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Many Shall Run To and Fro

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 6, 1916

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 93, No. 33.

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“Many Shall Run To and Fro”

By L. L. C.

THE present is an age of travel. Wherever one goes, whether by land or sea, at whatever hour of day or night he may start, he will always find others going the same way. As the writer has seen the constant stream of people going in and out of the railroad station of any fair-sized city, or going to and fro through the crowded streets, he has often wondered where they were all going.
Does the great increase of travel which the last few years have witnessed mean anything to the student of the Holy Scriptures? The mind turns to those words found in the last chapter of the book of Daniel’s prophecy, where we read in the fourth verse:—
“Thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”
Commentators have variously explained these words. It has been generally agreed that the sealing of the book until the time of the end indicated that the meaning of the prophecies of the book would not be fully understood until the time of the end had come. Some have thought there would be at the time of the end a running to and fro through the leaves of the book, and that this would lead to the understanding of the meaning so that the book could be said to be unsealed. Others have thought that the words, “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased,” were given as signs by which the coming of the time of the end might be known. Surely if running to and fro and increase of knowledge are signs of the time of the end, we have abundant proof in the remarkable developments of recent times that we have come to the time spoken of in the prophecy.
That we may know what is really meant by the expression “run to and fro,” let us compare scripture with scripture. The Bible itself is its own best interpreter. The word in Dan. 12:4 translated “run to and fro,” in the original Hebrew is shut. This Hebrew word occurs in only four other scriptures. Let us consider each of these. The Lord says through Jeremiah:—
“Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it.” Jer. 5:1.
In this scripture the running to and fro is literal and physical. The same is true of Amos 8:12, where we read:—
“They shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.”
The travel in this case is over longer distances, from “sea to sea, and from the north even to the east.”
The two other occurrences of the Hebrew word are in 2 Chron. 16:9 and Zech. 4:10. The first text says, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.” In the latter text we read: “Who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth.”
What are “those seven” which are here said to be the eyes of the Lord? Turning back to the beginning of the chapter, we find that the prophet was given a vision of a candlestick with seven lamps, and two olive trees, one on either side of the candlestick. When the prophet asked what these were, the angel explained by saying, “This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”
These seven lamps are, then, the seven Spirits of God, spoken of also in Rev. 4:5, and “those seven” are “the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth.”
Inasmuch as in all four references the Hebrew word shut applies clearly to actual travel, and not to the turning of the leaves of a book, we are safe in interpreting the same word in Dan. 12:4, in the fifth and only other case in which it occurs in the Bible, as also meaning actual travel to and fro. This prophecy that “many shall run to and fro” we now see being fulfilled all about us, and is one of the many evidences that the end of all things is at hand. L. L. C.