((V
S'ttir Fallelh from Heaven. REVELATION IX. The Sounding of the Fifth Tnimpd.
"How art thou fallen from heaven, Lucifer, Son of th« Morning!" the bottomless pit— Greek, "the pit of the abyss :" the orifice of the hell where Satan and his demons dwell. 3. upon— " unto," or "into." as the scorpions of the earth—As contrasted with the "locusts" which come np from hell, and are not "of the earth." hai-e power—j;iz., to sting, i. not hnrt the grass . . . neither aea became blood—In the parallel second vial, tlie wJtole sea (not merely a third) becomes blood. The overthrow of Jericho, the type of the Anticliristian B:il)ylon, after which If racl, nutler Joshua (the same name as Jctim), victoriou».// took possession of Canaan, the type of ChrLst's and U's people's kingdom, is perliaps alluded to in the SEVKS trumpets, which end in the overthrow of all Christ's foes, and the setting up of His kingdom. On the seventh day, at the screj/^A time, when the ievcn priests blew tlie seven rams' horn trumpets, the people shouted, and the walls fell flat: and then ensued the ftioort-shedding of the. . . green thing . . . neither . . . tree-the food on whicli they ordinarily prey. Tlierelore, not natural and ordinary locusts. Tlieir natural instinct is supernatni'ally restrained to mark the judgment as altogether Divine, those men which Greek, "the men whosoever." In Greek, "upon tlieir forehead." Thus this tilth trumpet is proved to follow the sealing in ch. 7., under the sijtth seal. None of the .saints are hurl by these locusts, which is not true of the saints in Moliainmed's attack, wlio is supposed by many to be meant by the locusts; for many true believers fell in the Mohammedan invasions of Christendom. 5. they . . . they—The subject changes: the llrst "tliey" is the locusts; the second is the unsealed, fl-re months—the ordinary time in the year during which locusts continue their ravages, their torment—the torment of the suflerers. This fifth verse and v. 6 cannot refer to an invading army. For an arm.v would kill, and not merely torment. 6. shall desire Greek, "eagerly desire:" set their mind on. shall fiee—So B, Vulgate, Syrfoe. A mountain-like fiery mass would not naturally change water into blood ; nor would the third part of ships be thereby destroyed. The symbolical interpreters take the ships here to be churches. For the Greek here for ships is not the common one, but that used in the Gospels of tlie apostolic vessel in which Christ taught: and the first churches were in the shape of an inverted ship: and the
Greek for destroyed is also used of heretical corriiplings
(1 Timothy 6. 5). 10. a lamp—n torch. 11, The syml)olizers interpret the «?nr/o//e)i /rom Tientieu as a chief minister (Arius, according to Bui-linger, Bisngel, *c. ; or some future false teacher, if, as is more likely, the event be still future) falling from his high place in the Churcli, and Instead of shining with heavenly light as a star, becoming a torch lit with earthly fire and smouldering with smoke. And wormwood, though medicinal in some cases, if used as ordinary water would not only be disagreeable to the taste, but also fatal to life: so "heretical wormwood changes the sweet Siloas of Scripture into 3eadly Marahs." [Wordsworth.] Contrast the converse change of bitter Marah water into sweet, Exodus iac, unA Coptic, read. But A, X read, " fleeth," rij., continually. In ch. 6. 16, which is at a later stage of God's judgments, the ungodly seek annihilation, not from the torment of their suffering, but from fear of the face of the Lamb before whom they have to stand. 7. prrparca nnto battle— GrccA:, "made ready unto war." Cf. note Joel 2. 4, where the resemblance of locusts to horses i.s traced: the plates of a horse armed for battle are an image on a larger scale of the outer shell of the locust, crowns—(Nahum 3. 17.) Elliott explains this of the turbans of Mohammedans. But how could turbans be "like gold?" Alford understands it of the head of the locusts actually ending in a crown-shaped fillet which resembled gold in its material, as the faces of men-The "AS" seems to imply the locusts here do not mean men. At the same time they are not natural lo<:usls, for these do not sting wen (D. 5). They must be supernatural. 8. hair of women—long and flowing. An Arabic proverb compare the antlers of locusts to the hair of girls. Ewald in Alford understands the allusion to be to the hair on the legs or bodies of the locusts: cf. "rough caterpillars," Jeremiah 51. 27. as the teeth of lions—(Joel 1. G, as to locusts.) 9. ns It were breastplates of Iron—not such as forms the thorax of the natural locust, as . . . chnrlota (Joel 2. 5-7.) battle— (JreeA-, "war." 10. tails like unto scorpions—like unto the tails of sorpioiis. and there were stings—There is no oldest MS. for this reading. A, K. X, -Si/rirtc, and CV)/>< ic read, "and (the.v have)stlngs: and in their tails (is) their power (lit., ai(//<un7j/ .- autliorizeil power) to hurt," Ac. 11. And—So iSyriae. But A, B, (ti omit "and." l\aA— Greek, "have." a king . . . which ia titc angel—English Vosion, agrietng wilii A, X, reads the
15, 2.3, &c. Alford gives as an illustration in a physical point of view, the conversion of water into fire-trater or ardeyit spirits, which maj' yet go on to destroy even as many as a third of the ungodly in the latter days. 12.
imrt—Not a total obscuration as in the sixth seal (ch. 6. 12, 1.3). This partial obscuration, therefore, conies between the prayers of the martyrs under the fifth seal, and the last overwhelming judgments on the ungodly under the sixth seal, at the eve of Christ's coming, the i>i$;ltt likewise-withdrew a third part of the light wliich the britjht Eastern moon and stars ordinarily allord. 13. an angel—A, B, Vulgate, Syriac, and Coptic, read for "angel," whicli is supported by none of tlie oldest MSS., "an eagle:" the symbol of Judgment descending fatally from on high; the king of blnls pouncing on the prey. Cf. ( his fourth trumpet and the flying car/le with the fourtli seal introduced by the fourth living creature, "lil<e a flying eagle," ch. t. 7; 0.7, 8: the aspect of Jesus as presented by the fourth Evangelist. .Totin is compared in tlio cherubim (according to the primitive interpretation) to a flying eagle: Christ's Divine majesty \\\ this similitude is set forth in the Gospel according to Jolin, His judicial visitritions in the Revelation of John. Contrast "another angel," or messeyif/er, with "the everlasting Gospel," cli.
14. 6. tlii'onih the mlilst of hvnxeti— Greek, "in tiio mld-lieaven," t. e.. In the part of the sky where the sun reaches tlie meridian: in such a position as that the eagle
((V/YcA:) article before "angel," In wliich reading we must translate, "They have as king over them the angel," tfep. Satan (cf. v. 1). Omitting the article with B, we mus Kransts an oliject conspicuous to all. the Inliakltci-H of the earth—the ungodly, the " men of the world," whose " portion is In tills life," upon whom the mart.vrs had prayed that their blood might be avenged (('h. fl. 10). Not that they sought personal revenge, but their zeal was for the late, "They have as king an angel," &c. : one of the chief demons under Satan : I prefer from v. 1, the former, bot* toinless pit Greek, " abyss." Abaddon— i. e., perdition or destruction (Job 20. 0; Proverbs '27. 2()). The locusts are supernatural Instruments In the hands of Satan to torment, and yet not kill, the ungodly, under this tilth trumpet. Just as in the case of gmlly Job, Satan was allowed to torment with elephantiasis, but not to touch his le. In V. '20, these two woe-trumpels are expressly called "plagues." Andreas ok t!j*;sAunA, a. d. 5(io, held, in lila Commentary on llevelatlon, that the lixnisls mean exnl
Honour of God against the foes of God and IllsCliurch.
«e other— Greek, "the remaining voices."
CHAPTER IX.
Ver. 1-21. The FiI'-th Tihtmi'kt: The Fai-t,e.v Star OPKNSTIIK AllYSS WIIKNCK I.SSITK I.OCir.STS. THK Si X I'II Tkumi'kt. Four Anoei,.'* at the Euphrates Loo.skh. 1. The last three trumpets of the seven are called, from ch.
s])irils agtx\n permitted to count forth on earth and ali Uot men with various plagues. r4. Greek, " The one woo." horeafter— (JrecA;, "after these things." 1 agree with ALFOKD, Dk Buroh, Ac, that these li Kustsfrom the abyss refer to judgments about to fall on the ungodly immediately before Christ's second aUveut. None of the iuterpielo-
8. l:t, the ivoe-lrumpets. fall—rather as Greek, "fallen." When John saw It, it was not In the act of /(tiling, but had fallen already. This Is a connecting link of this fifth trumpet with ch. 12. 8,9, 12, "woe to the inhabitcrs of tlie earth, for the deiil Is come down," <kc. Cf. Isaiah It. 572 .