And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Ver. 31. And he shall send his angels] As his apparitors (heralds) and executioners. David went otherwise attended when he went against Nabal than when against Goliath; so Christ shall come, when he shall come again with his troops and trumpets.
With a great sound of a trumpet] Christ shall put forth his own mighty voice Joh 5:28; 1 Thessalonians 4:16, ministered by his angels, as in the text, and set forth by the sound of a trumpet, in allusion, belike, to Numbers 10:1,11, where the people were congregated and called together by the sound of a trumpet to the door of the tabernacle. "The lion of the tribe of Judah shall roar from above, and thrust out his voice from his holy habitation, when he entereth into judgment with all flesh," Jeremiah 25:30,31. As the lion roareth over his whelps, brought forth dead at first, and raiseth them from death to life, as Pliny reporteth.
And they shall gather together his elect] How shall they know them from reprobates? By God's saving mark set fairly in their foreheads,Ezekiel 9:9. a And by their blithe and merry countenances, cleared and cheered in the apprehension and approach of their full redemption, now drawing nigh. Besides, as servants know their master's harvest from another's, and can easily discern the corn from the cockle, so can the good angels soon single out the elect, about whom they have been familiarly conversant here on earth, as ministering spirits sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation, ready pressed to any good office about them, Hebrews 1:14 .
a Signo salutari. Tremel.