Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me,.... Either to upbraid him with his ignorance and stupidity; or rather to quicken his attention, and that of others, to the interpretation of it he was about to give him:
Knowest thou not what these be? art thou ignorant of the design of them? or knowest thou not what is meant by them?
and I said, No, my lord; he made an ingenuous confession of his ignorance, joined with great respect unto, and veneration of, the angel that conversed with him.