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.
And out of the smoke came forth locusts on the earth, and power was given to them as the scorpions of the earth have power;
The fifth trumpet brings a swarm out of the smoke of the pit, armed not for crops but with the sting of scorpions. Where do these creatures come from, and what power do they receive?
The text is careful about origins. One writer begins with who holds the keys:
Christ has "the keys of Death and Hades" (Revelation 1:18). We cannot imagine that He would hand over any part of His own authority to an apostate, whether man or spirit… In fact, the text does not even say that the locusts come out of the pit. Nothing comes out of it but the smoke that darkens the sun and the air. The locusts come out of the smoke… The smoke here is not the smoke of torment, as it is elsewhere. It is the fumes of harmful spiritual influences that darken the air and the supreme source of light itself. We can easily understand that the locusts are bred out of that darkness.
The strongest argument against real insects lies in the command that follows the verse:
The locusts that come out of the smoke are a picture of aggressive robbers, and they are clothed with a remarkable power of torment, like the scorpions of the earth. The command given shows very plainly, I think, the error of those who take the locusts literally. They were not to hurt the grass of the earth, and so on — that is, their natural food, if real locusts were meant.
Everything turns on the creature chosen for the comparison:
The intense anguish caused by these hordes of satanic instruments and agents is like the torment of a scorpion's poisonous sting. The scorpion shuns the light, and the native peoples of Africa and the Arab tribes of Asia rightly dread it. The sting is not often fatal, but the suffering is dreadful… In Luke 10:19 the Lord connects serpents, scorpions, and the power of the enemy with the fall of Satan. Here, in the same way, scorpions are linked with the fallen star.
The verse says the power was given to them. Walter Scott takes that word strictly: these agents are "powerless, unless authority is given them to act." Another writer compares this plague with the four that came before:
If the four earlier judgments were providential, though inflicted judicially by God, this one, while still under God's control, is diabolical in its origin and nature.
The swarm is limited twice over — in what it may eat, and in whom it may reach:
Their power fits their origin: it is pictured as the power of the scorpions of the earth — that is, their poisonous sting. Their difference from natural locusts shows here. They do not touch the locusts' food. They are a plague only on men, and only on the unsealed among them. Since it is in Israel that the sealing is found, the fair inference is that these unsealed ones are Israelites, and the place of this plague is in the east.
One writer names what the locusts stand for, and where their poison lands:
This evil teaching is pictured as a swarm of locusts that sweeps everything before it with irresistible power, leaving misery in its trail. Natural locusts would destroy the grass and every green thing, and strip the trees. But the evil influence set out by these symbolic locusts will not touch people's circumstances in life, or even their bodies. It poisons their minds, just as a scorpion poisons the body.
- Source — nothing comes out of the pit but smoke. The locusts are bred from that smoke, the fumes of harmful spiritual influence that blot out the light.
- Symbol — these are not insects. They are forbidden the grass and green things that real locusts live to eat.
- Sting — the picture is a scorpion, not a killer. Its sting is rarely fatal, but the suffering is dreadful.
- Sanction — the power is given; the agents are diabolical in nature yet act only within limits God sets.
- Scope — they may reach only those without the seal of God, which is the one shelter in the whole scene.
and it was said to them, that they should not injure the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but the men who have not the seal of God on their foreheads
The fifth trumpet lets loose a swarm like no swarm ever seen. It ignores every green thing and goes straight for people. One line is drawn across the whole scene: a mark on the forehead. Everything in this judgment turns on who has it and who does not.
Real locusts strip a land bare. These are forbidden to touch the very thing locusts live on. Commentators read that ban as the key to the whole picture.
The command given shows, I think very plainly, the error of those who take the locusts in a literal way. They were not to hurt the grass of the earth, and so on — that is, their natural food, if real locusts were meant. Men were to be the objects of these symbolic raiders — men, except God's sealed ones.
Another writer gives a second reason for sparing the fields.
The whole description shows that the locust army is a symbolic picture of judgment of a superhuman kind. So does the ban on injuring the grass and trees, their natural food. There is a further reason why the plant world was to be spared. The grass, "any green plant," and trees point to a general state of prosperity in men's circumstances and position.
Read this command together with chapter 7, and the target of the plague comes into focus.
Their power is limited. This command settles two things. First, as already said, these are moral, not real, locusts. Natural locusts ravage exactly the plants and trees of the earth. Second, the target of this dreadful visitation is apostate Jews. Revelation 7 tells us that the servants of God, sealed on their foreheads, are the elect of the twelve tribes. So those not sealed would be Jews outside that elect number. Later parts of this book make it clear that these unsealed Jews will be, mostly if not entirely, in Jerusalem and Palestine. That fixes both the sphere and the character of the judgment.
Commentators differ on how far the plague reaches. One reads the double name in the chapter as a hint of wider scope:
Perhaps the double name in Hebrew and Greek shows that their power will be over Jews and Gentiles.
So what does this seal do for the person who carries it?
With the seal we have the idea of God's property, His ownership, and it also carries the meaning of security. If God has put His seal on a man, everyone can see it, because it is on the forehead. Then even these evil powers will not touch him. This mark is the exact opposite of the mark of the beast. People will accept the mark of the beast in order to survive, and that is the opposite of faith.
The seal carries one more promise, and leaves one question open:
"The seal of the living God" implies safety from death. The seal on the forehead is a public, open acknowledgment that those sealed belong to God. What the seal is, we are not told.
The sealing in chapter 7 happens first, and the judgment waits for it. One writer draws out what that order shows about God's rule.
We learn, second, that God governs the world with His people in view. The angel coming up from the east told the four angels not to hurt the earth, the sea, or the trees, "until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads." It was the same when judgment was about to fall on Jerusalem. The Lord had a mark set on the foreheads of the men who sighed and cried over all the detestable things done in it. He kept this faithful remnant safe while the punishment swept through.
The unsealed are not killed. One writer describes what they suffer instead, and for how long.
These locusts have the poison of scorpions. The natural locust feeds on every green thing, but these were only to afflict the unsealed among men. Their torment is like the sting of a scorpion, which is very sharp but does not usually kill. There is a limit to the length of this affliction — five months.
- Sealed first. God holds judgment back until He has marked His servants. He did the same in Jerusalem, marking those who grieved over its sins before the blow fell.
- Sealed means owned. The mark on the forehead is public. It declares who a person belongs to, and it is the exact opposite of the mark of the beast. What the seal looks like, we are never told.
- Sealed means spared. Ownership brings security. Even these evil powers may not touch a sealed man.
- Unsealed means exposed. Most writers name the victims as Israelites outside the sealed number. One sees the reach going wider, to Gentiles too.
- Unsealed means tormented. The plague spares the grass and strikes people. It brings five months of anguish that stops short of death.