20
你是我爭戰的斧子和打仗的兵器；我要用你打碎列國，用你毀滅列邦；
Apocalypse Revealed # 620
620. 14:4 These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. This symbolically means that they did not adulterate the church's truths or defile them with the falsities of their faith, but loved the truths because they are true.
A woman symbolizes the church from an affection for truth, and so in an opposite sense the church from an affection for falsity, as may be seen in nos. 434, 533 above - here the church from an affection for truth, because we are told that they were not defiled with women. Being defiled with women has the same symbolic meaning as committing adultery and behaving licentiously. To commit adultery and behave licentiously means, symbolically, to adulterate and falsify the Word, as may be seen in no. 134 above.
For they are virgins means, symbolically, because they have loved truths because they are true, thus loving them from a spiritual affection. These are meant by virgins because a virgin symbolizes the church as a bride who desires to be conjoined with the Lord and to become a wife; and a church that desires to be conjoined with the Lord loves truths because they are true. For truths bring about conjunction when people live in accordance with them.
That is why Israel, Zion and Jerusalem are called in the Word virgins and daughters; for Israel, Zion and Jerusalem symbolize the church.
[2] People in the Lord's church who are of such a character are all meant by virgins, whether they are maidens or youths, wives or husbands, boys or old men, girls or old ladies, and this can be seen from places in the Word where virgins are mentioned, such as the virgin of Israel (Jeremiah 18:13; 31:4, 21, Amos 5:2, Joel 1:8); the virgin daughter of Judah (Lamentations 1:15); the virgin daughter of Zion (2 Kings 19:21, Isaiah 37:22, Lamentations 1:4; 2:13); the virgins of Jerusalem (Lamentations 2:10); the virgin of My people (Jeremiah 14:17).
For that reason the Lord likened the church to ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13), and we read in Jeremiah:
...I will build you, that you may be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel! You shall again... go forth in the dances of those who rejoice. (Jeremiah 31:4, 13)
And in the book of Psalms:
They have seen Your goings, O God, the goings of my God, my King, in the sanctuary..., in the midst of maidens playing timbrels. (Psalms 68:24-25)
And elsewhere:
Kings' daughters are among Your precious ones; at Your right hand stands the queen in pure gold from Ophir.
Listen, O daughter, and see... The King will delight in your beauty... The daughter of Tyre also will bring a gift; the rich among the people will appease Your face.
The King's daughter is all precious within; her clothing is woven with gold. She shall be brought to the King in embroidered garments. The virgins after her, her companions, shall come... into the palace of the King. (Psalms 45:9-15)
The King there means the Lord; the queen the church as a wife; and the daughters and virgins affections for goodness and truth.
[3] Similar affections are symbolically meant by virgins elsewhere in the Word in places where young men are mentioned at the same time, because young men symbolize truths, and virgins affections for those truths. For instance, in the following places:
Behold, the days are coming... that I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Jehovah... In that day the fair virgins and young men shall faint from thirst. (Amos 8:11, 13)
Be ashamed, O Sidon; ...the sea has said..., "I have not travailed or given birth; neither have I reared young men or brought up virgins." (Isaiah 33:4)
The Lord trampled a winepress for the virgin daughter of Zion... Behold my sorrow; the virgins and the young men have gone into captivity. (Lamentations 1:4, 15, 18)
...how great is His goodness, and how great His beauty! Grain shall make the young men grow up, and new wine the young women. (Zechariah 9:17)
The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in My streets. (Zechariah 8:5)
They sit on the ground..., the virgins of Jerusalem... To what shall I liken you..., O virgin daughter of Zion... ...They lay... in the streets..., My virgins and My young men... (Lamentations 2:10, 13, 21)
And so on elsewhere, as in Jeremiah 51:20-23, Lamentations 5:11, 13, 14, Ezekiel 9:4, 6, Psalms 78:62-64, Deuteronomy 32:25.
Revelation 9
1
The fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from the sky which had fallen to the earth. The key to the pit of the abyss was given to him.
2
He opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke from a burning furnace. The sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke from the pit.
3
Then out of the smoke came forth locusts on the earth, and power was given to them, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
4
They were told that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those people who don't have God's seal on their foreheads.
5
They were given power not to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion, when it strikes a person.
6
In those days people will seek death, and will in no way find it. They will desire to die, and death will flee from them.
7
The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared for war. On their heads were something like golden crowns, and their faces were like people's faces.
8
They had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like those of lions.
9
They had breastplates, like breastplates of iron. The sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, or of many horses rushing to war.
10
They have tails like those of scorpions, and stings. In their tails they have power to harm men for five months.
11
They have over them as king the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is "Abaddon," but in Greek, he has the name "Apollyon."
12
The first woe is past. Behold, there are still two woes coming after this.
13
The sixth angel sounded. I heard a voice from the horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14
saying to the sixth angel who had one trumpet, "Free the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates!"
15
The four angels were freed who had been prepared for that hour and day and month and year, so that they might kill one third of mankind.
16
The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million. I heard the number of them.
17
Thus I saw the horses in the vision, and those who sat on them, having breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow; and the heads of lions. Out of their mouths proceed fire, smoke, and sulfur.
18
By these three plagues were one third of mankind killed: by the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur, which proceeded out of their mouths.
19
For the power of the horses is in their mouths, and in their tails. For their tails are like serpents, and have heads, and with them they harm.
20
The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, didn't repent of the works of their hands, that they wouldn't worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood; which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk.
21
They didn't repent of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their sexual immorality, nor of their thefts.
