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.