The angel - came again, and waked me - Abp. Newcome considers this vision as represented on the same night, Zechariah 1:8, with the preceding ones. See the latter part of Zechariah 1:10, compared with Zechariah 3:9. After some interval the prophet, overpowered with the vision which had been presented to him, was awakened from his prophetic trance as from a sleep.
The angel came again - The angel (as before Zechariah 2:3) had gone forth to receive some fresh instruction from a higher angel or from God.
And awakened me - As a man is awakened out of sleep. Zechariah, overwhelmed by the greatness of the visions, must have sunk down in a sort of stupor, as after the vision of the ram and he-goat, as Gabriel was speaking with him, Daniel says, “I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground, and he touched me and set me upright” Daniel 8:18; and again at the voice of the angel, who, after his three weeks‘ fast Daniel 10:9, came to declare to him Daniel 10:21 the scripture of truth; and at the Transfiguration, “Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep, and when they were awake, they saw His glory.” Luke 9:32. Osorius: “Wondrous and stupendous mysteries were they which were shown to the divine man. He saw the Branch of the Lord; he saw His invincible might; he saw His brightness of Divine Intelligence and Providence; he saw the amplitude of beauty and dignity. Nailed then and struck still with amazement, while he revolved these things in his mind, sunk in a sort of sleep, he is borne out of himself and, mantled around with darkness, understands that the secret things of Divine Wisdom cannot be perfectly comprehended by the mind of any. This then he attained that, his senses being overpowered, he should see nothing, save that wherein is the sum of wisdom, that this immensity of the divine excellence cannot be searched out. By this sleep he was seized, when he was roused by the angel to see further mysteries.”
It has been shown me that the experience recorded in the third chapter of Zechariah is now being acted over, and will continue to be while men, making profession of cleanness, refuse to humble the heart and confess their sins (Letter 360, 1906). 4BC 1179.1
6. See EGW on 2 Kings 2:11-15, Vol. 2, p. 1037. 4BC 1179.2
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