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Observe here, 1. That if a temporal judgment on the Jews be here intended, then this vision represented to St. John, God's decree and purpose for suspending the dreadful execution of the threatened and intended vengeance upon Judea for a time, namely, until God had sealed his number, that, marked them for preservation, Set a mark upon the forehead of the men, &c. Eze_9:4, that is, preserve the penitent believers from the common destruction, as the Israelites were preserved in Egypt from the destroying angel. I beheld four angels, that had power to inflict judgments, famine, sword, and pestilence, (foretold chap. 6) upon Judea; I beheld these angels making a stay and stop, before they would suffer those mischiefs to break forth upon the earth.
Where note, That the office of the holy angels in heaven is at God's command, and by God's direction, to execute vengeance, and to inflict all temporal judgments upon obstinate sinners here on earth; yet glad they are when it pleases God to stay and stop them from a speedy execution of his wrath and vengeance; for as judgment is God's strange work, in which he does not delight, so neither is it pleasing to the angels as an act of punishmnent, but only in obedience to the command of God, and with an eye and respect to the glory of God.
Observe, 2. That if a spiritual judgment be here intended, as others apprehend, namely, the calamities befalling the church by reason of an apostasy under Antichrist, then by the winds they understand heresies and false doctrines of all sorts, which have an impetuous force and violence, like winds, to drive unstable souls from their steadfastness in the truths of God, into damnable errors.
Now God takes special care that these winds should not blow, these anti-Christian errors and false doctrines should not overflow the earth, until he had sealed his people, that is, secured them from that danger, preserving them from spiritual defilement, as the undoubted fruit of their sealing; where we see, that in all times of public calamity, be it temporal or spiritual, God has a special care of his own, and bears a special regard unto his own; here he commands the angels to hold the winds from smiting the earth until the number of his sealed ones was completed.