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Rev 10:6. Ὅτι χρόνος οὐκέτι ἔσται, That a chronus [whole period] shall be no longer) Many pass by this most weighty utterance with a slight comment. Henr. Efferhen, in his 6th and 13th Homily respecting Gog and Magog, thus interprets it: the space of a year shall not pass, namely, between Gog and the end of all things. He perceived that chronus here ought to be taken in a specific sense: but Gog is much later than the Non-chronus (which would be more in accordance with the Latin idiom to call Ne-chronus); and this period is much longer than a year. I should rather say, it is longer than 1000 years; and shorter than chronus, that is, than 1111 1/9 years. It will end A. 1836. From thence reckoning backward, it is chronus to the former part of the year 725: and the beginning of the Non-chronus immediately succeeded the beginning of the Chronus. At the beginning of Non-chronus, the Saracens were not only in possession of Jerusalem, but even appeared to threaten destruction to the whole of the Christian Church, as the second woe came to its height. But yet the angel affirms that these and the following evils shall be overcome within a chronus. Eudes conquered the Saracens, A. 726; and Charles Martel destroyed a great multitude of them, A. 731, in the battle of Tours. See Vitringa on Rev 12:16. Charlemagne, the grandson of Martel, A. 800, commenced a new line of emperors in the West, or, in other words, of “many kings,” Rev 10:11. And this Non-chronus comprises, beside other things, a small portion of the third woe, the 3½ times of the woman in the wilderness, and the duration of the beast variously divided. There is indeed great doubt respecting these periods, and many say that nothing can be known before the end; by which very assertion the martyrs and witnesses of the truth, at the Reformation, and before and after it, who relied on the Apocalypse, and especially on ch. 13 and 17, are deserted, and the principal advantage of prophecy, which forewarns and forearms us against the evils which threaten, is made void. The truth is, that for the opening of prophecy, either the whole event is necessary, or a considerable part is sufficient. If the whole event is necessary, the Apocalypse will never be understood before the end of the world; for the event extends itself up to that goal, nay, even to eternity itself. If a considerable part is sufficient, why do we not make use of that part, so as to measure future things by the past, and not to run into events without preparation? The rash man is he who sleeps in danger, not he who foresees it. We ought not to be so confident in determining future things, but that the things, which the text has not defined, or at any rate the interpreter does not as yet distinctly see, should be determined by the result. Die Erkl. Offenb. pp. 725, 874, 1064, etc., has many examples. But they who avoid all particulars, do not even know what they ought to look for in the event. Docility in spiritual things, and sobriety, are in entire consonance with each other.