But sometimes the symbol is given without an explanation, or with only an obscure intimation of its meaning.  The prophet Amos has a vision of grasshoppers, and afterwards of a devouring fire, with only a general intimation that they denote heavy calamities, which the Lord in his pity will avert in answer to prayer.  Amos 7:1-6.  Here the nature of the symbols, in connection with the known situation of the Israelitish people, shows that they represent the general desolation of the land by foreign enemies.  The prophet Ezekiel adds no interpretation to his vision of the Lord enthroned in glory upon the firmament above the chariot with four cherubim and four living wheels full of eyes, in the midst of which a bright fire glows and lightnings blaze.  Chaps. 1, 10.  From a careful study of the nature of this magnificent imagery we may infer with probability that the cherubim with their wheels, moving every way with the rapidity of a flash of lightning, denote all the agencies and instrumentalities by which God administers his government over the world, which are absolutely at his command, and execute with unerring certainty all his high purposes.  The four faces of the cherubim, moreover, which answer to the four principal divisions of living beings among the Hebrews, seem to represent the fulness of their endowments.  The meaning of Ezekiel’s vision of a New Jerusalem, with its temple and altar, comes more properly under the head of prophecy.  Some of the symbols in the book of Zechariah are expounded with beautiful clearness, as that of the two olive-trees.  Chap. 4:1-10.  Of others the meaning is only hinted at in an enigmatical way; so that their interpretation is a matter of great difficulty and uncertainty.  As examples we may refer to the symbol of the ephah (chap. 5:5-11); of the four chariots coming out from between two mountains of brass with horses of different colors (chap. 6:1-9); of the two staves, Beauty and Bands, with which the prophet in vision is commanded to feed “the flock of the slaughter,” and which he is afterwards to break (chap. 11:4-14).  For the details in the interpretation of these and other difficult symbols the reader must be referred to the commentaries.  Our limits will only allow us to indicate the general principles upon which the expositor must proceed.

9.  There is a class of scriptural symbols which may be called numerical.  Thus seven is the well-known symbol of completeness, four of universality, twelve of God’s people.  See Chap. 32, No. 5.  Under this head fall also those passages in which a day is put for a year, or for an indefinitely long period of time.  One of the most certain examples is Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy weeks that were to precede the death of the Messiah (chap. 9:24-27), for the details of which the reader is referred to the commentators.  Upon the same principle we must, in all probability, interpret the “time and times and dividing of time,” that is, three and a half years (Dan. 7:25); the “forty and two months” (Rev. 11:2; 13:5); and the “thousand two hundred and threescore days” (Rev. 11:3; 12:6).  Compare Ezekiel 4:4-8, in which symbolical transaction a day is expressly put as the symbol of a year.  On the symbolical interpretation of the six days of creation, see in Chap. 19, No. 6.