And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
As Messiah's manifestation is full of joy to believers, so it has an aspect of wrath to unbelievers, which is represented here. Thus when the Jews received Him not in His coming of grace, He came in judgment on Jerusalem. Physical prodigies, massacres, and conflagrations preceded its destruction. The priests entering the temple for worship at night heard a mighty voice, Let us depart hence. Chariots and troops in the air were seen encircling the doomed city (Josephus, 'Bellum Judaicum'). To these the language here may allude; but the figures chiefly symbolize political revolutions, and changes in the ruling powers of the world, prognosticated by previous disasters (Amos 8:9; Matthew 24:29; Luke 21:25-27, "There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory"), and convulsions, such as preceded the overthrow of the Jewish polity. Such shall probably occur in more appalling degree before the final destruction of the ungodly world ("the great and terrible day of Yahweh," of which Jerusalem's overthrow is the type and earnest, cf. Malachi 4:5).