Hebrews 13:22; Zechariah 6:1-6
Ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels…
And I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came four chariots out from between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass. In the first chariot were red horses; and in the second chariot black horses; and in the third chariot white horses; and in the fourth chariot grisled and bay horses.
Then I answered and said unto the angel that talked with me, What are these, my lord?
And the angel answered and said unto me, These are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth. The black horses which are therein go forth into the north country; and the white go forth after them; and the grisled go forth toward the south country. And the bay went forth, and sought to go that they might walk to and fro through the earth: and he said, Get you hence, walk to and fro through the earth.
JOHN MILTON (1608-1674): Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): We know that myriads of angels are ever ready to render service to God; but He chooses this or that to do His business as He pleases.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): You remember our Lord saying, when His disciples would have defended Him, that they needn’t do that, that if He chose, He could command twelve legions of angels to defend Him and protect Him, Matthew 26:53.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): A Roman legion consisted of twelve thousand five hundred soldiers.
A. A. HODGE (1823-1886): What do the Scriptures teach concerning the number and power of angels?
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: How many angels are there? The answer of the Scriptures is that they are very great, that they are countless in number. You remember that we are told that the shepherds at His birth heard “a multitude of the heavenly host,” suggesting almost an innumerable company, Luke 2:13. And indeed, the fifth chapter of the book of Revelation tells us that such is the case, for “the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands,”―a great mighty host, a myriad of these angelic beings.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Chariots, the angels are called in many places, 2 Kings 2:11, 2 Kings 6:17, Habakkuk 3:8, but especially Psalm 68:17: “The chariots of God―in the Hebrew it is chariot, in the singular, to note the joint service of all the angels.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Like chariots of war, they are the strength and protection of the Lord’s people; and because of their swiftness in doing His work; and because they are for His honour and glory: they are the chariots of God, in which He rides about the world doing His will.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: And that brings me to the whole question of their power. And the Bible is very explicit about this, that they are very great in power; we are told of them that they “excel in strength,” Psalm 103:20―the “mighty angels,” 2 Thessalonians 1:7.
A. A. HODGE: Concerning their power, the Scriptures teach that it is very great when exercised both in the material and in the spiritual worlds—their power, however, is not creative power.
JOHN CALVIN: Under the name יהוה Jehovah, God teaches that He is the only Creator.
MATTHEW HENRY: Good angels vastly exceed us in all natural and moral excellences, in strength, understanding, and holiness too.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Their power is undoubtedly greater than the power of men; they’re not only superior to men in dignity, and in status, but superior to him altogether in power.
MATTHEW HENRY: The greatest numbers cannot stand before them: one angel shall, in one night, lay a vast army of men dead upon the spot, when God commissions him so to do, Isaiah 37:36―here are 185,000 brave soldiers in an instant turned into so many dead corpses. See how great, in power and might, the holy angels are, when one angel, in one night, could make so great a slaughter.
JOHN GILL: A prodigious slaughter indeed!
JOHN CALVIN: That no one may ascribe the miracle to natural causes, it is expressly added, that so great a multitude was slain by the hand of the angel.
MATTHEW HENRY: Angels are employed, more than we are aware of, as ministers of God’s justice, to punish the pride and break the power of wicked men. The greatest men cannot stand before them: of Sennacherib, “the great king, the king of Assyria” (2 Kings 18:28), looks very little when he is forced to return, not only with shame, because he cannot accomplish what he had projected with so much assurance, but with terror and fear, lest the angel that had destroyed his army should destroy him.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): In Jude 9, the archangel Michael is said to have disputed with the devil about the body of Moses…In Revelation 12:7, it is said: “Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels.”
JOHN GILL: The issue of which was, that the latter were conquered, and cast out into the earth.
JOHN CALVIN: “And there came two angels to Sodom,” Genesis 19:1. At length the angels declare for what purpose they came, and what they were about to do―they declare, that they are come to destroy the city, because the cry of it was waxen great. By which words they mean, that God was provoked, not by one act of wickedness only, but that, after He had long spared them, He was now, at last, almost compelled, by their immense mass of crimes, to come down to inflict punishment. For we must maintain, that the more sins men heap together, the higher will their wickedness rise, and the nearer will it approach to God, to cry aloud for vengeance.
ANDREW BONAR (1810-1892): No doubt, at the sight of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim destroyed, angels saw cause to rejoice and Sing, “Hallelujah.”
JOHN GILL: So it will be at the end of the world.
JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): This judgment to come is a warm thing to be thought of, an awakening thing to be thought of; it is called the eternal judgment, because it is and will be God’s final conclusion with men. This day is called the “great and notable day of the Lord,” Acts 2:20; the day “that shall burn like an oven,” Malachi 4:1—the day in which the angels shall gather the wicked together, as tares, into bundles, to burn them; but the rest, into his kingdom and glory, Matthew 13:37-43.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): What a wonderful, but awful separation will there then be! The angels are represented by our Lord as His angels; and these He will use as His reapers. He will endue them with wisdom to discern the characters of all, and will guide them infallibly in the execution of His will.
MATTHEW HENRY: They shall be employed, in the great day, in executing Christ’s righteous sentences, both of approbation and condemnation, as ministers of His justice, Matthew 25:31. The angels are skilful, strong, and swift, obedient servants to Christ, holy enemies to the wicked, and faithful friends to all the saints, and therefore fit to be thus employed.
