And I heard a great voice out of the temple, saying to the seven angels, Go and pour out the seven bowls of the fury of God upon the earth.
Seven angels stand ready with their bowls, and the order to act comes from inside God's sanctuary. That one detail shapes the whole verse: who gives the word, what pouring out means, and how far the judgment reaches.
One writer weighs where the voice comes from and who is speaking. He quotes an older translation: "a great voice," where the ESV has "a loud voice."
John hears "a great voice out of the temple." The sanctuary itself, the holiest spot in the universe, is roused to action. The demand for judgment on this scene of revolt against God comes not from the throne, but from the holy of holies. God's wrath burns fiercely, and it draws its strength from what His holy nature demands and requires. The voice heard in the temple may well be called "great," once you consider the holiness of the place and the majesty of the Speaker.
Human anger sweeps a person along. One writer marks the difference here, then measures how far the bowls reach.
The wrath of God is no mere outburst of passion that carries away the one who feels it. It waits the word from the sanctuary; and at length that momentous word is spoken. These bowls complete the divine judgments. Their range is not narrower than that of the prophetic earth, and here they differ from the trumpet series, which in other ways they closely resemble.
The angels are equipped for the task, yet equipment is not permission. Notice too what fills the bowls, and who closes the series.
God equips and commissions these ministers of His wrath, yet they cannot act till He commands: "Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God." These broad-rimmed vessels had been filled in the sanctuary, not with incense, but with wrath — God's righteous wrath. The same voice that orders these seven plagues (v. 1) announces their completion when all are poured out (v. 17).
One writer weighs this verb, and hears the same language in Israel's prayers.
"Pour out," not sprinkle. The expression refers to the fullness of divine wrath. Each vessel overflows, and each is to be poured out without limit or measure, one after another, till all are empty. A similar phrase is not uncommon in the Old Testament (Zephaniah 3:8; Psalm 69:24; Jeremiah 10:25). These seven plagues seem like an answer to the prayer of the suffering Jewish remnant in the coming crisis. "Return sevenfold into the lap of our neighbors the taunts with which they have taunted you, O Lord!" (Psalm 79:12).
The word "earth" here is not a map reference.
The scene of these plagues is "the earth" — not the earth as a map shows it, but the earth as prophecy views it. So the course of judgment takes a wider sweep than the judgment under the Trumpets (Revelation 8). It is not only the Roman earth that has turned from God. The whole guilty scene within the range of prophetic vision is given up here to feel the vengeance of an angry God.
Commentators differ on how to read what follows. One argues that the wording deliberately recalls Egypt but stands for something else.
I do not think we should read the objects of these plagues — the earth, the sea, and so on — in a purely literal way. The language is symbolic. I would have no difficulty at all in believing that God could do these things literally, if this were His will. He has turned the waters of Egypt into blood, filled a kingdom with darkness, and sent plagues like the ones we have here… But the question is whether this is what we are to gather from the chapter in front of us. I think it is not.
Another allows for both readings at once.
It is true that these bowl judgments also contain symbols. Even so, some of these plagues may carry a literal meaning as well as a symbolic one. The sixth plague that came on Egypt, the first judgment to strike the Egyptians themselves, was also a sore (Exodus 9:10-11).
You would expect suffering on this scale to break men down. It does the opposite.
Does this humble them and turn them to repentance? Are they crushed in spirit as these judgments fall again and again, each one heavier than the last? No! They "blasphemed the name of God." … If they had repented, the storm of divine wrath might have stopped, for God "had authority over these plagues." All were in His hand, and He held supreme control. We are not living in a world of chance, but in a world which belongs to God and which He controls, even down to the smallest circumstance of life.
- Source — The order comes out of the holy of holies, so this wrath draws its force from what God's holy nature demands.
- Signal — Commissioned angels still cannot move until God speaks. The same voice that starts the bowls declares them finished in verse 17.
- Measure — "Pour out" means emptied, not sprinkled: full, unmeasured, vessel after vessel.
- Scope — The judgment runs wider than the Trumpets did. It reaches the whole guilty scene that prophecy has in view.
- Result — Judgment this heavy still does not bring men to repentance. They blaspheme instead, while God holds every plague in His hand.
And the first went and poured out his bowl on the earth; and there came an evil and grievous sore upon the men that had the mark of the beast, and those who worshipped its image.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And the second poured out his bowl on the sea; and it became blood, as of a dead man; and every living soul died in the sea.
The second bowl of God's wrath falls on the sea, and the blood there is the blood of a corpse, not the fresh blood of a wound. Commentators ask two questions: what does "the sea" stand for, and what kind of death is meant?
These plagues echo what God once did in Egypt. One writer says the echo is deliberate, but that the judgments here work on a different level:
God here points back to plagues that were once literal in the land of Egypt, but that now stand as symbols of certain judgments of God. There is a judgment on the sea; that is, on the outside regions, where the profession of life died out completely.
The first bowl fell on "the earth," this one on "the sea." The two terms divide humanity rather than the globe:
The term earth in verse 1 has a larger and wider meaning than the earth of verse 2. The earth of verse 2 stands in contrast to the sea. As a symbol it means that special part of the prophetic earth then in ordered outward relation to God. The sea means the part of the sphere of prophetic dealing that is not organised but revolutionary in character — the masses in general.
Why add "as of a dead man"? All spilled blood is dead blood, so the phrase must mean something more:
Is it not rather that the blood of a dead man, while it is indeed dead blood, is also blood that was never shed? No violence took the life; it was lost through disease or natural decay. So in the law, anything that had died of itself was forbidden as food. It spoke of inward corruption, as blood shed while life was still strong did not. If this thought is the true one, then the state pictured under the second bowl is not one of strife and bloodshed among the nations, but of professed spiritual life gone. There might still be life in hunted and outlawed men, no longer counted as part of the nations; but the mass was dead.
If the death is not physical, a man can walk about and still count as dead. One writer sets out two sides to it:
In this bowl plague the sea becoming blood is a symbol of moral death. Men give up Christianity, or at least whatever then stands for it. The turning away from God is so complete and thorough that the blood is "as of a dead man." Here we have death in a double sense. First, spiritual death, as in Ephesians 2:5, even in those who are alive in body. Second, death by apostasy: men give up all religious profession and openly renounce every outward tie to God, as in Jude 12 — "twice dead," even while alive in body.
That condition does not arrive by accident. Another writer traces it to a hardening that begins with man and ends with God:
This speaks of the rotting stillness of death that grips the nations. They have refused the truth of the gospel of grace. They have become like Nabal, the husband of Abigail. When Nabal heard that David had almost killed him, "his heart died within him, and he became as a stone" (1 Sam. 25:37-38). Because man deliberately hardens himself against God, God at last hardens man's heart in judgment, so that grace can no longer reach him: he becomes dead while he lives.
Commentators differ on this. Some take the blood-red sea as a picture of actual slaughter across the nations:
Here, as before, the sea stands for the great mass of the peoples, for God's judgments do not fall on the beast and his followers only. Across its whole surface the world runs red with war and bloodshed. The dreadful picture of the sea becoming like the blood of a dead man, with all its living creatures destroyed, stands for this.
When the trumpets sounded, the judgments reached only a third part. Here that limit is gone:
The first four bowls strike much the same objects as the first four trumpets; the likeness is too clear to miss. Only in Revelation 8 the sphere reaches a third part. Here the judgments are more complete and more intense. They appear to be God's answer to the defiant and persecuting actions of the beast and his followers.
- Sea — the restless, unorganised masses of mankind. "The earth" of verse 2 is the ordered part, still in outward relation to God.
- Blood — not blood shed by violence, but blood left in a corpse. The picture is inward decay, not battle wounds.
- Death — spiritual, not just physical. Men openly give up all religious profession, and are "twice dead" while still alive.
- Cause — men refuse grace first. Then God hardens the heart that hardened itself, and it turns to stone.
- Extent — no "third part" limits this bowl, as it limited the trumpets. The judgment is fuller and fiercer — God's answer to the beast.
And the third poured out his bowl on the rivers, and [on] the fountains of waters; and they became blood.
The third bowl moves inland, from the sea to the rivers and the springs that feed them. What should refresh life turns to blood — is this literal water, or a picture of something else?
Commentators read this plague as picture-language, not as a change in the world's water supply.
I think the objects of these plagues — the earth, sea, and so on — are not to be taken in a merely literal way. The language is symbolical. Not that I would find it hard to believe that God could do these things literally, if that were His will. He turned the waters of Egypt into blood. He filled a kingdom with darkness. He sent plagues like the ones we have here. So there is no difficulty in imagining such a thing again. But the only question is whether this is what we are meant to gather from the chapter before us. I think it is not.
A river in Scripture is a picture of supply. That is why turning it to blood is so devastating.
As a symbol, a river is used in Scripture to set out a source of life and blessing, whether temporal or spiritual. We read of "rivers of living water" and the "river of the water of life" (John 7:38; Revelation 22:1). The river becoming blood seems to mean that all the springs of thought which shape men's lives will be poisoned. Instead of leading to life and happiness, they will lead to misery and moral death.
Others take the two words as two distinct pictures.
Judgment falls not only upon the revolutionary masses of people, but upon the rivers and fountains. These speak of what is ordered and stable: a river flows between its banks, and fountains are springs of refreshment.
The horror of the stroke is the reversal built into it. What was made to give life now delivers death.
The springs that should have been life became death — everything is polluted, deathful. Every principle in the world turns to death. Any remnant will be kept clear of this.
God strikes the source itself, so there is nothing left to recover from.
The sources are corrupted, apostate, dead. So all hope of revival is gone, and men are shut up to their doom with no way out.
This is not the first blow to these waters. The bowl goes further than the earlier trumpet did.
The third bowl matches the third trumpet, where the rivers and fountains also come under judgment. There, however, they become wormwood (Revelation 8:11); here they turn into blood. There, all national life, character, and source of thought and action are morally poisoned. Here the national corruption goes deeper: the result is moral death and complete separation from God.
The reach is wider too. The trumpets kept naming a "third part"; the bowls drop that limit.
The bowl-judgments never mention a "third part" being hit, as the trumpets did. So the effects of God's judgment are not limited, as in the trumpets, to the Roman world. They are more general.
Why blood? Commentators read it as measured repayment.
The moral character and springs on which men think and act become deadly. This repays the heartless cruelty of Christendom toward saints and prophets, in that day as in earlier days. God does not forget such ways. Afterwards men cover them over with tombs, statues, and titles of pretended honour, once the victims are dead.
The one who approves this judgment is striking: the angel set over the waters God has just struck.
The angel of the waters may here stand for the Creator's tender care over the life He has made. In this case that care turns against the persecutor and applauds His judgments. So does the altar, on which the lives of the martyrs were poured out to God.
- Source — Rivers and fountains stand for life and refreshment. God strikes them at the source, not just the surface.
- Reversal — What should have carried life now carries death. Every principle men live by turns deadly.
- Deeper — The trumpet made these waters bitter as wormwood. The bowl turns them to blood, and poisoning becomes moral death.
- Wider — The trumpets were limited to a "third part"; the bowls carry no such limit, so the judgment is general.
- Repayment — God repays those who shed the blood of saints and prophets, and even the angel of the waters applauds His judgment.
And I heard the angel of the waters saying, Thou art righteous, who art and wast, the holy one, that thou hast judged so;
The third bowl falls on the rivers and springs. A voice from within creation answers, and it declares God right in what He has just done. Two questions follow. Who is this "angel in charge of the waters"? And why does he praise God for a plague instead of pleading against it?
Angelic representatives run through this book, and the waters have one too.
"The angel of the waters" seems at first an unclear expression. But remember how large a part angels take in the work of redeeming the inheritance. Then the phrase becomes clear and definite, and fits the rest of the book. Almost every subject in Revelation has its angel... If the winds, the fire, and the abyss each have an angel, the waters too have their own guardian angel. An angel controls the peoples symbolised by the waters (Rev. 17:15) — and all of it stands under the governing hand of God.
The one voice you would expect to object is the voice that agrees.
The angel of the waters may here represent the Creator's tender care over creature-life. In this case that care turns against the persecutor and applauds His judgments — just as the altar does, the altar where the martyrs' lives were poured out to God.
What he approves is not simply the fact of judgment but its exact size.
You might naturally expect him to plead against judgment and retribution in the sphere he presides over. Instead he justifies God: "You are righteous." The plague does not go one hairbreadth beyond the just measure of strict righteousness. Then comes the eternity of God's being, "Who is," and His past relation to men and angels, "and was." Then "the Holy One." This unusual word occurs only twice in the New Testament in relation to Christ; the other place is Revelation 15:4.
This title unfolds the name Jehovah.
What then is the meaning of Jehovah? It means, HE who IS. The extension of this is found in the Scriptures, "Which is and which was, and which is to come" (Rev. 1:4; 8:4, 8; 16:5). God is — Jehovah... In the past God is, in the present God is, in the future God is. There never was a time, past, present or future, when God will not be. God IS.
The end of the verse raises a question of wording. Older printings add "and shall be." One writer holds that the best manuscripts give a title of holiness instead — the reading modern versions carry.
In verses 5-7 a word or two, when corrected or rightly read, add to the full force and clearness of the passage... The words "and shall be" have no force at all here. Another word is best attested — "the Holy One," the less usual word for "holy." Before God pours out these bowls, He is celebrated in His merciful holiness.
Two different words are translated "holy," and this verse uses the rarer one.
God is holy, knowing good and evil perfectly — wills absolutely good and no evil... The other word means gracious, fitting affections at work in the relationships we stand in — to God, to parents, and so on. It also covers God in mercy to us, and Christ in whom these are displayed... It is goodness and grace in God — piety and recognition of Him on man's part.
So the angel's praise is not cold. He names God as gracious at the very moment God strikes — and his cry matches a cry already heard in heaven.
"You are righteous." This was plain, for God was pouring out His wrath on men in their wickedness, just because He was righteous. But more than this — "who is and was, the Holy One." That stays true before God pours out the bowls, and while He is pouring them out. The angel of the waters bears witness to His graciousness, even while He was judging in this way, which might have seemed to contradict it. He too, from below, answers the song above. If the saints, at rest on the sea of glass, celebrate Him as merciful in holiness, the angel confirms it.
One writer sets these judgments beside the cross.
Look at the wrath of God poured out on the nations. Then pause, and gaze on the Son of God, once bearing the wrath of God on the cross. God is everlastingly the same. He will surely act according to the cross of Christ, whether in purifying His saints or in pouring out His wrath.
- Voice. The waters have their own angel, as the winds, the fire and the abyss do. Waters stand for peoples, all under God's governing hand.
- Verdict. The guardian might have pleaded for his own sphere. Instead he justifies God: the stroke does not go one hairbreadth beyond strict righteousness.
- Name. "Who is and who was" is the name Jehovah unfolded: there was never a moment when God was not.
- Character. The rarer word for "holy" here speaks of goodness and grace in God. He is merciful in holiness at the very moment the bowls fall.
- Echo. From below, the angel confirms what the saints sing above. The same God who pours out wrath once bore it at the cross, and He never changes.
for they have poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; they are worthy.
The third bowl turns rivers and springs into blood. This verse gives the reason. The people who shed the blood of God's servants are now handed blood to drink, and the verse closes with the angel's verdict: they deserve it.
An angel speaks up to defend God's justice in this stroke.
The angel justifies God in His righteous judgment. Those who have shed the blood of saints and prophets, who testified to the truth, should themselves drink the cup of death. And they drink it in its most terrible form: everlasting separation from God. That is just, since they have poisoned men's minds with error. Men may be mighty. For a time God may let them show the evil of their hearts by persecuting His people. But the Lord God is Almighty, and in His own time He will avenge the blood of His people. The reference to the martyrdom of saints again shows that these judgments are aimed at the kingdom of the beast.
The plague strikes people, not literal rivers. And the two words come in a different order here than in an earlier chapter.
"They have poured out the blood of saints and prophets." This sentence proves beyond doubt that the plague is symbolic. Apostate peoples and nations are called "waters." They had poured out the blood of saints and prophets freely and without restraint. In Revelation 11:18 the order is prophets and saints; here it is saints and prophets. There the point is public recognition of service and faithfulness, so the most responsible and distinguished group is named first. Here the point is the martyrdom of all who stand for God, of all who witness for Him... "Saints" is a common term in both Testaments, and means true believers in God. "Prophets" means those who witness truly for God in a dark and evil day.
What does it mean to be given blood to drink? The same writer sets blood beside water and wine.
Water is the ordinary source of life and refreshment. Wine is the symbol of earth's joy. Blood is the witness of death. In retributive justice, in holy righteousness, God as Judge hands the persecutors of His people over to drink blood, so that they know death in their own souls and consciences... The drinking of blood does not mean physical death, it is infinitely worse. The punishment is as horrible as it is righteous. It is a down payment and foretaste of the horrors of the lake of fire. "They are worthy." Not only is it a righteous judgment, but these apostates have fully earned their awful doom.
An older picture shows the same principle. Moses once made Israel swallow what they had worshipped.
The children of Israel had to taste their own idolatry. Moses burned the golden calf, put its ashes in the water, and made them drink it (Ex. 32:20). They have to taste the vileness and bitterness of their apostasy. They reap what they sow. All the joys of life pictured by rivers and fountains of water are poisoned and corrupted. It is a retributive judgment of God falling upon the earth.
Who exactly is judged here, and who is doing the judging?
Those struck down had themselves struck down saints and prophets, and this would be true above all of the beast and his followers. Jehovah, Elohim, Shaddai, by His angel, is acting, and they are simply getting what they richly deserve.
Time can hide a crime from people. It cannot hide it from God.
The moral character and springs on which men think and act become deadly. This is the retribution for the heartless cruelty of Christendom, at that time as well, toward saints and prophets. God does not forget such ways, even when men hide them afterwards under tombs, statues and titles of pretended honour raised since those deaths.
The verse carries a warning for the world and a comfort for God's people.
How little do men think that God will act in retributive justice! And how awful the thought! Men, with all their boastful cries of "improvement" and "progress," are hurrying on to the time of God's anger. But so it is. He will yet arise and call men to account for all the righteous blood they have shed, and He will avenge His own elect. Again, this reminds us with force of the safety of those who shelter under the precious blood of Christ.
- Blood shed. The charge is exact: the blood of saints, true believers, and of prophets, who kept witnessing for God in a dark day.
- Blood given. Water refreshes, wine gladdens, blood witnesses death. To drink blood is to taste death in the conscience — a first taste of the lake of fire.
- Blood deserved. The judgment matches the crime. Israel had to drink their own golden calf; these reap what they sowed, and the angel says they deserve it.
- Blood remembered. God's memory outlasts the monuments. Tombs, statues and honours raised over murdered saints erase nothing.
- Blood that shelters. The God who will one day call men to account for all righteous blood is the safety of everyone sheltered by the blood of Christ.
And I heard the altar saying, Yea, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous [are] thy judgments.
The third bowl has just turned the rivers and springs to blood, and the angel over the waters has called God righteous for doing it. Then a second voice answers "Yes" — not an angel, but the altar itself.
Some copies add a speaker, as if someone called out from beside the altar. One commentator says the text should stand as it is.
"And I heard" — not another voice out of the altar, but "I heard the altar say." It may seem strange to speak of "the altar saying." No doubt people added the extra words because they found it so odd. But taken as a symbol, it goes against nothing in the way prophecy speaks... Revelation 9:13 already says, "I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God." Here the picture goes further: the voice is the altar's own.
The altar is not chosen at random. What it remembers goes back to the Bible's first murder.
The lives of God's saints and witnesses were sacrificed on the altar — that is how He regarded it. After death their souls are heard underneath it, crying to God for vengeance on their bloodthirsty persecutors. God hears the cry... In the first book of Scripture (Gen. 4:10) we hear the cry of the blood of the first of the martyrs. Now in the last book we listen to the cry of the altar. That altar had witnessed the killing of God's saints from Abel onwards.
Why the altar, and not an angel sent from God?
If it had been merely an angel, the link would have been more distant. An angel serves those who will inherit salvation, yet he does not enter so directly into their sufferings, and can hardly be said to feel with them directly.
Two praises in this book sound alike, but they are not the same.
In chapter 15:3 the harpers on the sea of glass sing, "Just and true are Your ways." Here the altar says, "True and just are Your judgments." In the first, the ways of God are in view. In the second... the judgment of God on His enemies is in question. Scripture teaches one basic truth we must hold firmly: all God's dealings with His creatures, in grace or in judgment, are marked by truth and righteousness.
The altar calls God "Almighty," not Father. The two names belong with different things.
The name Almighty will appear again when God works out His purposes in power and judgment. God revealed it along with promises made in time, while the name Father goes with His plans from eternity.
An altar is where a sacrifice is offered. So the voice that agrees with God's wrath comes from the place of sacrifice.
What a light the altar throws on the judgments God is about to carry out on an unrepentant earth! Look at the wrath of God poured out on the nations. Then pause, and look at the Son of God, who once bore the wrath of God on the cross. God is forever the same. He will surely act according to the cross of Christ, whether He is purifying His saints or pouring out His wrath.
Men do not expect God to repay. But the day is coming.
How little men think that God will act in justice and repay! What an awful thought: men boast of "improvement" and "progress," and all the while they are hurrying on to the time of God's anger! But so it is. He will yet rise up, call men to account for all the righteous blood that has been shed, and avenge His own chosen ones. Again, this strongly reminds us how safe those are who shelter under the precious blood of Christ.
- The voice. The altar itself speaks — not an angel, and not a person standing beside it. The wording is strange, but Revelation had already given a voice from the golden altar's horns.
- The memory. The souls of God's killed witnesses lay under that altar. The blood it remembers runs from Abel in the Bible's first book to its last.
- The verdict. This book praises God's "ways" in one place and His "judgments" in another. Here the altar calls His dealing with His enemies true and just.
- The name. The altar calls Him Almighty — the name tied to God carrying out His purposes in power.
- The shelter. The same wrath fell once on the Son of God at the cross. God does not change, so the safe place is under the blood of Christ.
And the fourth poured out his bowl on the sun; and it was given to it to burn men with fire.
The fourth bowl of God's wrath falls on the sun, and the result is not light but burning. Two questions press: what does the sun stand for, and why does the burning leave people worse instead of better?
The sun in Scripture is not only light; it is a picture of rule. Everything turns on whose rule, and whether it comes in blessing or in judgment.
Sun — supreme rule as ordained by God, whether in blessing or in judgment. "The sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings" (Malachi 4:2), but it is the time of judgment. In Revelation we have Jerusalem clothed with the sun — Jerusalem, or the Jewish people, clothed with supreme authority... so, in chapter 16:8, it is the supreme power on the earth of the beast. The source of the image is obvious — the sun set supreme in the heavens.
The horror of the plague lies in what the sun was made to do.
It is a judgment on the sun, the figure of supreme government. What ought to have been the means of light and comfort — that greater light which rules the day — now becomes the means of scorching men with fire. The effect of its tyranny is unbearable.
The world once admired this same power.
The power of evil, held for the time by the beasts, becomes oppressive and unbearable like burning heat. When the beasts took up their power, men welcomed it as great and wonderful (see Revelation 13:4, 14). Now, under God's judgment, it becomes a terrible affliction.
Earlier in the book a trumpet also struck the sun, but the two strokes are not the same in kind or in reach.
The first four trumpets and the first four bowls run in the same order. The great departments of nature — symbols, of course — come under judgment: the earth, the sea, the rivers, and the sun. The earlier judgment on the sun (Revelation 8:12) — that is, on the supreme governing authority — brought intense moral darkness. That darkness, however, was limited to the revived Roman world. But the fourth trumpet, both in severity and in range, must fade before the greater horrors of the fourth bowl. There, darkness; here, unbearable agony. There, an area of limited judgment; here, judgment reaching to the furthest bounds of Christendom. There, the circumstances of men are in question; here, men themselves in their own persons are the suffering victims.
Commentators differ over how literally to take this. Some read the scorching as physical heat. Others take the sun as a symbol, yet still expect nature to show God's wrath.
Some also apply this literally, but it is better to take it as a symbol. There is no doubt that the powers of nature will also bear witness to the wrath of God. Famines, droughts and great floods will come. So will volcanic disturbances, great and widespread earthquakes and other physical events, throughout these days of tribulation. However, the sun here is not the physical sun, but means, as under the fourth trumpet, the supreme authority governing them... The government, ruled by Satan as it is, now becomes the source of the most awful torment to those under its rule.
The verse says the sun was allowed to scorch. Nothing here runs loose. The God men defy holds the plagues in His hand.
Had there been godly repentance, the storm of divine wrath might have been stopped, for God "had authority over these plagues." All were in His hand, and He had supreme control. God is the source of these judgments in Revelation. We are not living in a world of chance, but in a world that belongs to God and that He controls, down to the smallest detail of life.
The scorching leaves its victims more defiant, not more humble.
As in Egypt the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, so in that day the hearts and consciences of men will be hardened beyond any possible point of recovery. They are no longer atheists, even if they once were. There is a God, and they know it to their cost by these crushing judgments, but they defy Him.
The scorching rule does not last, and what follows is light of another kind.
Short, in proportion to its intensity, will be the closing tyranny. Then comes the kingdom of the Son of Man, and the display of a true glory the world has never seen before. Then this will be fulfilled: "The sun shall not strike you by day." And how great is the joy of what is added: "Your sun shall no more go down... the LORD will be your everlasting light." (Isaiah 60:20)
- Sun. The sun stands for supreme rule — here, the power that governs the earth of the beast.
- Scorching. The authority meant to give light and comfort now burns. The power men once cheered afflicts them.
- Severity. The fourth trumpet brought darkness over a limited area. This bowl brings agony to the furthest bounds and strikes men in their own persons.
- Sovereignty. God allows the scorching. He holds authority over these plagues, and repentance could have stopped the storm.
- Stubbornness. Like Pharaoh, men harden under the heat and defy the God they now know is real. The true Sun, who heals instead of striking, comes only after.
And the men were burnt with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, who had authority over these plagues, and did not repent to give him glory.
The fourth bowl of God's anger falls on the sun, and men are scorched by its heat. Two questions press here: what does the sun stand for, and why does suffering on this scale leave men harder than before? (Older translations say "blasphemed" where the ESV says "cursed the name of God.")
The sun here is a symbol, not the physical star. It stands for the highest ruling power on earth.
This is a judgment on the sun, the figure of supreme government. What should have been the means of light and comfort — that greater light which rules the day — now becomes the means of scorching men with fire. The effect of its tyranny is unbearable.
One writer asks whether this points to the reign of a ruler holding the power of a dictator.
As a figure, the sun speaks of supreme authority. May this not refer to the reign of the beast who in this solemn time will hold the supreme power of a dictator? Under this ruthless power men will lose all liberty, and like someone scorched with fire, they will lose all power to resist. Instead of repenting of their idolatry and giving God the glory that belongs to Him alone, they will blaspheme the name of God, whom they will realise has power over these plagues.
The sun was struck once before in this book, at the fourth trumpet. Comparing the two shows how far the bowls go beyond the earlier judgments in both reach and pain.
The earlier judgment on the sun (Rev. 8:12), that is, on the supreme governing authority, brought a scene of deep moral darkness. But it was limited to the revived Roman world. The fourth trumpet, in both severity and range, must pale before the greater horrors of the fourth bowl. There it was darkness; here it is unbearable agony. There the judgment covered a limited area; here it reaches the furthest bounds of Christendom. There the circumstances of men were in question; here men themselves suffer the agony in their own persons.
These men know exactly whose hand is behind the plagues. Their cursing is not ignorance but open defiance.
They are no longer atheists, even if once they were. There is a God, and they know it to their cost by these crushing judgments, but they defy Him. When man reaches the point of defiant hardness shown here, what can be expected but the final blow?
Because God holds authority over the plagues, He could also have stopped them.
If there had been godly repentance, the storm of divine wrath could have been stopped, for God "had power over these plagues." All of them were in His hand, and He had supreme control. God is the source of these apocalyptic judgments. We are not living in a world of chance, but in a world which belongs to God and which He controls, right down to the smallest detail of life.
One writer draws out the difference between admitting God is right and honouring Him.
The more he learns what righteousness is, through God's visible judgments, the louder his conscience accuses him. And the more his heart breathes out hatred against the almighty power he cannot resist (Rev. 16:9, 21)... So in Revelation, the plagues that strike the earth provoke blasphemy instead. Men may be forced to give glory to the God of heaven, admitting that His decrees are just while they are terrified by them. But they will not give Him glory by repenting.
If pain could change hearts, this verse would read differently. Repentance has another source altogether.
There is no repentance apart from grace, nor can there ever be. "They did not repent and give him glory" (Rev. 16:9). That was like the repentance of Judas, who went and hanged himself. Unrepentant sinners show the character of blasphemy, not sorrow over having lost something.
The same suffering works in opposite directions depending on the heart it meets.
Afflictions on the godly make them better, but afflictions on the wicked make them worse. The godly pray more (Ps. 130:1). The wicked blaspheme more. Afflictions on the wicked make them even more unrepentant. Every plague on Egypt increased the plague of hardness in Pharaoh's heart.
- Light turned heat. The sun pictures supreme government. What should give light and comfort now scorches, and its tyranny is unbearable.
- Wider, fiercer. The fourth trumpet brought darkness over a limited area. The fourth bowl brings agony to men themselves, everywhere.
- Knowledge without surrender. These are not atheists. They know God stands behind the plagues and curse Him anyway.
- Glory refused. Fear forces them to admit His decrees are just. But they refuse the one thing He asks — repentance.
- Grace, not pain, softens. Suffering alone hardens, as it did Pharaoh. Under affliction the godly pray more; the wicked curse more.
And the fifth poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast; and its kingdom became darkened; and they gnawed their tongues with distress,
The fifth bowl does not strike earth, sea, rivers or sun. It strikes a government — the command centre of the world power that had defied God. What follows is darkness and agony, and a kingdom that promised its people everything is left with nothing.
The first four bowls struck the natural world. This one strikes a political structure at its strongest point.
Now we leave the realm of nature. Here is a specific target of judgment: the kingdom of the Beast, struck at the centre and seat of its power... Judgment overwhelms the "throne," the strength and glory of the kingdom. This answers, beyond all doubt, the insolent challenge: "Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?" (Revelation 13:4)
Behind that visible throne stands another authority.
The fifth poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, which was really Satan's throne, the seat of his dominion and power. The effect was darkness and confusion; and they, the people of his dominion, "gnawed their tongues in anguish."
The picture recalls Egypt, where a darkness people could feel fell on the land. The difference matters.
There is no doubt an allusion here to Exodus 10:21-23. There, however, the darkness was physical; here it is moral. It is difficult to grasp in any degree the horror of such a doom. Darkness and blackness are a main feature of the misery in the lake of fire, the eternal place of suffering (Matthew 25:30). This scene gives a preview of that darkness, with the consequences that come with it.
Darkness in the mind is worse than darkness in the sky. It shows itself already today.
In Egypt the last plague before the death of the firstborn was "a thick darkness" — a darkness people could feel. It was so dark that it stopped all movement. But it is even more terrible when a thick darkness descends on the minds of men, blacking out from them every ray of light from God. There are people today still in very dense darkness. But it is even worse when atheists or agnostics living in Christendom have to say to some simple believer — as they sometimes do — that they envy him his faith. They wish they could believe, but cannot.
This ruler had baited his subjects with a bright future. What lands on them is the opposite.
This does not agree at all with the imaginary picture some have painted of the Beast's kingdom. Nor does it match the way some poets imagine Satan reigning in hell. We can easily suppose that he held out beautiful fields as bait to his subjects. But darkness fell on his kingdom, and his people gnawed their tongues as they blasphemed the God of heaven.
The darkness is not a random blow. It gives men what they have been asking for all along.
Poured on the throne of the beast, darkness spreads over his kingdom. It gives a preview of that final withdrawal of light, the "outer darkness" of that terrible time. Then God will take at their word those who have so often told Him to leave them. But who, outside hell, can tell what that will be? Science today credits the sun with more than ever before. But who could ever say to the glowing sun, "Depart from me, I want darkness"? Yet this is what they say to God.
The agony is extreme. What the sufferers do next is more disturbing than the pain itself.
The result is really a foretaste of hell. In the intensity of their distress and misery they "gnawed their tongues... and blasphemed the God of heaven." They credit Him with "their pains and their sores." But they "did not repent of their deeds." The reader cannot fail to be struck by one point the text repeats so solemnly: these people suffer under the judging hand of God, and still they refuse to repent... their evil hearts still clung to the very deeds that had brought their terrible sufferings on them.
H. H. Snell notes that the ruler himself is spared for the moment: his subjects suffer now, "while the judgment of the beast is postponed till the Lord Himself comes."
- Throne — the bowl strikes the seat of the beast's authority, not nature. The boast "who can fight against it?" now gets its answer.
- Darkness — Egypt's darkness returns, but inward: a moral blackout that shuts off every ray of light from God.
- Bait — the kingdom promised beautiful fields and delivers darkness. Its promise fails where its power sat.
- Wish — men have long told God to leave; now He takes them at their word. This darkness points to the outer darkness to come.
- Refusal — the pain is real, and they trace it to God, yet they curse Him instead of turning. Suffering alone never softens the heart.
and blasphemed the God of the heaven for their distresses and their sores, and did not repent of their works.
The fifth bowl falls on the seat of the beast's power, and darkness and pain follow. Two questions press: why does pain this clear produce cursing instead of repentance, and why is God named here as the God of heaven?
Notice who this bowl spares — and whose hardening it repeats.
The judgment falls upon the throne of the beast and upon his kingdom — not upon the beast himself, who these bowls seem to leave untouched. He is reserved for the judgment of the Lord Jesus Himself at His coming... Here the blow only strikes the seat of his authority. Long ago king Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and here too men blasphemed the God of heaven and did not repent of their deeds.
One writer takes this darkness as inward rather than physical, and calls the misery it brings a taste of what is to come.
His kingdom was full of darkness — only this, we think, would be moral in character, not literal. The result was really a foretaste of hell. In the depth of their distress and misery they blasphemed the God of heaven, and they trace their pains and their sores to Him as well. They had despised and killed His witnesses. Now they can no longer hide from themselves that there is a God who judges the earth. Still they refuse to admit their sin. They "did not repent"; their evil hearts still clung to the very deeds that had brought their terrible sufferings upon them.
Another writer describes what these men do in the dark — and who keeps them from the one help that would end their misery.
The darkness here is no doubt moral, or rather spiritual. Men grope in their blindness for some refuge from their gnawing misery. Yet Satan so deceives them that instead of turning to the only Deliverer, they blaspheme His name and keep on in the sins that provoked His judgments.
Set this bowl beside the earlier one. The cursing has found a new target, and the men who curse now know where their pain comes from.
Under the distress caused by the earlier bowl men blasphemed "the Name of God". Here evil goes a step further: they blaspheme "the God of the Heaven" — not His name only, but God Himself. There is remorse and suffering in the morally darkened kingdom. They know that God is in heaven. They know He is the author and source of their misery, sent in judgment. Even that knowledge does not bow the heart in repentance. The will is still unbroken. And they "did not repent of their works" — they gloried in the very deeds God was answering in judgment.
The title is not decoration. It marks a stage in God's dealings with the world.
God will not claim His title as the God of the earth until the coming day that the book of Revelation speaks of. But He is still "God of heaven", supreme in the universe, even though He is not yet laying claim to the earth.
Kelly adds that this hardened defiance belongs to that stage only: "When God shows Himself as the God of the earth, this will not be possible."
People often assume that enough pain would bring anyone to their knees. This verse answers that.
Nor does the darkness produce repentance... Such is the hardening character of sin. And judgment by itself has no power to break the heart and bring the soul under God.
If pain does not turn a person, what does? One writer names it, and warns what follows when people refuse it.
Pain does not lead to repentance in this passage. "God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance" (Romans 2:4) is the testimony of Scripture. Despising that kindness only stores up wrath for the day of wrath.
(Where these writers quote "blasphemed", the ESV reads "cursed the God of heaven".)
- Struck — the bowl falls on the throne of the beast, not on the beast himself. He waits for the Lord's coming.
- Darkened — his kingdom fills with a moral, spiritual darkness. Writers call it a foretaste of hell.
- Deepened — the cursing moves from God's name to God Himself. They know who sends the pain, and still the will stays unbroken.
- Unmoved — sin hardens, and judgment on its own has no power to break a heart or bring a soul to God.
- Missed — it is God's kindness, not pain, that leads to repentance; despised now, it only stores up wrath for that day.
And the sixth poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates; and its water was dried up, that the way of the kings from the rising of the sun might be prepared.
The sixth bowl of God's wrath is not poured on people directly but on a river — and the result is not flood but drought. Why would God dry up the Euphrates, and whose road does that clear?
The Euphrates was not just a large river. It marked where one world ended and another began.
The Euphrates was the great eastern boundary of the Roman empire. It was the regular line to which they carried their conquests. So the drying up of the Euphrates would seem to mean that this side of the empire would be left open. The eastern powers could then come and mingle with those of the west, or attack them. One effect of this bowl, then, would be the removal of the eastern barrier. So the way of the kings from the east is prepared, probably for the great closing conflicts.
This bowl does not wipe out the empire on the western side. It leaves it exposed.
The sixth angel pours out his bowl on the great river Euphrates. We see clearly that the beast is not destroyed, although its empire is made miserable. There is an interval here, as after the sixth seal and the sixth trumpet. The river Euphrates, which is the barrier of the prophetic earth on the side of the east, is dried up. The barrier falls, and the kings from the east can enter.
This river carries a long history in the Bible, and that history shows why its removal matters.
It is famous in Bible history and prophecy. Israel's great ancestor, Abram, came from its other side into the land of Canaan. The rivers Nile and Euphrates are prophetically named as the limits of the promised land (Gen. 15:18). For a short season David and Solomon extended the royal authority to the Euphrates... The Euphrates was the natural boundary separating the nations of the east from Palestine. Its broad stream flowed between Israel and her powerful enemy Assyria.
Commentators differ here. Scott, in the same passage, concludes that the real river is meant: "the literal Euphrates is meant here, and not the Turkish power." Others read the drying as a picture, in line with how they read the earlier bowls.
We need not understand this, any more than the previous judgments, literally. The Euphrates was the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire. Its waters dry up to make a way for the kings of the East. That is a natural picture of the breaking down of that boundary line of the revived empire under the beast.
Commentators call these rulers the kings of the sunrise. They suggest who these kings might be, but they do not claim to be certain.
The Euphrates was the boundary of the Roman empire and the land of Israel. This barrier is now completely removed, so that the kings from the sunrise can invade the land. The term "Kings of the sunrise" may even mean the far Eastern Asiatic nations, like China and Japan. The drying up of the Euphrates therefore seems to mean the removal of the barrier. Then the predicted gathering of the nations can take place (Joel 3:2). What began under the sixth trumpet is finished when the sixth bowl is poured out. It is an act of judgment-wrath. At the same time these opposing nations are gathering for the great day of God Almighty.
The Euphrates also appeared under the sixth trumpet. The two scenes differ in scale and purpose.
The Euphrates is the scene of the sixth trumpet as well. That would seem to give only an earlier attack by the same powers that are in view here. The door is now set wide open for them by the drying up of the river, the old boundary of the Roman empire. In the trumpet there was only a raid into the empire. Now there is much more than this: it is the gathering for the great day of God Almighty!
A road opened in one direction is open in both. What crosses it is not only armies.
The drying up of the river would symbolise that a barrier will be removed. It is the barrier that keeps the Eastern and Western nations from mixing. The way is prepared for the kings of the East. That would suggest that all the evil superstitions of the East will be allowed to flood the West.
- Barrier. The Euphrates has always divided east from west. It was the eastern frontier of the Roman empire — a wall of water God now takes away.
- Opened. The bowl does not destroy the beast's empire. It strips off the eastern defence, and the kings from the sunrise can walk in.
- Debated. Some read a literal river drying up; others read the drying as a picture of a boundary broken down. The result described is the same either way.
- Escalated. The sixth trumpet brought a raid across the same river; the sixth bowl swings the door wide for something far larger.
- Gathered. The road is prepared so the nations can gather. The gathering is itself judgment, drawing them to the great day of God Almighty.
And I saw out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits, as frogs;
John sees three foul spirits come out of three mouths — the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet. Three questions follow: who these three are, why they look like frogs, and what their words achieve.
Each of the three has already appeared earlier in the book. One writer names them one by one:
These murmuring spirits came out of the mouths of the three powers we have seen in Revelation 13. The first is the dragon, the open enemy of Christ. The second is the beast, the revived Roman Empire. The third is the false prophet, the religious beast that had lamb-like horns, imitating Christ's power, but who is now described only in his deceptive religious character.
The three are not just allies. Together they are a copy of God, made by an enemy who can invent nothing himself.
A distinguished writer has remarked on what the Bible tells us of Satan: he appears to have no power to originate anything. He can only imitate. God sets up a church; Satan has his false church. God has His Christ, Satan his antichrist. And here in this chapter of Revelation there is a Satanic anti-trinity. It consists of Satan himself, the Roman prince, and another beast. That beast has "two horns like a lamb" — an imitation of Christ — but "he spoke as a dragon." Satan's grand aim is to get himself acknowledged in the place of God.
A dictionary sums up where frogs appear in the Bible, and what they are like:
In the Old Testament the frog is mentioned only in connection with the second of the plagues in Egypt. In the New Testament three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet. Frogs are remarkable for grovelling in the mire, with great noise and activity in the night.
Their mission fits the picture. It reaches the whole earth:
There are "three unclean spirits," called the "spirits of demons." They are likened to frogs — loathsome, filthy, disgusting, bred out of the mire and the sickening vapours and moral wickedness of the corrupt scene. Out they go on their terrible mission. They are to influence the peoples of the earth by word, sign and miracle, and lure them on to the "war of that great day of God Almighty."
The spirits come out of mouths, not hands. What gathers the world for war is speech.
These three — the dragon, which is the devil, the beast, and the false prophet — will form a terrible trinity of evil. Revelation 16:13-14 brings them together in the unity of their purpose, and that purpose is war. The evil spirits that go out of the mouths of this diabolical trinity are deceptive and inflammatory words and doctrines. And in composing and broadcasting these, Antichrist will take the lead.
The nations will think they are acting for their own reasons. Scripture strips the disguise off:
It is by God's counsel that all the nations are gathered "against Jerusalem to battle." God makes the dragon and men's evil passions work out His own will. He told the lying spirit to go and lure Ahab to his fall. He sends men in this dreadful time "strong delusion that they should believe a lie." In the same way He now uses the unclean spirits out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet to draw this assembly of powers together. To men's eyes, no doubt, the war will be declared with the usual exchange of diplomatic dispatches and the usual claims of unselfish intentions. But the Spirit of God unmasks the true motives at work.
Does this describe today? One writer answers plainly:
First there is the great trio of evil — Satan, the Beast (head of the revived Roman Empire) and the False Prophet (the Antichrist, King of Jerusalem). Clearly the present time is not Armageddon. These sinister figures of the last day — the Beast and the False Prophet — have not yet appeared. Satan is invisible, and with demonic subtlety he is at work even now. But so far the Roman Empire is not revived, and the Antichrist has not arrived, though many antichrists are preparing his way.
- Three mouths. The dragon is Satan. The beast heads the revived Roman Empire. The false prophet is the Antichrist. Three powers, one voice.
- Three counterfeits. Satan cannot create, only copy. The trio is a fake trinity, aimed at getting Satan acknowledged in the place of God.
- Three frogs. Creatures of the mire, loud in the dark — the image of doctrine that is unclean, noisy, and everywhere at once.
- Three voices. What comes out is words. Deceptive, inflammatory speech, backed by signs and miracles, talks the peoples of the earth into war.
- One outcome. The nations think they choose. God is drawing them to the war of that great day of God Almighty — and that hour has not yet come.
for they are [the] spirits of demons, doing signs; which go out to the kings of the whole habitable world to gather them together to the war of [that] great day of God the Almighty.
This verse looks behind the world's last war. Unseen spirits work miracles and move the rulers of the earth toward one battlefield. Two questions follow. Who is really doing the gathering? And why can a miracle never prove that a message comes from God?
The three sources named in verse 13 have already appeared in this book. One writer traces each one back to its first description.
These murmuring spirits came out of the mouth of the three powers we have seen in Revelation 13. Out of the dragon, the open enemy of Christ. Out of the beast, the revived Roman Empire. And out of the false prophet, the religious beast with lamb-like horns, who imitated Christ's power, but is now described only as a religious deceiver… It is a general collision of the kings of the whole inhabited world. The western powers are lined up for the war, and the eastern ones too. It is the great day.
Verse 13 compares these spirits to frogs. The picture is not decoration. It shows what they are like, and how far they reach.
Satan himself provides a "worldwide ministry" to bring about the greatest combination of opposing forces ever seen… There are "three unclean spirits," called the "spirits of demons." They are compared to frogs: loathsome, filthy, disgusting, bred out of the mud and poisonous fumes and moral wickedness of this corrupt scene. They are sent out on their terrible mission. They are to influence the peoples of the earth by word, sign, and miracle… God is about to set His King on Mount Zion (Psalm 2), so the might of the whole inhabited earth is gathered to thwart and defeat God's purpose.
If these spirits work signs, then signs alone cannot show whose side a messenger is on. One writer gives God's own test, and adds a note on who works miracles in the last days.
God gives safeguards so that His people are not deceived. Miracles must be for the truth, or we are not to accept them. If they support what is not the truth, the one who works them must be rejected completely (Deuteronomy 13). I add this. Scripture reveals that Satan will work amazing signs, to deceive God's chosen ones if that were possible. And further, it is only on Satan's side that signs and miracles are said to happen in the last days. Then they will happen. That is the sign that marks the coming of the man of sin. So a miracle by itself cannot be the test of truth.
Some read the phrase "the whole world" as a picture of the gospel finally covering the globe. The same writer answers from what the spirits are sent out to do.
Is this the gospel bringing the whole world under Christ's rule? Whatever we make of the details, this passage plainly shows Satan's corrupting and hateful influence at work on a huge scale. It gathers the powers of this world, in the last times, into conflict with Almighty God — and so into judgment from Him.
Verse 16 says "they assembled them." One writer asks who is really behind that gathering, and points to a purpose the gatherers know nothing about.
The unclean spirits that go out to push people this way come from the trinity of evil — the dragon, the beast and the false prophet. They use superhuman powers to sway people's minds in the direction they want. But in all this, without knowing it, they do what God in His wisdom and judgment has already decided will be done. They are only preparing themselves for the last stroke of overwhelming judgment.
The verse calls Him God the Almighty, and that name settles the outcome before the armies arrive. The same passage holds comfort for anyone who fears God in that hour.
Those who fear God are reminded of this. Even if the whole world unites under the devil against God, God will step in through the coming of Christ and judge the world when no one expects it. His coming will be like a thief. But while His coming brings unexpected judgment for the world, it will bring blessing to those who are watching, and who walk apart from the world by keeping their garments clean… When God sends out His "everlasting gospel" to every nation to gather a people for the kingdom of Christ, the dragon, the beast, and the Antichrist will combine to gather "the kings of the earth and the whole world" to fight against God the Almighty, only to meet overwhelming judgment at the hands of the Almighty.
- Source — The three spirits come out of the dragon, the revived empire, and the false prophet. Revelation 13 already described all three.
- Method — They persuade by signs and miracles. So a wonder alone proves nothing. A miracle must be for the truth, or reject the one who works it.
- Reach — Their mission covers the whole world. But it gathers the nations against God, not to Him. This is not the gospel winning the earth.
- Overruling — Satan recruits, but God decides. Without knowing it, the gatherers do what He had already determined. They line themselves up for judgment.
- Outcome — They gather to fight the Almighty, and they meet Him. For those who watch and keep their garments clean, the same day brings blessing.
(Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed [is] he that watches and keeps his garments, that he may not walk naked, and that they [may not] see his shame.)
The verse breaks into a scene of gathering armies. Evil spirits are drawing the kings of the world into battle when another voice cuts in. It is the Lord Himself. He says nothing about armies. He speaks about watching, garments and shame. So who is He speaking to, and why here?
Verses 14 and 16 join up when read together. Verse 15 sits between them as an insertion.
Notice that verse 16 follows on from verse 14 and in fact completes it. So the passage in between (v. 15) forms a parenthesis of great moral value. "Behold I come as a thief." Satanic power gathers the kings and peoples. At their moment of apparent success and victory, the Lord will suddenly surprise them by coming in glory (1 Thess. 5:2-3). The whole world will be asleep in midnight moral darkness, congratulating itself on "peace and safety." Then the Lord Himself bursts in upon the scene, unexpected, as a thief in the night. ... It is not a question of life or salvation here, but of how one lives day by day.
This break is not a one-off. The same pause turns up at the same point in the earlier series of judgments.
What a striking proof of the ordered structure of the book! Here in the sixth Bowl a parenthesis occurs, just as we saw at the same point in the sixth Seal and the sixth Trumpet.
The voice needs no introduction, and what it brings is not only warning.
An urgent warning breaks in here. There is no need to name the Speaker! ... It is to the world that Christ's coming will be that of a thief; for "in such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man comes." The closing words show that "Blessed is he who watches" is a solemn warning to the careless. In any case, wisdom will speak, and no one will go out to meet the doom of the rebels without warning. It is good to find mercy pleading in this very place, whether people listen or not. The doom that comes is no less terrible on that account.
A thief is the one visitor nobody invites and nobody expects. That is the point of the image. It is not how the Lord speaks to His own.
It is the Lord coming, but then He is coming in judgment to surprise the earth; and this is the reason why the figure is used. A thief comes unexpected and unwanted. The Lord's coming will be even less welcome to the earth. But some saints will welcome it. His appearing will rescue them by judging their enemies. And they are to watch their daily life closely... When speaking to us He says, "Behold, I come quickly: hold fast what you have, that no one take your crown." How much more blessed that word is!
Commentators link this call to the promise that the day will not catch believers by surprise. They read it as spoken to people living through these judgments on earth.
Christ will come suddenly upon this world as a thief. But we know that He will not come to us as a thief. "You, brothers, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief." (1 Thess. 5:4.) But while judgment threatens, a gleam of mercy also seems to shine, rejoicing against judgment. It suggests that a remnant will be watching for the Messiah. Of others it says that the shame of their nakedness will be made plain.
This instruction, as well as warning, applies above all to the elect remnant of that day.
Garments here are not about whether a person is saved. They picture how a life actually looks, and sleep is what exposes it.
Those whom God will bless are those who watch and are therefore not deceived by fair appearances. They keep their garments on, so they escape the shame and humiliation that comes from ignoring the truth and grace of God. While King Saul slept, the edge of his robe was cut away from him, a symbol of the exposure of his sinful course (1 Sam. 24:3-4). So anyone asleep to the truth of God's Word because he prefers sin is in immediate danger of exposure.
There is only one source for that daily clothing.
In the same way, the "white garments that you may be clothed" mean the saint's practical righteousness of every day. That righteousness cannot exist apart from Him, "for apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5).
- Pause — Verse 16 continues verse 14. Verse 15 sits in between, like the breaks at the sixth seal and the sixth trumpet.
- Speaker — The voice is Christ's, and no one has to say so; mercy pleads once more before the doom falls.
- Thief — Unexpected and unwanted. That is how He comes to the world, not to those already watching for Him.
- Watchers — The call is to watch your daily life. It applies above all to the elect remnant of that day.
- Garments — The issue is daily life, not salvation. Sleep exposes a sinful course, as Saul's robe showed. Practical righteousness never comes apart from Christ.
And he gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armagedon.
One line names the meeting place of the world's rulers. Two questions sit inside it: who does the gathering, and why this name from Israel's past?
Verse 14 said the demonic spirits went out to do the gathering. Yet the original word can mean either "he gathered" or "they gathered". Translations split over it.
It might seem strange that it should say, "He gathered". After all, in verse 14 the evil spirits, or spirits of demons, were the ones who went out to gather the kings together. The reason is this. In the language that the Holy Spirit used, the word is capable of meaning either he or they gathered... If it be "He gathered", the reference of course is to God Almighty, who might be said to do it through the intervention of these unclean spirits.
Whichever reading is right, one hand stands behind the result.
"And he gathered them together." Who is He? This was the power and providence of God by Christ, I take it: whatever the satanic influence or instrumentality, it was done, if through that, by Him. The spirits were to go forth to gather; and they gathered: but it was really the Lord's doing in judgment.
One writer explains how these spirits work on people, and ends with a question for today.
Frogs lurk quietly in hidden places, unnoticed, and these spirits are the same. They overcome people by the miraculous signs and lying wonders they perform, and they gather men to the great battle... though Satan and his allies are the instruments, it is to carry out God's purpose... Men little think what Satan is doing by the alliances of the day... The question is, What is man's object now? Is it self or Christ?
Armageddon means the hill of Megiddo, and Megiddo carries two very different memories in Israel's history — one of victory, one of grief. Commentators differ over which one the name recalls. One reading goes back to a day when Israel was weak and won anyway:
The place of gathering named here, called in Hebrew Armageddon, is, I think, a reference to Judges 5:19. It was not that Megiddo was a place of any great size or note. God looks to the principle at issue. Israel was in a low state. The Lord used a prophetess to give them courage, and once she had encouraged them they won a great victory over their enemies... In the day of the Judges, Megiddo was a memory of joy and triumph to Israel. In the time of Josiah it was a place of gloom... For here it is the Lord beating down the nations.
Others take the death of Josiah as the point, and find a reversal in it:
The multitudes were called to Armageddon, which means the hill of Megiddo. In the valley of Megiddo the last godly king of David's line fell before the advancing nations. At last on that very spot the far greater Son of David will deal the swift death blow to all the proud might of the Gentiles.
The crowd gathered here is far too large for one valley floor. One writer reads the name more widely, and says what is settled there:
It is not that the actual hill of Megiddo or its valley is to be the gathering centre of the nations; its limited area must rule out any such idea. But the simple meaning is this. God will have gathered many of the nations of the earth to Palestine by satanic agency. Their object is to overthrow and crush Israel, and to throw themselves in their combined might against Jehovah. But, sadly for them, they do so only to their own destruction... There God will settle the great question of who rules the earth. He will overthrow the nations completely, set up the world kingdom of our God and of His Christ, and settle Israel in permanent possession of her land.
The verse stops at the gathering. What follows comes later in the book, and it is no ordinary battle.
Those gathered there by the influence of Satan, the Beast and the False Prophet intend to come to the defence of Jerusalem, but they never get there. Revelation 19:11-21 describes their humiliating destruction at the hands of the Lord on the white horse. He fights against them with the sword of His mouth. There is no defensive fighting on their part: they are simply destroyed.
- Gathered — by whom. The word allows both "he" and "they"; either way the demons do the luring and God does the gathering.
- Gathered — through evil. Satan's spirits work by signs and hidden persuasion, yet serve a purpose they never chose and cannot see.
- Gathered — to a named place. Armageddon means the hill of Megiddo. Commentators differ: does the name recall the old victory in Judges, or Josiah's death?
- Gathered — with a target. Their aim is Israel and, behind Israel, God Himself; the size of the gathering points beyond one valley to the land as a whole.
- Gathered — for one end. They never reach the fight they planned. The Rider on the white horse destroys them, and the rule of the earth is settled.
And the seventh poured out his bowl on the air; and there came out a great voice from the temple of the heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
The seventh angel does not pour his bowl on sea, land, or river. He empties it into the air. Before we hear the result, a voice from the temple announces that the whole series is over. Two questions carry the verse: why the air, and what is "done"?
This bowl strikes the air, which no one can live without. One writer weighs how deep that judgment goes:
This is a more penetrating judgment, and one that affects men and their very life-breath more than any we have seen yet. It is on the air, which is necessary to the existence of men. Symbolically it stands for a judgment on something as essential to the life and comfort of men as the air we breathe. As for the wrath of God poured out here, all is over.
Others read the air as the moral atmosphere people live in, not only the physical one:
This judgment falls upon the moral life-breath of the world. The air, essential to natural life, is symbolically visited in judgment. Satan's realm is really the sphere of this awful plague (Eph. 2:2). But we gather what the "air" means in this prophecy of the completion of judgment on the organised systems of evil. It means the ruin of all right moral influences and principles that act upon men. It is the destruction of the moral life of all individual, social, religious, and political society. It is a far-reaching and permeating judgment.
Scripture calls the air the enemy's territory. So this last bowl falls on his own ground:
The seventh bowl is poured into the air, the domain of Satan's activity (for he is "the prince of the power of the air" — Eph. 2:2). This shows a world-wide summing up of God's ways in defeating all the power of the enemy. In fact, God's great voice from the throne, out of the holy place, announces, "It is done."
Another writer adds where the blow comes from:
The vial was poured into the air, which had been the seat of Satan's power, but from which he had been dislodged. Air is the life element for man, and now destruction begins to fall on him out of that very element.
The verse names two places at once: the temple and the throne. One Person speaks from both:
The temple and throne unite, and He who dwells in the one and sits on the other announces with a great voice, "It is done." The end has come.
This word has a precedent. Before the seventh trumpet came a like declaration that the waiting was over:
The Seventh Vial is poured into the Air.
"It is done" closes one thing, not everything. What ends here is God's dealing from behind the scenes; what follows is the Lord appearing in person:
The close of providential dealing has come. Only one stroke of judgment remains — the last and most awful, inflicted by the Lord in Person at His coming. The pouring out of the seventh Vial closes up the wrath of God. Then comes the more awful display — open and public — of the wrath of the Lamb.
The same two words are heard once more later in the book, with a different subject:
These words are found twice in the book of Revelation, in Rev. 16:17 and Rev. 21:6. The first relates to the completion of the judgments before the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus begins. The second relates to the bringing in of the new heavens and the new earth. Then God makes all things new, and everything belonging to the old creation will have passed away.
- Reach — The bowl falls on the air, the one thing no one can do without. Commentators read it of man's life-breath and of the moral atmosphere that shapes all social, religious and political life.
- Target — The air is the enemy's own domain. So this last bowl sums up God's defeat of Satan's power, and ruin comes out of the very element man breathes.
- Source — Temple and throne unite. The One who dwells in the holy place and sits on the throne speaks the sentence in one great voice.
- Verdict — "It is done" declares the wrath of God fully poured out. It echoes the oath before the seventh trumpet that there would be no more delay.
- Sequel — God's hidden dealing ends, but judgment does not. Next comes the wrath of the Lamb in person. The same words sound again at the new heaven and new earth, where everything old has passed away.
And there were lightnings, and voices, and thunders; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, such an earthquake, so great.
The seventh and last bowl of God's wrath falls on the air, and a voice from the throne says the end has come. Then the storm breaks with an earthquake like no other — but does it shake rock, or every human throne?
The seventh bowl falls on the air. One writer weighs what that target means for people who live by breathing it.
This judgment cuts deeper, and it touches men and their very life-breath more than any we have yet seen. It falls on the air, which men need in order to live. As a symbol it stands for a judgment on something as necessary to the life and comfort of men as the air we breathe. As far as God's wrath poured out here is concerned, all is over.
The verse before this one ends with a voice saying, "It is done." What follows here is what that verdict looks like when it lands. The announcement comes from the temple and the throne together, and it ends one stage of God's dealing with the world.
The temple and throne unite, and He Who dwells in the one and sits on the other announces with a great voice, "It is done." The end has come… The close of providential dealing has come, and there remains only the last and most terrible stroke of judgment, which the Lord Himself will inflict in Person at His coming. God's wrath is completed in the pouring out of the seventh bowl, and then comes the more terrible display — open and public — the wrath of the Lamb.
Older translations read "voices" where the ESV has "rumblings," and end the verse "such an earthquake, so great." That middle word is the one that carries meaning: in all the terror, something is speaking.
These symbols of almighty power in judgment come in a threefold form, and they occur four times. The word "voices" shows that the carrying out of judgment is intelligently directed… Along with these signs and tokens of Jehovah's wrath on the guilty scene, "there was a great earthquake." In size and terrible results it goes beyond anything recorded in history — "such an earthquake, so great."… The vast and unequalled upheaval under the seventh bowl is not an upheaval of the elements of nature. It symbolises a violent breaking up of all government, the total collapse of authority from the highest down to the lowest. Under it thrones totter and fall, crowns are broken, royal staffs are shattered. The whole framework of society is overthrown.
Commentators differ here. Scott, quoted above, sees no upheaval of nature at all. Another writer holds both together.
Literal earthquakes there will doubtless be, but the earthquake of enormous size predicted here means, we think, the complete shattering of all man's organized systems. Verse 19 speaks of "the great city," of "the cities of the nations," and of "great Babylon." We understand by these the break up and collapse of the impressive civil system or empire that will have its centre in Rome; also of similar but lesser systems among the more distant nations; and third, of the great system of religious trickery and deceit that Babylon represents.
The comparison is carefully worded. It does not say there has never been such an earthquake. It dates the comparison from the arrival of the human race, and one writer presses that point.
Can we gather from these words that before men were on the earth, there had been such an earthquake? Can the "without form and void" state of the earth in Genesis 1:2 be explained by an earlier catastrophe of this kind?… These two facts seem to be always involved when an earthquake happens: the shaking of what is of the earth and earthy, and the standing firm of what is heavenly and cannot be moved.
The verses that follow show how far the shaking reaches. Nothing is high enough or far enough away to survive it, and the human answer is not repentance.
All earthly refuges will fail to hide men from the storm of judgment for "every island fled away, and the mountains were not found." There will be no escape from the hurricane of judgment which is compared to a mighty hailstorm. Sadly, instead of confessing that their sins have brought down this storm of judgment, men will blaspheme God as the author of all their troubles.
- Air — the last bowl falls on what every person breathes, so no one stands outside its reach.
- Verdict — "It is done" closes God's providential dealings. What remains is the Lord's own coming in person.
- Voices — the thunder and lightning terrify. The voices among them show that this judgment is directed, not blind force.
- Shaking — commentators differ: is the earthquake soil, or system? One holds both. Thrones, empires and false religion collapse together.
- Response — islands flee and mountains vanish. No refuge is left, and men answer God with blasphemy instead of confession.
And the great city was [divided] into three parts; and the cities of the nations fell and great Babylon was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath.
The seventh and last bowl of God's anger falls, and verse 19 shows the wreckage it leaves. Two questions press on every reader: which city is "the great city," and why is Babylon singled out?
Some read the great city as the whole structure of Roman power, shattered from its centre outward.
"The great city was split into three parts." That is, the vast and united power of Rome breaks up into three parts, from its centre in the seven-hilled city on the Tiber out to its furthest edges. Its complete ruin follows in due course. This means the empire is broken up and torn apart in its political and social order. Satan's giant confederation is smashed.
Commentators differ here. Others read the great city as Jerusalem. An earlier chapter gives Jerusalem that same title, and the verse names Babylon afterwards as something else again.
"The great city" is divided into three parts (v. 19). Some consider this to be Rome (Rev. 17:18). But it is far more likely to be Jerusalem. Revelation 11:8 calls Jerusalem "the great city." The verse then adds, "the cities of the nations (distinct from Israel) fell," and after that it names great Babylon (Rome) as well. Babylon will be totally destroyed, but not Jerusalem. The three parts may speak of the godly remnant, the worshippers of the Beast and the mixed company of others present.
The ruin does not stop at one empire. The next line reaches out to everything people have built.
"The cities of the nations fell." The seats and centres of Gentile trade are caught up in the general ruin that overtakes all human combinations. This is the political world outside and apart from the Roman earth. From the building of Babel until the day and hour of the seventh bowl, human progress has been the aim. Men have aimed at civilisation, at religion, at social and political government, at the arts, at science and at literature. Here we watch judgment fall on everything men have built up in these and other areas of life. What a blow to the pride and ambition of man!
The verse keeps "great Babylon" apart from the city and from the nations. What marks her out is the character of her religion.
"The great city" means civilisation in its full extent. It stands apart from "the cities of the nations" — the nations outside "the great city" — which fell in their own local centres. But "great Babylon" carries the poison of a relentless cruelty. That cruelty always goes hand in hand with worldly religion, with its corruption and its idolatry. God did not forget the course of her who had long departed from His grace and truth.
Babylon does not simply fall along with the rest. God brings her to mind, and He sees her whole character.
Great Babylon appears here, not just in her civil and social side, but in her full character before God: "God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of His wrath."
The cup is not random punishment. It answers what she has done to God's people.
Babylon is the great religious system. The next chapter calls her "Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes." She will have her special judgment: "the cup of the wine of the fury of His wrath." John sees her "drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." Now she receives her righteous repayment. She claims to be the bride of Christ, but she is exposed as a dreadful, wicked system. She is not only false; she persecutes those who truly belong to Christ.
Revelation mentions Babylon's fall twice in passing before spelling it out at length. There is a reason God gives the fuller account.
Already in the course of these judgments we have had two brief mentions of the judgment of Babylon (Rev. 14:8, Rev. 16:19). But this corrupt system has loomed so large in the history of the world that God saw fit to warn His people to stay wholly apart from it. So He gives us, in these two chapters, further details about its true character and its solemn end under the judgment of God.
- Broken. The great city splits into three parts. Commentators differ: some read it as Rome's power, others as Jerusalem.
- Widened. "The cities of the nations fell." Everything men have built since Babel falls too — government, trade, religion, art, science.
- Singled out. Babylon stands apart from the city. Her guilt is the cruelty and idolatry of worldly religion.
- Remembered. God did not forget her course. She stands before Him in her full character, and He hands her the cup.
- Repaid. Babylon was drunk with the blood of the saints. Now she drinks God's wrath — so He warns His people to stay clear of the system.
And every island fled, and mountains were not found;
The seventh bowl of God's wrath ends with an earthquake unlike any in history: nothing that stands apart escapes, and nothing high survives. Does this describe geography, or something else — and what is left when it is over?
Islands and mountains picture two kinds of human strength. One commentator draws out both sides, and the conclusion they force.
The universal catastrophe overwhelms detached or isolated interests and governments, pictured as islands cut off from the mainland. It dissolves seats of authority and stability, pictured as mountains. Ruin is everywhere, and on everything, however firm and stable it seems. Everything that God has not established must go in the general wreck.
Islands stand apart from the mainland by nature. Their flight carries a warning for any nation hoping to sit the crisis out.
The fleeing away of every island teaches us that God will allow no isolationism: every nation will share in the judgment. The mountains not being found speaks of governments reduced to nothing.
Commentators differ over how far to press the physical language. One reading holds both together — real tremors, but a meaning far wider than geology.
There will no doubt be literal earthquakes. But the huge earthquake predicted here means, we think, the complete shattering of all man's organised systems... Moreover, every island and mountain disappeared in the convulsion. Things that are detached from the mass like islands will not escape, and all that is lofty will go.
Others read this language as a figure, and give a plain reason:
Of course we are not to take this literally. Such an upheaval would destroy the whole universe, yet the world exists long after these events. It is a figurative description, borrowed from the great prophecy of Joel about the events before the day of the Lord... The figures mean the overthrow of the powers of the earth by great social and political upheavals. Places of strength and security, the mountains and islands, are removed, and a general shaking of all the kingdoms follows the wars that have raged, and the misery and anarchy they have brought with them.
This seventh bowl is poured into the air, and a voice from the throne announces that the work is done. Done for what? The answer turns the scene from destruction into preparation.
The bowl is poured out into the air. The air is the scene of Satan's authority, for he is "the prince of the power of the air." Mighty results follow. God speaks from the throne, out of the temple where the ark of the covenant stands, and declares that the work is done. What work? It is the work that all God's plans of earthly government have aimed at. It is the work that the ark of the covenant kept in constant memory. It is the work of setting His King on His holy hill of Zion, and making Jerusalem a joy and a delight to the whole earth.
If the strongest structures vanish, where can anything solid still be found? The answer runs along one clean line.
Instability marks everything that is of man, and stability is found only in what is of God. It is a mercy that this is so. Instability is connected with SIN. So all this world's present moral system must go and give place to what is enduring. God remains the same. The Christian is not connected with the present system, which is shaking, ready to vanish away, and springs from sin. He is connected with GOD. "Whoever does the will of God abides forever."
Those who belong to Christ already stand on the unshaken side. One writer puts it this way: what can be shaken goes, "in order that that which cannot be shaken may remain, and our kingdom is in that which cannot be shaken."
- Shaken — the picture. Mountains picture settled seats of authority. Islands picture interests that keep apart. Both go.
- Shaken — the reach. No nation stays neutral. What isolation was meant to protect, isolation cannot save.
- Shaken — the depth. Real tremors may come. But the collapse takes in every system people have organised, however high.
- Shaken — the purpose. The voice from the throne says the work is done. The ground is clear for God to set His King on Zion and make Jerusalem a joy to the whole earth.
- Unshaken — the refuge. Instability belongs to what is of man; stability only to what is of God. Whoever does the will of God abides forever, and that kingdom cannot be moved.
and a great hail, as of a talent weight, comes down out of the heaven upon men; and men blasphemed God because of the plague of hail, for the plague of it is exceeding great.
The seventh and last bowl of God's wrath ends with hailstones about a hundred pounds each falling from heaven on people. They curse God for it. That raises the sharpest question in the book. If the heaviest judgment ever sent still makes men curse God, what could ever change the human heart?
The seventh bowl marks a boundary. One writer shows what lies on either side of it.
The close of providential dealing has come. Only the last and most awful stroke of judgment remains, inflicted by the Lord in Person at His coming. The pouring out of the seventh Bowl closes up the wrath of God. Then comes the more awful display — open and public — the wrath of the Lamb.
Hail is not chosen at random. It falls from above, so no one can mistake who sent it. And this storm outdoes every earlier one in the book.
A hurricane of divine judgment makes the general horror worse. It descends on men with irresistible and crushing force. It is a storm of divine wrath, and even the guilty world will have to admit that heaven sent it… We have already been told more than once of a hailstorm, on its own and together with other destructive agencies (Rev. 11:19; Rev. 8:7). But this one exceeds the earlier hailstorms in weight and intensity. Hail comes down from heaven, sharp, sudden and disastrous in its effects. So is the judgment here.
Hail carries the thought of wrath one step further.
This thought is emphasised in the hail, the frozen drops of rain. Those gentle showers which water the earth so that it may bring forth its fruit, turned into death-dealing wrath! For a Christ-rejecting world there is stored up wrath for the day of wrath, and the hail is a figure of it (Ex. 9:22; Hag. 2:17; Ps. 18:12).
How heavy is a talent? One writer works out the figure, then draws out what the weight pictures.
Last is the great hail from heaven, each stone about a talent in weight (v. 21), which is about 55 pounds or 102 pounds, depending on the definition of a talent. Reports some years ago told of 75-pound hailstones falling in Arabia. This literal blow will be terrifying. It also stands for the heavy weight of God's direct judgment on people, which will make them feel its crushing force. Despite this, they do not repent. They blaspheme God because of the hail.
The verse before this one removes the islands and the mountains. The hail then falls on men in the open.
All earthly refuges will fail to hide men from the storm of judgment, for "every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found." No one will escape this hurricane of judgment, pictured as a mighty hailstorm. Men will not confess that their sins brought down this storm. Instead they will blaspheme God as the author of all their troubles.
The expected reaction never comes.
Has this crowning act of divine judgment produced repentance? Is the will broken and the heart crushed under the mighty hand of God? No! Man is unchanged, unless the Spirit of God, in mighty sovereign grace, converts and saves. Scripture states the moral effect of this awful judgment in the plainest terms: "they cursed God" — they did not glorify Him, as we might expect. How patient is God! How perverse the creature!
Another writer traces the reason for this hardening.
Man must admit that judgment is just when God executes it on him. But that does not make him love God — on the contrary, it hardens his heart. God's visible judgments teach him what righteousness is. The more he learns, the louder his conscience accuses him, and the more his heart breathes out hatred against the almighty power he cannot resist (Rev. 16:9, 21)… So in Revelation the plagues that strike the earth provoke blasphemy instead.
One writer goes further still.
The hail shows the effect of God's withdrawal from men. It speaks not of mere withdrawal, but of this becoming a pitiless storm of judgment which subdues everything — except, sadly, the heart of man. His anguish owns the power he suffers from, yet he stays hard and unrepentant. That hardness is the witness and justification of the wrath he has brought down.
- Last — The seventh bowl ends God's providential judgments. What follows is not another plague but Christ coming in Person.
- Heavy — A stone of a talent weight makes God's judgment felt. No one can mistake its crushing force or its source in heaven.
- Inescapable — Islands gone, mountains gone. Every earthly refuge fails before the stones even land.
- Unchanged — The heaviest blow ever struck leaves the will unbroken. Only the Spirit of God, in sovereign grace, converts and saves.
- Self-condemning — Cursing God is not only man's response to the wrath. It proves the wrath was deserved.