It is most probably, then, because of the part this system is to play in connection with the final apostasy, that it is characterised by the Angel with such emphasis as fW")n " the wickedness," or " the lawlessness."
But to return to the Scriptures immediately before us.
The Angel's action in throwing the woman back into the ephah, and casting the circular mass of lead " upon the mouth thereof," is meant, I believe, to set forth, not only the fact that the instruments of sin become the instruments of her punishment, but the still more solemn truth that men and nations who sell themselves to sin are, after a time, kept down and tied to that particular sin; or, to use the language of Prov. v. 22: " His own iniquities shall take the wicked, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sin"
Not only in relation to the future eternal destiny of the individual (of which the words are primarily used), but already also in the earthly history of men and nations, there comes a time when the solemn judicial sentence goes forth from the mouth of God: " He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still: and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still" (Rev. xxii. 1 1, R.V.).
Thus, when the woman attempts to escape, she is thrown back into the ephah, which becomes, so to say, the chariot in which she is carried away as something which is defiled and defiling, from the land in which God shall dwell; and the talent with which she carries on her unrighteous trade becomes the heavy weight by which she is held down till she is landed safely " in her own place," where, after a season of lawless liberty in which she will allure men to their own destruction by her seductive attractiveness and luxury, she will be judged and destroyed, together with him who is pre-eminently styled " The Wicked One," by the brightness of the Lord's parousia (2 Thess. ii. 8).
(d} We come now to the last act in the drama of this vision, which, as already said, is primarily intended to set forth the removal of" wickedness " from the holy land without occupying itself with its final destiny in the land to which, by the aid of evil powers, it was for a time to be transplanted.
