Chapter Twenty-Three - The Second Woe -Armies of Cavalry

Two Myriads of Myriads

How can there be two myriads of myriads of this cavalry?  A myriad is literally 10,000. So two myriads would come to 200 million. Happily, there are now millions of Kingdom proclaimers, but their number is far short of hundreds of millions!  Remember, though, Moses' words at Numbers 10:36:  "Do return, O Jehovah, to the myriads of thousands of Israel.  (Compare Genesis 26:60)  That would mean literally,'Do return to the tens of millions of Israel.'  Israel however, numbered only about two to three million in Moses' day. What, then, was Moses saying?  No doubt he had in mind that the Israelites should be unnumbered as "the stars of the heavens and like the grains of the sand that are on the seashore, rather than be counted.  (Genesis 22:17; 1 Chronicles 27:23)  So he used the word for "myriad" to indicate a large but unspecified number. Thus, The New English Bible renders this verse:  "Rest, Lord of the countless thousands of Israel."  This agrees with   a second definition of the world for "myriad" found in Greek and Hebrew dictionaries "an innumberable multitude," a "multitude."-The New Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament; Gesenius' A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, translated by Edward Robinson.

Nevertheless, those of the John class still remaining on earth number fewer than 10,000 -less than one literal myriad. How could they be likened to countless thousands of cavalry?  To become myriad  even in a symbolic sense, would they not need reinforcements?  That is what they have needed, and by Jehovah's undeserved kindness, that is what they have received!  From where have these come?

From 1918 to 1922, the John class began to hold out to distressed humanity the happy prospect that "millions now living will never die."  In 1923 it was also made known that the sheep of Matthew 25:31-34 would inherit life on earth under God's Kingdom. A similar hope was held out in the booklet Freedom For the Peoples, released at the international convention in 1927. In the early 1930's the upright Jehonadab class and the 'men sighing and groaning' over Christendom's sorry spiritual condition were shown to be identical with the symbolic sheep having earthly life prospects.  (Ezekiel 9:4; 2 Kings 10:15, 16)  Directing such ones to the modern-day  "cities of refuge," The Watchtower of August 15, 1934, stated:  "Those of the Jehonadab class  have heard the sound of God's trumpet and have heeded the warning by fleeing to God's organization and associating with God's people, and there they must abide. - Numbers 35:6. 

Next time: Chapter Twenty-Three -The Second Woe -Armies of Cavalry -Continue with Two Myriads of Myriads

From the book of Revelation