Apocalypse Revealed#436
436. And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron. (9:9) This symbolically means that their arguments based on fallacies, with which they battled and prevailed, appeared to them too strong to be refuted.
Breastplates symbolize protections, because they protect the breast. Here they symbolize protections of falsities, which are concocted by arguments based on fallacies, which people use to defend a false proposition. For from a false proposition nothing but falsities can flow. If truths are advanced, they are regarded only externally or superficially, thus also sensually, and so are falsified, becoming then fallacies in the people who entertain them.
Breastplates have this symbolism because battles in the Word symbolize spiritual battles, and weapons of war therefore symbolize various defenses connected with such a battle - as in Jeremiah,
Harness the horses, and mount up, you horsemen! And station yourselves in your helmets, polish the spears, put on the cuirass. (Jeremiah 46:4)
In Isaiah,
He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head. (Isaiah 59:17)
In the book of Psalms,
...under His wings you shall be confident; His truth shall be your shield and buckler. (Psalms 91:4)
And so also elsewhere, as Ezekiel 23:24; 38:4; 39:9, Nahum 2:3, Psalm. 5:12; 35:2-3.
Their breastplates being breastplates of iron means, symbolically, that their arguments seemed to them too strong to be refuted; for owing to its hardness iron symbolizes strength.
Nahum第2章
1
He who dashes in pieces has come up against you. Keep the fortress! Watch the way! Strengthen your waist! Fortify your power mightily!
2
For Yahweh restores the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel; for the destroyers have destroyed them, and ruined their vine branches.
3
The shield of his mighty men is made red. The valiant men are in scarlet. The chariots flash with steel in the day of his preparation, and the pine spears are brandished.
4
The chariots rage in the streets. They rush back and forth in the broad ways. Their appearance is like torches. They run like the lightnings.
5
He summons his picked troops. They stumble on their way. They dash to its wall, and the protective shield is put in place.
6
The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved.
7
It is decreed: she is uncovered, she is carried away; and her handmaids moan as with the voice of doves, beating on their breasts.
8
But Nineveh has been from of old like a pool of water, yet they flee away. "Stop! Stop!" they cry, but no one looks back.
9
Take the spoil of silver. Take the spoil of gold, for there is no end of the store, the glory of all goodly furniture.
10
She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale.
11
Where is the den of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, Where the lion and the lioness walked, the lion's cubs, and no one made them afraid?
12
The lion tore in pieces enough for his cubs, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his caves with the kill, and his dens with prey.
13
"Behold, I am against you," says Yahweh of Armies, "and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions; and I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers will no longer be heard."
