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.
Walter ScottThe 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.
William KellyThis 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."
Walter ScottThe 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.
L. M. GrantAll 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.
The Christian's FriendThey 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.
William KellyThey 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.
H. H. SnellTheir 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.
William J. HockingAdam 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.
T. B. BainesThere 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.
J Wilson SmithIn 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.
Frederick W GrantWhen 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.
H J VineIn 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.
Edward DennettGod 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.
T. B. BainesThere 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?
The Bible TreasuryRevelation 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.
The Christian's FriendThis 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:
Hamilton SmithWith 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:
Edward DennettEvery 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:
William KellyMen 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:
F. B. HoleThough 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:
J. Wilson SmithWhat? 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:
William KellyAfter 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:
H. Forbes WitherbyWhen 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.