Verses 15-16
15, 16. Will come with fire The figure partakes of imagery from Sinai a figure always at hand when demonstration of great trial scenes are before us. Isaiah 34:3.
For by… his sword As a mighty warrior.
Plead with all flesh With all men who are hostile to God and his Zion. The tenor of the words in this passage shows God’s pleading “with all flesh,” that is, representatively with the whole hostile Jewish race, to be not literally in words of reasoning, but in terrific pleadings (so to call it) of “fire” and “sword.” Such fierce judgment came at last to tie Jews as a nation, at which time the slain of the Lord was indeed many. Who will say this prophecy was not terribly fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem?
But prophecy grows in fulfilment, and who will say the events of A.D. 70 were not a type of after terrific fulfilments in the form of trial-crises, wherein fire and sword played their part, involving Gentile and Jewish atrocities alike? As to what befell, in the sphere of prophecy, the mass of Israel, see Romans 9-11.
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