And if we are asked what two evil systems, helped and impelled by evil spirits (as may be gathered from the fact that they had the wings of a stork, which is an unclean bird, and that " the wind," or " spirit," certainly not of God, " was in their wings "), would thus eventually unite in finding a home for the ephah and the woman, which for a season would be permitted to dominate the nations through its power, we can only suggest that it may be apostate Christianity united in the last days to apostate Judaism, and both given over to the worship of Mammon, on which the power of the ephah is based; or, as in these series of visions, the civil and ecclesiastical powers, as represented by Zerubbabel and Joshua, are frequently brought before us; and in the fifth vision (chap. iv. 1 4) are probably " the two " who are represented " as standing before the Lord." The two women here may, perhaps, be meant to signify civil govern ment broken loose, even outwardly, from every acknowledg ment of God (and, therefore, an instrument in the hand of lawlessness), and a corrupt anti-Christian and anti-theistic priesthood both Jewish and Gentile ready to unite as sponsors and protectors to a system which, though as yet not so regarded, even by the elect, is characterised by God as "the Wickedness."
(<?) There is yet one more point that we must briefly touch on before taking our leave of this vision namely, what are we to understand by " the land of Shinar," which, according to the words of the Interpreting Angel, is to be the destination to which the two women bear the ephah, there for a time to establish it on its own base f According to the commentators, the name " Shinar " is not to be taken geographically here, as an epithet applied to Mesopotamia, but " is a national, or real, definition, which affirms that the ungodliness carried away out of the sphere of the people of God will have its permanent settlement in the sphere of the imperial power that is hostile to God."[1] Or, as another explains it: " The name Shinar, though strictly Babylonia, carries us back to an older power than the world-empire of
- ↑ Keil.
