The deadly plagues: “ By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. For their power is in their mouth and in their tails” --9:18-19. By these three: The three symbols of three atrocious plagues, fire, smoke and brimstone were a three-fold description of catastrophe and destruction in the terrors of the four angels loosed to hurt the land--“ by these three was the third part of men killed.” Power in mouth and tails: A symbol of spreading destruction before them, “ issued out of their mouths,” leaving only devastation behind them, “ for their tails were like serpents,” and as the horses had heads like the heads of lions, their tails were not only like serpents, but their tails had heads like serpent heads. “ And with them they do hurt”--that is, using their tails to do harm, with devastation from the rear as well as destruction that issued from their mouths. It is the description of the deadly scourge in the path of the invasion before this army and in its wake behind, sweeping everything before, leaving nothing behind ; as a scorched earth and burnt land. It is an extension of the appalling picture of the complete desolation mentioned by Jesus, in Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14; Luke 21:20, which followed the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. The same description is given by Joel of the invasion of Judea by the Chaldeans in the sixth century B.C. “ A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth; the land is as the garden of Eden before them and behind them a desolate wilderness.” (Joe 2:2) Of this same invasion of Old Testament history, Jeremiah said: “ And I will send . . . the king of Babylon . . . and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants . . . and will utterly destroy them . . . and make them an hissing and perpetual desolations . . . and this whole land shall be a desolation; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.” (Jeremiah 25:9-11) Numerous other examples could be cited but these are sufficient to show that when comparison is made between these historical visions concerning Jerusalem of the era of six hundred B.C. with the visions of John concerning the Jerusalem of A.D. 70, their application is not only obvious but unavoidable.