1 Compare Gen. 24:60; "Be thou the mother of thousands of myriads: "Num. 10:36; "Return to thy thousands of myriads (Heb. myriads of thousands) in Israel;" an example strikingly to the point, as the numbers of Israel are mentioned, in the census of Num. 1:45,46, to have been only 603,550 above twenty years old: Dan. 7:10: " Myriads of myriads stood before Him"
2 e. g. The form of the Seljukian Sultan Soliman, encountered by the first Crusaders at Nice, are stated by the Christians, says Gibbon, (11. 60,) at 200 or even 360 thousand horse. Again Knolles states the number of the Timariot horsemen of the Othman Turkish empire, as alone amounting in his time, i.e. in the earlier half of the 17th century' to above 700,000.
3e. g. Of the inhabitants of Nineveh there are said in Jonah, 4:11, Septuag.) to have been twelve myriads.
4The usual and simple mode of expressing the thought would have been; " And I heard the number of them, myriads of myriads; " the notice of hearing being prefixed to the statement. Compared with which the emphasis of the actual expression, "the number of them was myriads of myriads: and I heard the number of them." will be evident.
5 Compare a somewhat similar, though less emphatic use of the expression in I Sam. 13:3, 4: "Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines that was in Geba; and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul blew the trumpet throughout the land, saying, Let the Hebrews hear! And all Israel heard say that Saul had smitten a garrison of the Philistines; and that Israel was had in abomination with the Philistines." So too I Sam. 17:23, &c. It marks impression.
Compare too what occurs in " the burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see." " The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people:.. the Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the battle." Isa. 13:4. Also 2 Kings 7:6: "The Lord hath made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host:" &c.
6 Observe here the Apocalyptic figure of a tempest; a figure agreeing with the supposition of the four tempest angels being the invisible directors of the woe.
7So again in Ezek. 27:7, of Tyre; " Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee." Also Nahum 2:3, &c
8E. g. Isa 7: 8; "The head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin: ' Dan. 2:38; "Thou art the head of gold." Judges 11:11; "They made him to be a head and governor:" Again in Rev. 13 we read in this sense of the seven heads of the Beast ; and in Psalm 18:43, "Thou hast made me to be the head of the heathen."
9 So Rycaut on the Turks, chap. 21: "The Turks compare the Grand Seignior to the lion, and other kings to little dogs."
10 Rev. 9:10; "They (the locusts) have tails like scorpions, and stings were in their tails. " In explaining the emblem under consideration, we see much inexactness in some expositors. E. g. Bishop Newton: "They (the horses) very much resemble the locust; the tails of serpents, with a head at each end, being attached to the horses." And Dr. Hales; "The horsemen sting with scorpions' tails." By this misapprehension of the prophetic statement, these interpreters seem to me to have blinded themselves and their readers to the singular significance of the symbol. The tails, according to the prophetic language, were still horse-tails; but serpent like, through having heads at their extremity (probably serpent-like heads); collecting and combining the hairs, so as to give the whole horse-tail a serpent-like form and appearance.
11 In illustration of this serpent-like allusion in the symbol, we may observe that at the time of the first rise of the Seljukian Turks, it was said of them by one of his Omrahs to Massoud, son of Mahmoud of Ghizni; "Your enemies were in their origin a swarm of ants. They are now like little snakes. And unless they be instantly crushed, they will acquire the venom and magnitude of serpents." The above is quoted by Gibbon 10. 343; and illustrates, in respect of the serpent-like form of the Apocalyptic horse-tails, not the figurative sense only, but in a manner also the national appropriateness of the symbol.
12Mill reads, "their authorities are in their tails." A notable reading! The word is similarly used in the plural Luke 12:11, Rom. 13:1, &c.
13So Deut. 28:44; "He shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail."
14 So Tournefort in his Travels; also Ferrario. The following is Ferrario's account of the origin of the ensign. " An author acquainted with their customs says, that a General of theirs, not knowing how to rally his troops that had lost their standards, cut off a horse's tail, and fixed it to the end of a spear; and the soldiers, rallying at that signal, gained the victory." Costumi &c. i. 126. He adds further, that whereas, "on his appointment, a Pasha of three tails used to receive a drum (tambbro) and a standard, now for the drum there have been substituted three horses' tails, tied at the end of a spear, round a gilded haft. One of the first officers of the palace presents him these three tails and a standard."
15The Hetman of those Cossacs that migrated to Poland is also stated, I have somewhere read, to have been presented by the Polish king with a horse-tail, among other ensigns of authority. But these Cossacs were but a small tribe; and it seems likely that they borrowed this military ensign, as they did many of their military terms from the Turkmen.
16 In Blackwood's Magazine for August, 1842, the writer of the Chapter on Turkish history, thus appropriately makes use of the figure. "The recent overthrow of the Mameluc power by the Ottoman had extended the shadow of the horse-tails far along the coast of Africa. "He is speaking of the times of Barbarossa.
And in this same North of Africa we still find the figure used. by the remnant- few of the once mighty Turkish empire there remaining. On General Buzeaud's summoning the tribe of Mascara to submission, the answer began thus: "The horse of submission has no tail." Semaphore de Marseilles, June 12, 1841.
17Nothing, I conceive, can well be clearer, as to the chronological intimation contained in the prophecy, than these three things:
1st, that the four angels must have been in existence both at the earlier time of their binding, and at the later time of their loosing:
2. that the time of their loosing must have been at the sounding of the sixth Trumpet:
3. that the predicted period of the hour day month and year, (if those words be meant to signify a continuous period,) must have been the interval between the angels' loosing, and their accomplishment of the stated subject of their loosing, viz. to slay the third part of men.
But what say expositors on this point, who, like Mede and Newton, Faber and Keith, explain the four angels to mean four Turkmen Euphratean powers? As they cannot find any such four to have been constituted, or to have had existence, till about A.D. 1080 or 1090, they therefore necessarily look for some later event than this to answer to the binding of the angels. And they think to find it in the restriction of the Turkmen power by the crusades; and the angels' loosing consequently, (and that of the 6th Trumpet's sounding,) in the cessation of that restraining power somewhere between the years 1280 and 1301; a time when the curbing power of the crusades had ceased, and the Othmannic Turkmen come to the supremacy. But mark! at this epoch neither Mede's quaternion of kingdoms, nor Faber's, were any longer in existence.
Further, the period of the hour day month and year, being made to end by Mede and Keith, where I think the Apocalypse really intends it to end, viz. at the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, and fall of the Greek empire, this period is necessarily from its very length made by them to begin about 1055; i. e. 250 years before their epoch of the sixth Trumpet's sounding. On the other hand Bishop Newton and Mr. Faber, rightly deeming that its true, commencing epoch ought to be that of the Trumpet's sounding, and of the angels loosing, do yet make it end, in consequence of their date of the sounding, 250 years after the slaying of that third part of men, the Greek empire, which was to he the prophetic period's terminus.
18 Compare Dan. 7:11; Rev. 7:6, 11, &c.
19 Less natural, because the slaying predicated is that of the third part of the men of Roman Christendom collectively and nationally. Were it the slaying of the individual members of that third part, then a continuous acting out of the slaughtering commission would be natural. Just as in Homer, 11. A. 154
20The date of the investiture is fixed by Abulfeda as on the 25th Dzoulca4,. A. H. 449 : With which date Emakin's narrative perfectly agrees.
21 In De Guignes' abstract of the history, the date is printed 25th Dzoulcad, A. H. 448, simply by in error of the press for 449. That it is a misprint is plain ; for De Guignes dates Thogrul Beg's quitting Baghdad the loth Dzoulcad 448; then speaks of his besieging Moussul for four months, then Singers, and not till after these events, returning to go through the ceremony of investiture at Baghdad. Unfortunately Dr. Keith did not observe that it was a misprint, or consult original authorities; and building his calculations and exposition of this apocalyptic period upon it, built on a foundation of sand.
As the ceremonial was very notable, it was one that might not improperly have been made an epoch of commencement to the prophetic period, if its chronology had answered. At the same time it must be remembered, first, that we date a reign from the accession of the monarch, not from his coronation: (and both Abulfeda and Emakin, as the reader has seen, assign Togrul Beg's appointment or accession to the office of Secular Head of the Moslem empire, to the year A. H. 447 :) also that the epoch noted in the prophecy is that of the reloosing from the Euphrates of the power that had been bound there, not of its re-invigoration.
De Guignes' fuller narration is borrowed from 41 Bondari's Arabic History of the Se1jukides: abput whom Gibbon says in a Note, when referring to De Guignes, Vol. x. p. 349, " I am ignorant of Bondari's age, country, and character." As the subject described is an interesting and curious one, both to the general reader and the prophetic student, and I found, on reference to our University Libraries and the British Museum, that the mine want of information still continued with regard to this the chief author on whom we have to depend for the narrative, it seemed to me worth while to make inquiries at the King's Library at Paris; where I doubted not Bondari's manuscript would be found.
22e. g. a time, times, and half a time;-forty-two months; 1260 days; 70 weeks. The only way of expressing the period before us more or as exactly as the Apocalyptic formula, is by computation of the whole in hours. The actual interval amounts to 4755 prophetic hours, the Apocalyptic to 4155. Would the former rude expression have accorded with scripture use or beauty?
23Mede, like his follower Dr. Keith, dates indeed from the epoch of the inauguration of Thogrul Beg; and is, like him, incorrect in his calculation, although in a different way. He knew the true year, A. H. 449, of the inauguration, from El-Makin, but not the month : and, supposing it might be the very beginning of that year of the Hegira, inferred a coincidence between the historic period thus commenced, and the prophetic, which did not exist. But this is a comparatively un- important difference. The main point is the reference of the commencement of the prophetic period to the Turkmen connection with the caliphate under Thogrul Beg. Of this, Mede is the originator. And certainly it was due to Mede, on the part of Dr. Keith, to have so mentioned him.
24 " The truce was concluded for three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours a magical number which had probably been devised by the European." So Hume, in his Richard 1, Vol. ii. p. 21. Now that this was a form of the Turkmen Saladin's devising, not King Richard's, or other European's, appears from the fact that Saladin dictated the terms of truce; which was negotiated with him by Saladin's brother Saphadin, from friendly regard to Richard, in his illness and difficulties.
As to his original authority for so stating the period, Hume specifies none. Nor does the French "Biographie Universelle," Torn. xxxvii, p. 540, when similarly stating it. And I have had some difficulty in ascertaining the point. Generally the Chroniclers, both European and Oriental, speak of the time of truce, as one for three years from a certain day. So Vinisauf, (p. 422): And Richard of Devises (a cotemporary of King Richard) in his Chronicle, J 93, gives the time precisely as Hume and the French Biographer. " The Council was assembled before his brother Saladin: and, after seventeen days of weighty argument, Saphadin with difficulty succeeded in prevailing on the stubborn new of the Gentiles to grant a truce to the Christians. The time was appointed, and the form approved. If it please King Richard, for the space of three years, three months three weeks three days and three hours, such a truce shall be observed between the Christians and the Gentiles, &c." Now at first sight there will appear to be in these various reports such direct inconsistency, as to the exact length of the truce granted by Saadin, that it may seem scarcely warrantable to take for granted, like Hume and others, the correctness of Richard of Devize's' statement; notwithstanding even its important, though only partial, confirmation by Abulfeda. In fact the well-known modern French Historian of the Crusades, M. Michaud, resting implicitly on Vinisauf, does not hesitate to state the length of the truce at 3 years and 8 months: his 8 months expressing the interval from the time of signing the truce to the next ensuing Easter, which festival he evidently supposes Vinisauf to have meant by the " Pascha proximum;" and his 3 years being Vinisaufs three years, beyond and after that Pascha.
After however considering and comparing the several reports, I perceive clearly that there is a way of reconciling them ; and this, one that quite justifies and corroborates the statement of Richard of Devizes. First, it is evident, as regards that chronicler, that he understood his remarkably exprest period of the truce, as meant to be reckoned from the time when it was signed by Richard. Now we know both from Bohadin and Abulfeda that this time of signing was Wednesday morning, at day-dawn, on the 22nd of the Turkish month Sjaban A. H. 588; i. e. as Abulfeda explains it, the 2nd Elul, or 2nd September A.D. 1192 ; seeing that the Syrian month Elul answered entirely to the September month of the Latin Calendar.* * So Sir H. Nicholas, in his Chronology of History, p. 10. Speaking of the Seleucidean Era, " which prevailed not only in the dominions, but among almost all the people of the Levant," he says that " the Julian year, formed of the Roman months, to which Syrian names was given, was used; " and that the Syrian month Eloul answered to the Roman September: also that the Greeks of Syria generally commenced the year with September 1. Bohadin's and Abulfeda's date of the truce well agrees with the other Chroniclers' report of what preceded and followed. The last previous date in Vinisauf is the day of St. Peter ad Vincula, or August 1. On that day occurred King Richard's relieving Joppa; and shortly after a dangerous conflict, in which Richard repulsed his assailants, but afterwards fell ill from the fatigue. Which illness gave occasion to the negotiations for a truce. The truce concluded, he embarked, for Western Europe on Thursday Oct. 8. Next, and with reference to the other chroniclers, it will be found that the word Pascha, which occurs in their definition of the time of truce, was not one exclusively applied by the middle-age ecclesiastical writers to the Feast of Easter ; but also to the other two great Christian festivals of Christmas and knitsuntide, specially the former. Which considered, it may well suggest itself, even A, priori, as most probable, that the Pasclia proximum meant by our chroniclers, when writing of a transaction in September, would be the next Christmas festival. Let us then calculate the period on this hypothesis, and compare it with the other.
And, since from September 2nd to December 2nd is 3 months, from December 2nd to December 23rd 3 weeks, from December 23rd to December 26th 3 days, it results that Vinisaurs, Matthew Paris', and Roger Hoveden's 3 years of truce " post Pascha proximum," i. e. " after the next Christmas," added to the previous interval of truce from the time of signing, corresponds quite to exactness with Richard of Devizes' period of 3 years 3 months 3 weeks and 3 days; the 3 hours additional fixing the expiration of the truce at about 9 A.M. on the day after Christmas-day 1195. If we count from the 1st of Elul, as does I think Abulfeda, then the truce would expire at 9 A.M. on the Christmas-day, 1295.
25 The Latins weakened indeed the Greek empire; but not so as to Interfere with their delaying its destruction by the Turks. So Gibbon, xi. 105; The first crusade prevented the fall of the declining empire."
26 Gibbon 7xii. 460, xi. 26. The date of Bajazet's defeat by Tamerlane was July 28, 1402; the place Angora.