easts: in other words, the various contests and
strifes among the different people and tongues of earth resulted in the
establishment of the successive empires which have arisen to universal
dominion. The blowing of the wind seems to be any influence exerted upon
men. In Ezek. 37:9 the breathing of the wind revives the dead; and in
Zech. 5:9 it symbolizes the removal of the wickedness of the Jews.

The angels holding the winds, consequently, must symbolize the agencies
which have the power to excite or quell these disturbing influences. They
do the bidding of the Lord in restraining or exerting the influences which
should produce the effect symbolized. The holding of them indicates the
proximity and certainty of their blowing unless they are restrained. The
earth, sea, and trees, which would be hurt by the blowing of the wind,
evidently symbolize the different classes of inhabitants of the earth, on
whom an effect would be produced by the blowing of the winds, analogous to
the effect produced on those elements by a violent tempest, or hurricane.
The storm here symbolized is evidently that of which the Scriptures speak.
"On the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible
tempest," Psa. 11:6. "Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with
thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and
the flame of devouring fire," Isa. 29:6. "The Lord hath a mighty and
strong one, which as a tempest of hail, and a destroying storm, as flood
of waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand," _Ib._
28:2.

The sealing of the servants of God in their foreheads, designates them,
but does not constitute them such; for none are sealed, only those who are
previously his. This is in allusion to the ancient custom of stamping with
a hot iron the name of the owner on the forehead or shoulder of his slave.
Before the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, Ezekiel saw
in vision a man clothed in linen, with a writer's ink-horn by his side,
who was commissioned to go through the midst of Jerusalem and set a mark
on the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the
abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And the destroying angels
who were commanded to slay all, both old and young, to spare not, nor to
have pity, were expressly told to "come not near any man upon whom is the
mark," Ezek. 9:2-6. When the destroying angel passed through Egypt, on the
night of t