A warning sword, whose body shined bright
A flaming Comet in the midst of night.”
—Todd.
So, too, when Jerusalem was to be wasted by a plague, David beheld a Comet in the shape of a flaming sword:
“And David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the Heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem.”
—I. Chron. XXI. 16.
The fall of Satan, some sacred writers hold, was marked by the appearance of a Comet. In Isaiah (XIV. 12) we find:
“How art thou fallen from Heaven, O flaming one, son of the morning!”
John Milton, in his “Paradise Lost,” has fixed this image in immortal verse:
“Satan stood