18. the nations were angry--alluding to
Ps 99:1,
Septuagint, "The Lord is become King: let the peoples become
angry." Their anger
is combined with alarm
(Ex 15:14;
2Ki 19:28,
"thy rage against Me is come up into Mine ears, I will put My
hook in thy nose," &c.). Translate, as the Greek is the same.
"The nations were angered, and Thy anger is come." How
petty man's impotent anger, standing here side by side with that
of the omnipotent God!
dead . . . be judged--proving that this seventh
trumpet is at the end of all things, when the judgment on Christ's foes
and the reward of His saints, long prayed for by His saints, shall take
place.
the prophets--as, for instance, the two prophesying
witnesses
(Re 11:3),
and those who have showed them kindness for Christ's sake. Jesus shall
come to effect by His presence that which we have looked for long, but
vainly, in His absence, and by other means.
destroy them which destroy the earth--Retribution in kind
(compare
Re 16:6;
Lu 19:27).
See on
Da 7:14-18.
JFB.
Picture Study Bible