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.