Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
Even unto the horse bridles - A hyperbolical expression, to denote a great effusion of blood. The Jews said, "When Hadrian besieged the city called Bitter, he slew so many that the horses waded in blood up to their mouths." The same kind of hyperbole with that above. See Wetstein on this verse.
The space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs - It is said that the state of the Church, or St. Peter's patrimony, extends from Rome to the Po, two hundred Italian miles, which make exactly one thousand six hundred furlongs! If this be really so, the coincidence is certainly surprising, and worthy of deep regard.
On these two last verses pious Quesnel thus speaks: "As the favorable sickle of Jesus Christ reaps his wheat when ripe for heaven, so that of the executioners of his justice cuts off from this life the tares which are only fit for the fire of hell. Then shall the blood of Christ cease to be trampled on by sinners; and that of the wicked shall be eternally trodden down in hell, which is the winepress of the wrath of God.
"And the winepress was trodden without the city, eternally without the city of the heavenly Jerusalem, and far from the presence of God; eternally crushed and trodden down by his justice; eternally tormented in body and soul, without any hope either of living or dying! This is the miserable lot and portion of those who shall have despised the law of God, and died in impenitence. My God, pierce my heart with a salutary dread of thy judgments!"
Whatever these passages may mean, this is a prudent and Christian use of them.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
without the city--Jerusalem. The scene of the blood-shedding of Christ and His people shall be also the scene of God's vengeance on the Antichristian foe. Compare the "horsemen," Rev 9:16-17.
blood--answering to the red wine. The slaughter of the apostates is what is here spoken of, not their eternal punishment.
even unto the horse bridles--of the avenging "armies of heaven."
by the space of a thousand . . . six hundred furlongs--literally, "a thousand six hundred furlongs off" [W. KELLY]. Sixteen hundred is a square number; four by four by one hundred. The four quarters, north, south, east, and west, of the Holy Land, or else of the world (the completeness and universality of the world-wide destruction being hereby indicated). It does not exactly answer to the length of Palestine as given by JEROME, one hundred sixty Roman miles. BENGEL thinks the valley of Kedron, between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, is meant, the torrent in that valley being about to be discolored with blood to the extent of sixteen hundred furlongs. This view accords with Joel's prophecy that the valley of Jehoshaphat is to be the scene of the overthrow of the Antichristian foes.
Next: Revelation Chapter 15
John Gill Bible Commentary
And the winepress was trodden without the city,.... The beloved city, the new Jerusalem, into which none of the wicked will enter, and without which are dogs, &c. Rev 20:9. The allusion may be, as Dr. Lightfoot thinks, to the olive presses, which were without the city of Jerusalem, from whence Gethsemane had its name, whither our Lord went, and where his sorrows began the night he was betrayed: hell is sometimes expressed by outer darkness, and said to be far off from heaven, and between the one and the other a great gulf is fixed, the distance is considerable; hence men are said to go forth to behold the miseries of the wicked; see Mat 22:13.
and blood came out of the winepress; alluding to the juice squeezed out of grapes, called the blood of grapes, Gen 49:11.
Even unto the horses' bridles, for the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs; which is only an hyperbolical expression, setting forth the largeness and universality of the destruction of the wicked, and the impossibility of their escaping it. In like manner the Jews express a great slaughter of men; so of the slaughter at Bither, by Adrian, they say (e), they went on slaying , "until a horse plunged in blood up to his nostrils", and the blood ran four miles into the sea; which is not to be understood literally, but as expressing a prodigious effusion of blood: and as to
the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs, perhaps there may be an allusion to the measure of the land of Israel, and the common notion of it among the Jews, who make it to be the square of four hundred parsoe (f): hence they often speak of the land of Israel shaking and moving four hundred "parsoe", upon some extraordinary occasions (g); and a "parsa" contained four miles (h), so that four hundred "parsoe" made a thousand and six hundred miles; and if miles and furlongs are the same, in which sense only the land of Israel could be so large, here is the exact space; for Jerom (i), who was an inhabitant of it, says, it was scarce 160 miles in length, to which agrees R. Menachem (k); and it may be observed, that the Arabic version renders the words, "by the space of a thousand and six hundred miles". The Ethiopic version, very wrongly, reads, "sixteen furlongs".
(e) T. Hieros. Taanioth, fol. 69. 1. (f) T. Bab. Bava Metzia, fol. 28. 1. Gloss. in ib. (g) T. Bab. Megilla, fol. 3. 1. & Bava Kama, fol. 82. 2. & Menachot, fol. 64. 2. (h) T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 92. 2. Gloss. in ib. (i) Ad Dardanum, fol. 22. 1. Tom. 3. (k) In Gen. fol. 60.
Next: Revelation Chapter 15
