G. The Sixth Trumpet (9:13-21)
G. THE SIXTH TRUMPET (9:13-21)
The fifth trumpet had unleashed forces of destruction which were likened to locusts. Those set loose by the sounding of the sixth trumpet are in the form of angels and are much more deadly. Whereas the locusts tortured, the angels and their hosts killed. As before, a third indicates a large number, but not a majority. It is a warning, a call to repentance, but John sadly records that they did not repent. The vision is to be interpreted along the lines of the preceding vision, but everything is greatly intensified. Instead of locusts there is a huge army of horsemen on strange steeds. And instead of torment there is death.
In this vision there is some emphasis on the refusal to repent. God sends his judgments upon the wicked, but his aim is not to hurt. There is a purpose of love behind the judgments. They are to make plain the seriousness and the ill desert of sin, they are to lead people to repent, to turn to God and be saved. But when they do nothing of the sort they should not think that they have triumphed over God. He is in supreme command. They may resist his will, but it is to their own hurt.
There is a further point. John was not writing to or for the pagan world. He was writing for the Christian church. Believers must live in this world, not an imaginary world of their own choosing. John is making plain to a little group of persecuted believers that they must not expect to live in a world that understood them and welcomed their witness. No matter how severe the judgments of God, the world continues with its idolatries and its manifold sins. Believers must not delude themselves. This world that John depicts, where sinful people resist God to the limit no matter how much they hurt themselves in the process, is the world believers must live in. There is no other.
But it is a world under judgment. In apocalyptic generally, as Ladd points out, the foreign invasion is ‘an attack against the people of God by pagan hosts while John sees it as a divine judgment upon a corrupt civilization’.
13-14. When the sixth angel blew his trumpet there was no immediate release of forces of destruction, as with the previous trumpets. John simply heard a voice (lit. ‘one voice’; Berkeley, ‘a solitary voice’). In 6:10 the martyrs cried to God from under the altar, and in 8:3-5 prayer was offered on it and judgment released as the result. It is likely that the prayers of God’s people are still in mind. This whole series of judgments was precipitated by those prayers and it would be appropriate to recall them again. If so, this further judgment is brought on by those prayers. John does not want us to forget that prayer is a mighty force. The altar is specifically said to be before God. As usual, John does not say whose voice it was, but clearly it was a divine voice or at least came with divine approval. It may of course have come from the angel associated with the altar (8:3-5).
The voice addressed the sixth angel, identified as him who had the trumpet. The Greek could be taken as ‘It said ... “You who have the trumpet, release ...”’. But this is not the kind of Greek that John normally writes and NIV is probably correct. The command was that the angel should loose four angels who were bound at the Euphrates. The definite article shows that a specific group is meant, but this four at the Euphrates is not attested elsewhere. Their location prevents us from identifying them with the four angels of 7:1 (though some do this). The fact that they have been bound shows that they are not good angels going forth voluntarily to do God’s will. They are evil beings who have been restrained until now. This ties in with the general pattern that this section of the book deals with the demonic. There are many references to angels of punishment in books like 1 Enoch (40:7; 53:3; 56:1; 62:11; etc.). But these are not the same. We can say no more than that they are evil angels who cannot act until God permits them.
The Euphrates is described as the great river, as often in the Old Testament (Gn. 15:18; Dt. 1:7; Jos. 1:4; cf. Rev. 16:12). There it is the ideal limit of the promised land, so that these angels of wrath come from just outside. It was also the boundary of the Roman empire and in the first century most people would have thought of the Parthians, the world’s most dreaded cavalry, for they came from this region and filled people with foreboding.
15. The angels were loosed, presumably by the sixth angel, though this is not specifically said. They had been prepared for this time and John specifies it in detail, hour, day, month and year. There are examples in the Old Testament of the specification of time by day, month and year (e.g. Nu. 1:1; Hg. 2:10), but none includes also the hour (the hour is mentioned in the apocryphal 2 Enoch 33:2, but there it is in ‘a time not reckoned and unending’). The Greek has ‘the’ hour and, while the article is not repeated, it should be understood to apply to the others in the series. It is clear that John is speaking of a divine plan. God has a purpose and it is worked out. It is a purpose of judgment, and on this occasion a third of mankind died. As before, a third will signify a large number but not the majority. It is a very stern warning, but not the blotting out of sinful mankind. The four angels are loosed to do the killing, but the part they play is not said. We hear of a mighty army of horsemen but it appears that it is the horses who actually slay people (v.18). The natural interpretation is that the angels are the leaders. They direct the great host in order to bring about the intended result.
16. The number in their ‘squadrons of cavalry’ (NEB) is given as two hundred million (cf. Ps. 68:17). I heard their number shows than an exact figure is meant, not simply a large number as in 5:11. John had to be told the number, for such a mighty horde was beyond counting. He does not say where the troops came from. Perhaps it was from beyond Euphrates (cf. 16:12) or they may have come from the abyss.
17. John reminds us that all this was seen in my vision; there is a strong symbolic element in what he is saying. The breastplates were fiery red, dark blue (‘jacinth’, cf. 21:20, which ‘appears to denote a dusky blue colour as of sulphurous smoke’, MM; some think it the colour of a reddish orange gem, but in view of the fact that ‘fiery’ points to red it is more likely that blue is meant) and yellow. It is not clear whether all the breastplates were tri-coloured or whether some were red, others blue and others yellow. The ferocity and destructiveness of the horses is brought out in the likening of their heads to the heads of lions. Their fearsome nature is further seen in the fact that from their mouths issued fire, smoke and sulphur.
18. The fire, the smoke and the sulphur are regarded as three separate plagues. Between them they killed a third of mankind (for this proportion see on v.15). That came out of their mouths keeps before the reader the fact that this was not a natural phenomenon but a demonic visitation.
19. These fearsome horses have power to harm at either end: in their mouths as before mentioned and in their tails. It now appears that the tails are like snakes with heads with which they inflict injury. The deadliness of the tails links this vision with the preceding. It is the same type of thing, only more severe. The mention of snakes points to the demonic, for demons and serpents were often linked in antiquity. Some see a reference to the Parthian habit of twisting the tails of their horses so that they looked like snakes. They recall also the Parthian skill in shooting arrows behind them as they rode. Such facts may have helped to shape John’s imagery, but it is not this that he is describing. He sees demonic forces.
20. John turns his attention from the plagues and those who suffered in them to the rest of mankind. Those not killed might have been expected to take warning from what had happened and become devout servants of God. But they did not repent. John spells this out. They worshipped demons and idols (linked again in 1 Cor. 10:20). The idols, as not uncommonly in Scripture, are characterized by their material and by their inability to see, hear or walk (cf. Pss. 115:4-7; 135:15-17; Dn. 5:23). In this way John underlines the folly of those who refuse the call to repentance and prefer impotent deities.
21. From their gods John turns to their sins. There are several lists of this sort in the New Testament (cf. 21:8; 22:15; Mk. 7:21- 22 ; Gal. 5:19-21), but none appears to have this particular group of four vices. Magic arts is taken by some in the sense ‘poisonings’ (e.g. Ferrar Fenton). But there seems no good reason. The word denotes the use of drugs or enchantments and may occasionally be used of poisoning, but ’sorceries’ is much more likely here.90
Sexual immorality (‘fornication’) is singular, as usually in the New Testament, the others plural. This does not mean that this sin was less frequent than the others. It simply sums up many acts in one. The term, as usually, will stand for sexual sin in general and not specifically fornication.