Revelation 7

Revelation 7:1-17 . SEALING OF THE ELECT OF ISRAEL. THE COUNTLESS MULTITUDE OF THE GENTILE ELECT.

1. And--so B and Syriac. But A, C, Vulgate, and Coptic omit "and."
after these things--A, B, C, and Coptic read, "after this." The two visions in this chapter come in as an episode after the sixth seal, and before the seventh seal. It is clear that, though "Israel" may elsewhere designate the spiritual Israel, "the elect (Church) on earth" [ALFORD], here, where the names of the tribes one by one are specified, these names cannot have any but the literal meaning. The second advent will be the time of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, when the times of the Gentiles shall have been fulfilled, and the Jews shall at last say, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." The period of the Lord's absence has been a blank in the history of the Jews as a nation. As then Revelation is the Book of the Second Advent [DE BURGH], naturally mention of God's restored favor to Israel occurs among the events that usher in Christ's advent.
earth . . . sea . . . tree--The judgments to descend on these are in answer to the martyrs' prayer under the fifth seal. Compare the same judgments under the fifth trumpet, the sealed being exempt ( Revelation 9:4 ).
on any tree--Greek, "against any tree" (Greek, "epi ti dendron": but "on the earth," Greek, "epi tees gees").

2. from the east--Greek, "the rising of the sun." The quarter from which God's glory oftenest manifests itself.

3. Hurt not--by letting loose the destructive winds.
till we have sealed the servants of our God--parallel to Matthew 24:31 , "His angels . . . shall gather together His elect from the four winds." God's love is such, that He cannot do anything in the way of judgment, till His people are secured from hurt ( Genesis 19:22 ). Israel, at the eve of the Lord's coming, shall be found re-embodied as a nation; for its tribes are distinctly specified (Joseph, however, being substituted for Dan; whether because Antichrist is to come from Dan, or because Dan is to be Antichrist's especial tool [ARETAS, tenth century], compare Genesis 49:17 , Jeremiah 8:16 , Amos 8:14 ; just as there was a Judas among the Twelve). Out of these tribes a believing remnant will be preserved from the judgments which shall destroy all the Antichristian confederacy ( Revelation 6:12-17 ), and shall be transfigured with the elect Church of all nations, namely, 144,000 (or whatever number is meant by this symbolical number), who shall faithfully resist the seductions of Antichrist, while the rest of the nation, restored to Palestine in unbelief, are his dupes, and at last his victims. Previously to the Lord's judgments on Antichrist and his hosts, these latter shall destroy two-thirds of the nation, one-third escaping, and, by the Spirit's operation through affliction, turning to the Lord, which remnant shall form the nucleus on earth of the Israelite nation that is from this time to stand at the head of the millennial nations of the world. Israel's spiritual resurrection shall be "as life from the dead" to all the nations. As now a regeneration goes on here and there of individuals, so there shall then be a regeneration of nations universally, and this in connection with Christ's coming. Matthew 24:34 ; "this generation (the Jewish nation) shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled," which implies that Israel can no more pass away before Christ's advent, than Christ's own words can pass away (the same Greek), Matthew 24:35 . So exactly Zechariah 13:8 Zechariah 13:9 , Zechariah 14:2-4 Zechariah 14:9-21 ; compare Zechariah 12:2-14 , Zechariah 13:1 Zechariah 13:2 . So also Ezekiel 8:17 Ezekiel 8:18 , 9:1-7 , especially Ezekiel 9:4 . Compare also Ezekiel 10:2 with Revelation 8:5