And the fifth angel sounded [his] trumpet and I saw a star out of the heaven fallen to the earth; and there was given to it the key of the pit of the abyss.
The fifth trumpet brings a strange sight: a star fallen from heaven, lying on the earth, holding a key. Two questions decide the meaning — who is this star, and who gave him the key?
The wording matters. John does not watch a star drop. He sees one that has already fallen.
At the sound of the fifth trumpet a star appears — not falling, as the older common translation puts it, but already fallen from heaven to earth. This seems to connect him with the apostasy under the third trumpet. And no one else's apostasy is likely to be as notable as the apostasy of the man whose course is recorded here. In any case, it is certainly an apostate who stands before us, and to him is given "the key of the abyss."
A star stands for someone in high place. The wording here echoes a taunt against a fallen king.
The star fallen from heaven to earth is a dignitary in an apostate state. This points to a real person, as the next words show — "to him was given the key of the pit of the abyss." The allusion to Isaiah 14:12 seems clear. There the king of Babylon is taunted: "How you are fallen, O Lucifer [that is, day-star], son of the morning… Yet you shall be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit." What is in view here is not his doom, but the authority he was permitted to exercise over the abyss. The abyss is the expression of the source of satanic evil and misery.
Kelly quotes Isaiah 14:12 from an older English translation. Commentators differ on who the star is. Some read him as a fallen human leader. Others read him as the devil himself, cast out of heaven:
The star fallen from heaven with the key of the pit of the abyss is Satan himself, cast out of heaven. The details of this event we learn in the twelfth chapter.
The phrase is not a poetic way of saying "hell." It describes a prison, and the Bible's own usage fixes its meaning.
In the Old Testament a "pit" is often another word for a dungeon, and everything points to that meaning here. The "abyss" is not something other than the pit itself. It only defines it further — the dungeon which is the abyss. So the demons beg not to be sent into the deep, or "abyss" (Luke 8:31), and in the twentieth chapter Satan is shut up there… The abyss is not "hell," the "lake of fire." We can see this from one passage (Romans 10:7), which uses the word in connection with the Lord: "Who will descend into the abyss?" — that is, to bring Christ up from the dead… The literal meaning ("bottomless") must not be pressed, as our own use of the word shows.
The verse never says who handed over the key. But the handing over itself settles who is in charge.
Revelation 9:1 makes it clear that Satan does not have absolute control to do as he pleases, for the key of the bottomless pit is not in his hand. The star that fell from heaven was given the key for the time being, but the key did not belong to him. For a limited time this star — some great intellectual or spiritual leader — was allowed to bring up influences from the regions below. Those influences would bring delusion and trouble on all who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
God gives such permission elsewhere too, and it serves very different ends.
The key of the bottomless pit was given to him. God permits Satan to act. Sometimes this is for the good of His children. Sometimes it is to let His judgments fall on His enemies. Satan and his angels are glad to seize an opportunity to do evil. God is coming here to chastise the wickedness of men.
This woe goes further than the four trumpets before it, and it has a named target.
Under the fifth trumpet this fallen ruler is about to let loose the malignant and darkening power of Satan on the apostate part of Judah. Apostate Gentiles are the ones judged under the third trumpet; apostate Jews are the sufferers under the fifth. The state of things under this first woe goes beyond anything we have seen so far. Direct satanic influence and power drive the agents and instruments of evil.
- Fallen. The star is not falling but already down — an apostate who once held high place, now on the earth.
- Given. The key is handed to him; it was never his. Even at the mouth of the abyss, nothing moves without permission.
- Unlocked. The abyss is a dungeon, a prison — the place demons begged not to be sent, and where Satan is later shut up — not the lake of fire.
- Darkened. What comes up out of the pit is delusion — influences that darken and trouble men.
- Limited. The star holds the key only for a time, and those sealed by God are out of reach. The key that opens also locks.
And it opened the pit of the abyss; and there went up smoke out of the pit as [the] smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke of the pit.
The fifth trumpet turns a corner. A shaft opens from below, and the smoke that pours up is thick enough to blot out the light people live by.
One writer works out what "bottomless pit" means from the way Scripture uses the words elsewhere:
In the Old Testament a "pit" is often a word for a dungeon, and everything here points to that meaning. The "abyss" is not something other than the pit itself. It is only a further definition of it — the dungeon which is the abyss. So the demons pray that they may not be sent into the deep, or "abyss" (Luke 8:31). In the twentieth chapter Satan is shut up there... The abyss is not, however, "hell" — the "lake of fire." ... The literal meaning, "bottomless," must not be pressed. We use the word loosely ourselves, and the Greek word was used in the same way. The Greek Old Testament uses it for the "deep" over which darkness lay on the first day.
Another writer names who is held there:
He has "the key of the pit of the abyss." This is the unfathomable or bottomless pit, where evil is held back until it receives its final doom. Here "the spirits in prison" are kept (1 Peter 3:19). Here Satan will be shut up for a thousand years, before his last rebellion and everlasting punishment. Here too the angels who sinned are "committed to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment." (2 Peter 2:4.)
The four judgments before this one worked in another way. This one still does not slip out of God's hand:
If the four earlier judgments were providential, though God inflicted them as acts of judgment, this one is different. It is still under God's control, but its origin and its nature are satanic.
Another writer explains why God allows it:
God permits Satan to act sometimes for the good of His children, sometimes to let His judgments fall on His enemies. Satan and his angels are glad to seize an opportunity to do evil. God is coming here to chastise the wickedness of men.
Smoke blinds. One writer names what this smoke stands for:
The smoke rising like the smoke of a great furnace is the symbol of a delusion which darkens the mind of man.
One writer takes the furnace image as a measure of sheer volume, and sees the smoke as the parent of what follows:
Here, in Revelation 9, I take the smoke to express two things. First, that the place it comes from is under judgment. Second, the darkening tendency of what will proceed from there, as the parent or nurse of the locusts issuing from it. The smoke is "like the smoke of a great furnace," which I take to express the fullness of its volume. The result was that the sun and the air were darkened by it.
One writer reads the sun and the air as symbols, and names what each stands for:
This means a satanic delusion bred in the abyss, marked by the way it blinds and withers people morally. It is probably the same delusion to which Christendom will be given over, which Paul speaks of (2 Thess. 2:11-12). The smoke is the darkening influence and power of Satan. Its effect will be to blight the supreme government (the sun). It will also darken and corrupt the whole social life and principles of men (the air).
One writer, who admits the picture is hard to pin down, points to where this smoke is at work now:
What the smoke exactly represents may be hard to say, but its source and effect are clear. It shuts man off from all that he needs for his moral and spiritual welfare. It is Satan's smoke today that hides the word of God from the souls of men. They breathe it instead of the pure influences of the Scriptures, and so become morally poisoned and tormented.
- Source. The pit is a dungeon where evil is held until its final doom. It is not the lake of fire, and it does not open unless God permits it.
- Permission. The key is given. This judgment is satanic in its origin and nature, yet it stays under God's control from first to last.
- Substance. What rises is smoke: a delusion that darkens the mind, poured out with the fullness of a furnace.
- Reach. Sun and air both go dark: the smoke blights supreme government and corrupts the whole social life of people.
- Result. The smoke is the parent of what comes next. The delusion comes first, and it breeds the torment that follows.