15.  And another came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap; for the time is come for thee to reap:  for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

16.  And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.

Vs. 14-16.—­The gathering in of the harvest is sometimes emblematical of mercy,—­as when the believer is gathered to his fathers by death.  His sanctification being completed, he is taken home “as a shock of corn ripe in his season.”  Reaping and threshing, however, are most frequently symbolical of divine judgments, (Jer. li. 33;) and the apostle refers here to the same event which the Lord foretold by the mouth of other prophets. (Joel iii. 13-17; Micah iv. 12, 13.) This harvest is emblematical of divine judgment on the nations of apostate Christendom.  He who executes the judgment is one like the Son of man, the Lord Christ.  Enthroned on a “white cloud” as his chariot, and having on his royal “head a golden crown,” the symbol of sovereignty, at the solicitation, the loud cry of the symbolic angel,—­a gospel ministry, he “thrusts in his “sharp sickle,” the emblem of avenging justice, and with infinite ease, “the earth is reaped.”  This work of punishing guilty nations is not so proper to the ministry, the functions of whose office are of a spiritual nature; yet are they active in a way competent to them, calling upon the “Lord of the harvest” to reap.  They judge of the signs of the times.  Such is part of their appropriate work.  Thus they say,—­“The time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.”  The Lord Jesus appeared in royal majesty to John, as he had appeared to Ezekiel, (ch. i. 26;) and to Daniel, (ch. vii. 13.) The cloud on which he sat had a bright side towards his saints, but to his enemies a dark side, as at the Red Sea. (Ex. xiv. 19, 20.)

The two judgments of the harvest and vintage, are obviously an allusion to a natural order in the climate of Judea.  Not only did the barley and wheat-harvest precede the time of gathering grapes, but some space elapsed between these labors of the husbandman.  The usual order is observed here.

17.  And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.

18.  And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.

19.  And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine-press of the wrath of God.

20.  And the wine press was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the wine-press even unto the horse-bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.