And I saw when it opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as hair sackcloth, and the whole moon became as blood,
With the sixth seal, creation itself looks like it is falling apart. Two questions press on any reader. Is this a literal collapse of the universe? And has the day of God's wrath arrived?
The seal before this one ended in a cry to God. What follows is not silence:
The next seal shows that God was not indifferent in the meantime. The sixth seal may be seen as something like an immediate result of that earlier cry. When it opens, a vast upheaval follows — a thorough shaking of everything above and below, set out in symbols, as in the previous seals.
The earlier seals brought war, famine and death. One writer sees the earthquake as where those things end:
The Sixth Seal is the logical outcome of the previous seals. War, bloodshed, famine, pestilence, fearful conditions of life, lead to great political upheaval. The great earthquake speaks of a mighty convulsion of ordered society. Anarchy will sweep all before it.
Older translations read "sackcloth of hair." The cloth was real, and so was its use:
This cloth of goats' hair was used for tents. It was probably also what we call sackcloth: "The sun became black as sackcloth of hair" (Revelation 6:12). People wore it when they mourned, and when they humbled their souls in repentance.
Other passages fix what the sun stands for:
The sun symbolizes the supreme governing authority (Genesis 37:9; Revelation 12:1). "Black as hair sackcloth" points to the darkening power of Satan. It shows the supreme authority of earth, on which everyone depended, in total collapse. The darkening of the heavenly bodies is a dreadful disaster in the physical world, and that is what makes the figure fit here.
The moon carries the same picture one level down. Older wording reads "the whole moon" where the ESV has "the full moon":
The "whole moon" pictures all authority that comes straight from the supreme power and depends on it. In the physical world the moon is a secondary body, and it stands for borrowed authority in the moral world. It is also the chosen picture of Israel, depending on Christ the Sun of Righteousness… "Became as blood." This points to the moral death and falling away of every lesser authority. "Blood" is a universal figure of death.
The strongest argument against a literal reading is what such a reading would leave behind:
This is worth noting. If heaven itself were really rolled up like a scroll, and every mountain and island really moved out of its place, no place would be left to hide in. So to take it as anything other than a symbolic picture would contradict itself… It is a complete overturning of authority, high and low, an unequalled upheaval of every class of people. It overturns the foundations of power and authority for the world, and fills men's minds with the fear that the day of judgment has come.
Commentators differ here. Some read the vision as symbol only. Others allow real physical upheaval as well. L. M. Grant writes that "while there will no doubt be physical disturbances such as a great earthquake and the sun, the moon and the stars affected, yet the spiritual significance of these things is of far greater importance."
The people under this seal are sure the end has come. They are wrong about the timing, and their hearts stay the same:
There is no repentance, no cry for mercy, merely a terror of vengeance… But their horror is premature. The judgments preceding the great day of wrath have begun; but not the day itself. God will let man go on a little longer in his sin, to show that this fear does not change his heart. With him, as with Pharaoh, each judgment that passes only makes his heart harder.
- Cause — The seal answers the cry that came before it. God is not indifferent, and the shaking is His reply.
- Collapse — The earthquake finishes what war, famine and death began. Ordered society breaks apart into anarchy.
- Crown — The blackened sun pictures the world's highest authority put out. The moon like blood shows every borrowed authority dying with it.
- Caution — The picture is symbolic. People could not hide in mountains that had already moved. Commentators differ on how much real disturbance comes with it.
- Consequence — People read the signs as wrath, and they are right. They read them as the end, and they are wrong. Terror is not repentance.
and the stars of heaven fell upon the earth, as a fig tree, shaken by a great wind, casts its unseasonable figs.
Stars drop from the sky like unripe figs in a gale. Is this a forecast about the night sky, or a picture of something else falling?
John saw the sky come apart, but the writers press readers not to picture literal falling stars. One commentator tests the picture by taking it literally, and finds that the timing will not work:
There can be no real question that the description is figurative. If we took it literally, we would clearly be at the end of the Millennium itself, since the first heaven does not pass away until then, and that is what is pictured here... In people's minds the day of the Lamb's wrath has already come. But we will find that much comes in between before it really arrives, near as it may be.
William Kelly gets to the same place by another route. What John saw were signs, and their meaning still has to be worked out.
This is only how it appeared to John in the vision. We are not to suppose that heaven and earth will be physically thrown into chaos when this prediction comes true. He saw all this before his eyes as signs, and we have to consider what they mean.
Commentators differ on how far the symbols rule out literal events. One writer expects real upheaval, and still puts the weight elsewhere:
There will no doubt be physical disturbances, such as a great earthquake and the sun, the moon and the stars affected. Yet the spiritual meaning of these things is far more important.
Each light in the sky answers to a rank of power:
The sun, that is, supreme authority, becomes black. The moon, that is, subordinate authority, becomes like blood. The stars of heaven, the lower authorities, fall. Heaven itself departs too, that is, the whole scene of government. The complete overthrow of all earthly authority takes place.
Walter Scott presses the detail of which figs fall:
All the lesser authorities — individual rulers, both civil and religious — morally fell from their high position. They gave up God and their relationship with Him. The unripe, out-of-season figs are the ones hidden under the leaves that never ripen, and a strong wind throws them off in winter. When the wintry winds of God's wrath sweep across the scene, those who were never truly His will openly turn away from Him. However high their position, they will drop every outward connection with Him.
If stars belong to the sky, a star on the ground has changed its level. One writer asks who these stars are:
The stars of heaven stand for those who claim to have spiritual light. Their falling to the earth in great numbers points to a widespread falling away — a giving up of any claim to heaven, and a drop to the level of earthly-mindedness. Having no stability, the wind of hard circumstances shakes them easily.
Why a fig tree and not any tree? One writer sees a target in the choice:
The fig tree is so often a symbol of the Jew. So the reference to it may show that this upheaval will affect that people in particular, and so prepare the way for the acceptance of antichrist.
Strip out every rank of authority, and this is what is left:
The whole structure of civil and governmental power on earth breaks up. Disorder rules everywhere. It is not simply the collapse of this or that government. It is the total overthrow of all governing authority, both the highest and the ranks under it... What an awful scene to think about! A world without a magistrate! Without even the appearance of rightful power! Without government! Without any authority to restrain!
One writer sets the scene against the present moment:
In Revelation 6:13 we read of those coming events, when the very stars of heaven will fall to earth... We need to remind ourselves that "now is the day of salvation."
- Signs, not sky. John saw a vision. Read the falling stars as physical fact and the timing collapses. They are signs, and we have to work out what they mean.
- Stars are rulers. Sun, moon and stars picture supreme, subordinate and lower authority. Falling stars are the lesser powers losing their place.
- Unripe fruit falls. The figs blown off never ripened under the leaves. They stand for people who held a high position but were never truly God's.
- Down means out. The fall is moral before it is political. People with no stability give up any claim to heaven and sink to the level of earthly-mindedness.
- A world with no magistrate. The end of the picture is not one toppled government. It is government itself gone. That is why the verse points to today, while it is still the day of salvation.
And the heaven was removed as a book rolled up, and every mountain and island were removed out of their places.
The sixth seal reaches its climax here. Is this the physical universe coming apart, or a picture of something else? The answer shapes how you read the whole chapter.
Earlier in the seal, authorities fell one by one. Here the structure they all stood in gives way. The writer below quotes an older translation, which says heaven where the ESV says sky.
"The heaven was removed as a book rolled up." The political, civil, and religious systems, the constitution, bonds, and framework of society, will disappear as completely as a rolled-up scroll becomes unreadable. The physical removal of the heaven (Rev. 21:1) and of the heavens (2 Peter 3:10) is one of the most staggering events the Word of God records. That does not mean the dwelling place of God, of saints, and of angels, of course. But the entire ending of all governmental order — the moral heaven — is one of the most dreadful events still to come. We have had the ruin of all greater and lesser authorities, but here the whole system in which they were placed itself collapses.
Stated more briefly, the picture is of authority losing not just its holders but its seat.
Heaven rolled as a scroll is the whole seat and place of authority overturned; and so of mountains and islands — the stable seats of authority overturned, and what was ordered, and rose above the vague mass of peoples, removed.
The reason for not taking the words woodenly comes from the passage itself. The terrified men of the following verses run to the mountains for cover — which makes no sense if the mountains have literally ceased to exist.
If heaven were literally removed as a scroll, and every mountain and island moved out of its place, there would be no place left to hide in. That much is obvious. So to take it as anything other than symbolic representation would be self-contradictory... The prophet did see these objects, heavenly and earthly, in utter confusion. But we must look for the meaning by the ordinary rules of interpretation. It is a complete revolution of authority high and low, an unmatched convulsion of all classes of mankind within its own sphere. Its effect is to overturn the foundations of power and authority for the world, and to fill men's minds with the fear that the day of judgment has come.
Another writer gives two more reasons. One is a matter of timing. The other is an Old Testament passage that uses almost the same words.
There can be no real question that the description is figurative. If we took it literally, we would plainly be at the end of the thousand-year reign itself, for not until then does the first heaven pass away, as it is pictured here... Isaiah 34 is a prophecy of the destruction of Edom and the desolation that follows it. There we read, "All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll." ... The words in their setting show that we cannot take the breaking up of the heavens literally... On the other hand, the meaning as a symbol is not hard to grasp. Even in a physical sense, the heavens rule the earth. Scripture uses them in this way to picture earthly government.
The two nouns are not decoration. Each carries a settled meaning drawn from the prophets.
A mountain represents a system of settled power (Dan. 2:35; Jer. 51:25) — a long established, stable, and powerful government. The Jews saw islands as sources of wealth, as centres of trade and commerce (Isa. 23:2; Ezek. 27:3-15). This verse declares the removal of all that people count lasting and great, and of the sources of wealth and commerce too.
Another writer reads the islands differently, and adds a reason for the sky being rolled up at all.
Men have rejected heaven's rule. So the heaven departing as a rolled-up scroll means that God will leave them for a time exposed to the results of their own folly. It is as if He rolls up the scroll of His direct government. The mountains removed speak of the overthrow of the solid powers of government. The islands show neutral powers who will not be able to stay out of the general upheaval: they cannot keep their neutrality.
What makes the scene so grim is not the loss of one government but the loss of government.
It is not simply the collapse of this or that government. It is the total overthrow of all governing authority, both supreme and dependent... The coming crash will sweep into one catastrophe everything on earth that people think secure and strong. It will create a vast civil, social, and political chaos. What an awful scene to contemplate! A world without a magistrate! Without even the appearance of rightful power! Without government!
- Rejected — men refuse heaven's rule first. The rolled-up scroll is God's answer: He leaves them exposed to their own folly.
- Rolled up — the sky as a scroll pictures the whole framework of civil, political and religious order. It becomes as unreadable as a closed book.
- Removed — mountains stand for settled governments. Islands stand for wealth and trade, or for neutral powers with no place to stand apart.
- Read rightly — the language is symbolic. In the next verses men beg the mountains to hide them, which is impossible if the mountains are gone.
- Result — not one government falling, but government itself gone: a world with no rightful power left.
And the kings of the earth, and the great, and the chiliarchs, and the rich, and the strong, and every bondman and freeman, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains;
Under the sixth seal the sky darkens and the mountains shift. Everyone from thrones down to slaves runs for cover, which raises two questions: what is collapsing, and why does terror on this scale produce no repentance?
The imagery of quaking earth and falling stars points to the breakdown of rule itself.
The whole fabric of civil and governmental power on earth breaks up. Disorder reigns supreme. This is not just the collapse of one government or another. It is the total overthrow of all governing authority, both the highest and the ranks beneath it... A world without a magistrate! Without even the appearance of rightful power! Without government! With no power left to restrain evil!
The verse gives its own clue that these signs are pictures, not physics: the people are still hiding somewhere.
This is worth noting. If heaven were really rolled away like a scroll, and every mountain and island moved out of its place, there could be no place left to hide. To take it as anything other than a symbolic picture would contradict itself... It is a complete revolution of authority, high and low, an upheaval without parallel among all classes of people, within its own sphere.
The list is not random. Its shape shows who is caught. The word "chiliarchs" below is what ESV calls "generals."
The verse lists seven classes of people, and, as usual, these again fall into two groups of three and four. The first is made up of those who govern: "kings," the highest and most exalted; "the great," or princes; and "chiliarchs," the military commanders. The second group is the class that holds no office, given in pairs: "the rich" and "the powerful," "slave and free."
Rank, wealth, skill and strength all fail at once. The shelter they run to says the rest.
All of them together, great and small, sink to the same level: their hearts fail them for fear. They hide themselves, but not in the secret of God's presence (Ps. 31:19-20). They prefer the dens and rocks of the mountains, which stand for the human institutions people call solid and which have now been so shaken. Though they feel that this is God's judgment and the wrath of the Lamb, they do not repent. They think only of escaping the judgment by protection they have improvised themselves. Yet, little as they realise it, they are in effect inviting their own destruction.
Nothing in the text says God has appeared. The panic comes from inside.
They had been making themselves happy without God... God does not appear in the judgment; but man has a conscience. So, faced with this dreadful blow, all alike fear the wrath of God and of the Lamb... His warriors even tremble in the felt presence of a God whose very existence they had until now denied.
The cry that follows — that the great day has come — is reported speech. Who says it matters.
They say in their alarm that His great day has come. God does not say so. He reveals that this is the thought and language of their fear. Those are two very different things, and many readers, old and new, confuse them in their shortsightedness. For how could the seventh seal follow, if the sixth were really the end of man's day?
The panic proves to be a mood, not a change of heart. When the Lord appears, these same men take up arms against Him.
Their alarm and fear seem to have passed, and unbelief has taken their place in their hearts. They are in full league with the Man of Sin against Christ... Then men will be bold indeed in their hostility to the Lamb, instead of being overwhelmed with anguish and terror, as at the time of the sixth seal.
The instinct itself is as old as the garden of Eden.
Adam and Eve had disobeyed God's word. They were afraid, so they tried to hide from His presence among the trees of the garden. People will try to hide in the same useless way on a huge scale in the future.
The name they hide from is the gentlest name for Christ in this book.
There is something fearful in the thought of a world crying out for shelter "from the wrath of the Lamb." It is the wrath of the meek and lowly One, who "was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities." But it is a solemn truth. The same voice that now says, "Come to me," will one day say, "Depart from me, you cursed," if His tender invitations are refused. Now is the day of salvation. Then is the day of judgment. Every arrow of judgment will surely be barbed by the memory of grace refused.
- Shaken — the earthquake, dark sun and falling stars picture the collapse of all governing authority, not one nation's fall.
- Symbolic — if heaven were really rolled up and every mountain removed, no cave would be left to hide in. So read the scene as a vision with meaning.
- Levelled — the verse names seven ranks, three who govern and four who do not, and every one of them ends with the same failing heart.
- Mistaken — the cry that the great day has come is what terrified men say, not what God says. The seventh seal still lies ahead.
- Sheltered — they hide in shaken human institutions instead of in God. The wrath they flee is the Lamb's, and His invitation still stands today.
and they say to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us, and have us hidden from [the] face of him that sits upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb;
The sixth seal shatters the whole social order. Every class of people reacts the same way: not a prayer for mercy, but a scramble to get out of sight. And they ask rocks to shield them from a throne — and from a Lamb.
Here Christ carries the title that pictures Him as the sacrificial victim. In this scene the roles switch.
In Revelation 6:12-17 it is not the walk, nor the work, nor the worship, but the wrath of the Lamb that we find... What? the wrath of the Lamb? Yes, a paradox, but an awful fact; a seeming contradiction, but a terrible truth! You who despise Him, tremble! The hand you nailed to the cross will hold the sceptre. The brow you tore with the crown of thorns will wear the crown of glory. The One who was led as a Lamb to the slaughter will sit as Judge on the throne.
Far from softening the judgment, the title is what makes it unbearable.
When John looks for the Lion of the tribe of Judah, he sees a "Lamb as though it had been slain." And when wrath is ready to fall on men, Scripture still calls it "the wrath of the Lamb." Indeed, that is what makes it so terrible. It is the wrath of love itself. It is the judgment of One with whom judgment is a "strange work." It is judgment so unsparing because love itself moves the arm and guides the blow. It is judgment for which there is no remedy... It is judgment that no prayer can turn aside.
The One they dread is the same One who broke the seals. Even the name chosen for Him works against the thought of wrath.
In the Book of Revelation we see that the One who sets all the judgments moving, by opening the seals, is the Lamb... I cannot imagine any wrath belonging to Christ as the Lamb — but that is what the princes and leaders of this world will say... Why, you can hardly imagine anything more simple and gentle than a little lamb! Yet the world-leaders dread His wrath, because they know nothing of His atoning sacrifice. In the first chapter of John the word is the ordinary one for lamb, amnos. But when we see Him on the throne in Revelation the word is arnion, a smaller form of the word — a "little Lamb"!
They fear two: the One on the throne and the Lamb. Yet God has not appeared. The cry rises from inside the men themselves.
God does not appear in the judgment. But man has a conscience. So when this terrible disaster comes, all alike are afraid of the wrath of God and of the Lamb. Where now is man's courage? Even man's warriors tremble as they feel the presence of a God whose very existence they had denied until now.
Fear moves them, but it does not change them. They want escape, not forgiveness.
There is no repentance and no cry for mercy. There is only terror of vengeance, and a frantic wish to escape. It shows in their call to the mountains and rocks to fall on them and hide them from the dreaded wrath... Man will be allowed to go on a little longer in his sin. This will show that fear does not change his heart. With him, as with Pharaoh, each judgment, once past, only makes his hardness worse.
But does their panic prove that the day of wrath has actually arrived?
Revelation 6:16-17 does not show that the day itself has come. It shows a terrible upheaval that produced this fear in men's minds. They said, "the great day of His wrath has come." The Spirit did not say it... These are words of human terror, not God's own words — except that God foretold that men's hearts would fail them for fear.
The same Lamb meets people in two ways. What a person does with Him now decides which.
This present age proclaims God in grace. He is pleading with men to be reconciled to Him. But those who refuse to know Him in this great salvation must come to know Him later in judgment. If a person despises the blood of the Lamb, he must face the wrath of the Lamb.
- Lamb. The One who opens the seals is the sacrificial Lamb. The hand once nailed to the cross will hold the sceptre. The One led to slaughter will sit as Judge.
- Love. What makes this wrath so terrible is that it is the wrath of love itself — unsparing because love guides the blow.
- Conscience. God does not appear in this scene. The cry rises because men have a conscience. Even those who denied His existence tremble.
- Hardening. Their terror brings no repentance and no plea for mercy, only a wish to escape. Like Pharaoh, each judgment leaves the heart harder.
- Now. This cry is human panic, not God's word that the day has come. Grace still calls today. But whoever despises the blood of the Lamb must face His wrath tomorrow.
because the great day of his wrath is come, and who is able to stand?
The sixth seal brings the whole structure of the world crashing down. Kings and slaves cry out together, and their cry ends in a question no one on the scene can answer: who can stand?
Falling stars and a blackened sun belong to the language of government, not astronomy. One writer reads the scene as the collapse of every order men lean on, and follows it through to their consciences:
With the opening of the sixth seal, the judgments will take a more terrible form... Earthquakes would picture the breaking up of all social, religious, and political order. The statements about the sun, moon, and stars would picture the complete overthrow of everyone who governs, from the highest to the lowest. The mountains and islands being removed out of their places set out the break-up of empires. These upheavals will look so terrible to men that they will be struck in conscience as they see the hand of God at work, and will fear that the great day of His wrath has come. But, having rejected the testimony of God's witnesses, they say, "Who will be able to stand?"
The panic runs the whole length of society, from thrones down to slave quarters. One writer shows what the terror uncovers in people who had denied God:
Every class of society, from the kings of the earth down to the poor slaves, is filled with abject terror. They had been making themselves happy without God. Like Belshazzar, they were feasting to their hearts' content with their wicked enjoyments. But even as they feasted, the whole framework of man's order, on which they had been resting in imagined security, is struck and shattered into ten thousand pieces. God does not appear in the judgment; but man has a conscience, and so they all fear the wrath of God and of the Lamb. Where now is man's courage? His warriors even tremble in the felt presence of a God whose very existence they had until then denied.
Who is speaking here changes the timing of everything that follows:
Men will see every established authority here below overturned. The effect will be that they think the day of the Lord has come... It is an error to confuse their saying so with God's declaration. It is not He but they who cry that the great day of the wrath has come. There is no excuse for so mistaken an interpretation. These frightened crowds exclaim it. But in fact the great day does not arrive until a long time afterwards, as Revelation itself proves.
Commentators differ on how far that day had already begun. One writer holds that the worst was still ahead, yet a door had already shut behind these people:
Though the climax of "the great day of His wrath" was not yet, they had entered on that day, for the day of God's grace in the gospel was closed. Men may stand in God's grace, but no one can stand before His wrath.
The verse says "their wrath" — the wrath of the One on the throne and of the Lamb together; some translations read "His wrath". One writer turns to the people who once condemned that Lamb:
What? The wrath of the Lamb? Yes, a paradox, but an awful fact; a seeming contradiction, but a terrible truth! You who despise Him, tremble! That hand which you nailed to the cross will hold the sceptre. That brow which you tore with the crown of thorns will wear the crown of glory. He who was led as a Lamb to the slaughter will sit as a Judge on the throne.
What follows this cry is not the end, but a pause filled with mercy:
After this, so far is the great day of His wrath from being come, that we find in the parenthesis of Revelation 7 God carrying out mighty works of saving mercy. The first is the sealing of 144,000 out of the tribes of Israel... Next the prophet sees a crowd of Gentiles that no one could number.
The chapter leaves their question hanging. One writer answers it:
When the great day of His wrath has come, who will be able to stand? Who? The great, the mighty, the noble of the earth? Who? The well-disposed, the upright, the moral? Only those who are redeemed "with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot."
- Collapse. The shaking is political. Earthquake, dark sun and falling stars picture every ruling power broken, from empires down to local rulers.
- Conscience. No judge appears in the sky. Men who had denied God's existence panic, because conscience tells them whose hand is shaking the world.
- Cry. The words are man's panic, not God's verdict. One writer holds the great day itself is still far off; another says the day of gospel grace had already closed.
- Lamb. The One they hide from is the Lamb they crucified; the hand they nailed will hold the sceptre.
- Stand. Rank, morality and courage give no footing. Only those redeemed by the blood of the Lamb can stand — and God is still saving people even then.