John’s beautiful poetic image comes to life as grim reality in chapter 7. The wind becomes part of the vision–and a very real threat–when John sees four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree (7:1). All the disasters of 6:12-17 are now wrapped up in the single disaster of “wind.”
