These prophecies could not refer to worldly kings, political or otherwise, for it is not these who are coming to or recognizing God’s organization, neither do they have any true glory that they could bring to it. They are not rejoicing in the spiritual prosperity of God’s organization. Rather, the kings in these texts must be the ones on earth in line to become heavenly kings, kings from God’s standpoint, who will rule as kings with Christ for a thousand years, sitting with him on his throne, even as he sits with his Father on His throne. (Rev. 3:21; 20:6) At the present time a remnant of this number, which totals 144,000, is still on earth and it is to these that the words of these prophecies refer.—Rev. 14:1, 3.

The nations referred to likewise would not be the political nations, for none of these as such are coming to God’s organization. Rather, these nations are the men of goodwill from all these worldly nations, those referred to at Revelation 7:9, the “great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues.”—See also Zechariah 8:23.

● When Elisha prayed for God to strike the Syrian army with blindness, what actually happened to them?—K. K., United States.

The account in 2 Kings 6:18, 19 sheds light on the matter, when it says: “Elisha went on to pray to Jehovah and say: ‘Please, strike this nation with blindness.’ So he struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha. Elisha now said to them: ‘This is not the way, and this is not the city. Follow me, and let me conduct you to the man you look for.’ However, he conducted them to Samaria.” If the entire army had been smitten with physical blindness they would all have had to be led by hand, but the account simply says that Elisha told them: ‘This is not the way. Follow me.’ Apparently what happened was that they were struck with mental blindness so they could not recognize Elisha or where he was taking them.

This mental blindness is recognized by psychologists. For example, William James in his Principles of Psychology, Vol. 1, page 48, states: “A most interesting effect of cortical disorder is mental blindness. This consists not so much in insensibility to optical impressions, as in inability to understand them. Psychologically it is interpretable as loss of associations between optical sensations and what they signify; and any interruption of the paths between the optic centres and centres for other ideas ought to bring it about.”

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