12. (a) In what way was “the whole earth” at peace, as reported by the angelic scouts? (b) Over what had Egypt fought with Assyria and then with Babylon in this connection?

¹² What was it that those angelic scouts were saying to their chief astride the red horse? Were they saying that there was universal peace throughout the whole earth? Apparently so! But this was true only in a relative sense, that is, in relation to something else. To what? To Jerusalem and the territory of Judah. How so? In that Jerusalem had lost its former earthly position among the nations. Down to the year 607 B.C.E., it had been the seat of the typical Messianic kingdom of God on earth. This miniature kingdom of Jehovah was a disturbing factor to the Gentile world, the pagan nations.

14. What did Jesus Christ call that divinely marked period, what did it mean for worldly politics, and when did it end?

¹⁴ “The times of the Gentiles,” or, “the appointed times of the nations,” as Jesus Christ later spoke of them, saying: “Jerusalem will be trampled on by the nations, until the appointed times of the nations are fulfilled.” (Luke 21:24) Inasmuch as Jerusalem had been the seat of the miniature Messianic kingdom of God and therefore stood for the right of God’s kingdom to rule in the hands of a Messianic descendant of King David, this meant something special to those Gentile nations that were to be permitted to trample on Jerusalem or its Kingdom right.

17, 18. (a) So what could the angelic scouts announce as to the state of the “whole earth”? (b) But whose attitude on this was it of highest importance to inquire about, and what inquiry was made?

¹⁷ Accordingly, as regards world uneasiness over what Jerusalem was planning and doing, the angelic scouts could report to their chief among the myrtle trees in the deep place by Jerusalem: “The whole earth is sitting still and having no disturbance.” The Gentile or pagan world, indeed, was sitting complacently without fears of any interference in its affairs by any kind of a Messianic kingdom of Jehovah God.