that he hath cast them away universally? … God forbid. For I myself am an Israelite, and he hath not cast me away.” [4:160]
7:14: “… washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” The Red Sea baptism was used as a figure of being baptized in the blood of Jesus.
Davies, [107] “…. Beginning with the Passover ritual and the blood of the covenant, Mekilta develops the thought of Israel turning from idolatry, and by the Red Sea baptism, becoming the Son of God; it stresses the faith of Israel and the gifts of the Holy Spirit through which Israel was enabled to sing the song of triumph ….”
7:16-17. “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
“…Amongst all the names and titles given to the Messiah in the Jewish writers, that of Menahem, or the Comforter, hath chiefly obtained; and the days of the Messiah amongst them are styled the days of ‘consolation.’
“Luke ii.25; ‘Waiting for the consolation of Israel.’ Targumist upon Jer.xxxi.6: ‘Those that desire or long for the years of consolation to come.’ This they were wont to swear by, viz. the desire they had of seeing this consolation. … So let me see the consolation.“ [3:400]