related, both speak of the Lord's purpose through the ages with regard to Israel and the

nations, and there, for the time being, our limited knowledge stays.

One further note must conclude this paper. The word rendered "holy" in Rev. 15: 4

is not the usual word so translated. It is hosios. Cremer, linking it with the Hebrew

chesed, speaks of it as denoting God's holy love toward His people Israel. Hosios

denotes a holiness established by a right or custom, but chesed "must not be taken as

implying any praiseworthy virtue or merit, but simply an hereditary advantage"

(Hupfeld). In Acts 13: 34 the word occurs in the sentence "I will give you the sure

mercies of David", and the A.V. margin calls attention to the use of ta osia, holy, or, just

things, which the LXX frequently uses for the Hebrew mercies.

The occurrence of this word in Rev. 15: 4 and 16: 5 is closely associated with the

fulfillment of the sure mercies of David and the restoration of Israel. The Song of Moses

and the Song of the Lamb bring before us the truth, the righteousness, the mercy of Him

who is both King of Nations and King of Ages, Who in the midst of wrath remembers

mercy and, while judging the nations for their idolatry, yet speaks of the day when all the

nations shall worship before Him.

We now approach the great crisis of the book. Chapters 16:, 17: and 18: are

taken up with the seven last plagues. These seven vials of wrath are, in the language of

Jer. 51: 11, "The vengeance of His temple".

This expression is found in the same context as the words "Babylon hath been a

golden cup in the Lord's hand, that made all the earth drunken". Because these seven

vials are peculiarly the "vengeance of His temple", we find in Rev. 15: 5, 16: 1 that the

seven angels who are commissioned to pour them out are connected with the very

innermost shrine of the tabernacle. "The temple of the tabernacle of the testimony" is the

basis of these judgments. They have to do with idolatry, with the usurpation of the place

of God, with the blood of the saints.

The order of the seven vials is very similar to that observed of the seven seals and the

seven trumpets. It will be remembered that the sixth seal takes us right on to the day of

the wrath of the Lamb, and that the seventh seal is divided off from the rest by the

half-hour's silence in heaven, and that the seventh seal covers the whole period of the

seventh trumpets. So here; the first six vials run in sequence. The seventh is detached

and is largely taken up with the judgments of Babylon. The order of the vials is as