the banners of their nation wet with the dews of Tabor and Hermon” (“Clarke’s Travels,” cit. by Lee). See Thomson’s ‘“Tand and Book” (Central Palestine and Pheenicia), p. 208 sqq.; and Stanley, “Sinai and Palestine,” ch. ix.
Two great slaughters at Megiddo are mentioned in the Old Testament; the first celebrated in the Song of Deborah (Judges v. 19), and the second, that in which king Josiah fell (2 Kings xxiii. 29). Both these may have been present to the seer’s mind; but the allusion is not to any particular place or event. “ The word, like Huphrates, is the expression of an idea; the idea that swift and overwhelming destruction shall overtake all who gather themselves together against the Lord” (Milligan).
17. Temple of heaven. Omit of heaven. 21. Hail. See Exod. ix. 18.
Every stone about the weight of a talent (as raAavriaia). The adjective, meaning of a talent’s weight, agrees with havl ; hail of a talents weight; i.e., having each stone of that weight. Every stone is therefore explanatory, and not in the text. Hail- stones are a symbol of divine wrath. See Isa. xxx. 30; Ezek. xiii. 11. Compare Josh. x. 11.
1. Sitteth upon many waters. Said of Babylon, Jer. li.13; the wealth of Babylon being caused both by the Euphrates and by a vast system of canals. The symbol is interpreted by some commentators as signifying Babylon, by others pagan Rome, Papal Rome, Jerusalem. Dante alludes to this passage in his address to the shade of Pope Nicholas III., in the Bolgia of the Simonists.
‘‘ The Evangelist you pastors had in mind, When she who sitteth upon many waters To fornicate with kings by him was seen.