Ezekiel 9:4 - Exposition

Set a mark upon the foreheads, etc. The command reminds us of that given to the destroying angel in Exodus 12:13 , and has its earlier and later analogues in the mark set upon Cain ( Genesis 4:15 ), and in the "sealing" of the servants of God in Revelation 7:3 . Here, as in the last example, the mark is set, not on the lintels of the doorposts, but upon the "foreheads" of the men. And the mark is the letter tau , in old Hebrew, that of a cross + , and like the "mark" of mediaeval and (in the case of the illiterate) of modern usage, seems to have been used as a signature, and is rightly so translated in the Revised Version of Job 31:35 . Jewish writers have accounted for its being thus used, either