of life” finds a parallel at Revelation 22:17, which says: “The spirit and the bride keep on saying: ‘Come!’ And let anyone hearing say: ‘Come!’ and let anyone thirsting come; let anyone that wishes take life’s water free.” The “bride” is clearly identified in the Scriptures as the anointed Christian congregation, espoused to the heavenly Bridegroom, Christ Jesus. (Eph. 5:25-27; 2 Cor. 11:2; Rev. 19:7-9; 21:9-11) The invitation to “take life’s water free” presented by the heavenly “bride” class is obviously open to an unlimited number of persons, “anyone that wishes.” Likewise unnumbered are the “great crowd,” the vision at Revelation 7:9 thereby harmonizing with that at Revelation 22:17.

The whole sum of the evidence, therefore, points to the “great crowd” as representing all those persons not of the heavenly “bride” class (or 144,000 sealed ones) but who stand approved at the time of the “great tribulation” and are preserved alive on earth.—See CONGREGATION (The Christian Congregation of God); EARTH (Purpose); HEAVEN.

GREAT SEA

That immense body of water separating Europe and Africa, with Asia to its E. While the Hebrews called it the Great Sea, today it is commonly called by its Latin name, Mediterranean, meaning ‘in the middle of the land,’ for it is practically landlocked. This circumstance, and the fact that hot winds off the Sahara Desert blow over it, result in a proportionately higher evaporation rate and this, in turn, gives the water a higher specific gravity. That is why the lighter water of the Atlantic flows in at the surface through the Straits of Gibraltar and the heavier Mediterranean water empties out at the bottom. Ocean shipping may pass in and out of this “inland” sea only through narrow gateways—through the Straits of Gibraltar to the W, through the Dardanelles and Bosporus to the NE and, during the past century, through the Suez Canal to the SE.

It is not amiss today to call the Mediterranean the Great Sea, as ancient people did from the time of Moses onward, for it certainly measures up to all this name implies. (Num. 34:6, 7) It is about 2,300 miles (c. 3,700 kilometers) long, over 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) wide at its greatest breadth, and it covers an area of more than 1,100,000 square miles (2,849,000 square kilometers). Its deepest point is over 14,000 feet (c. 4,270 meters).

The Italian and Greek peninsulas, jutting down from the N, create the Tyrrhenian, Ionian, Adriatic and Aegean Seas, thus adding to its irregular shape and greatly increasing the length of its coastline. About mid-distance E and W, it pinches down to a width of less than eighty miles (c. 129 kilometers) between Sicily and North Africa, and there the water is also comparatively shallow.