D. The Third Bowl (16:4-7)
D. THE THIRD BOWL (16:4-7)
4. When the third trumpet was blown, the rivers and fountains were affected, and this is the case with the third bowl, too. But there is an intensification. With the trumpet, one-third of the waters was affected (8:10-11). Now they are all involved. Then the waters simply became ‘bitter’. Here they all turn to blood. It is not said that the people died, but that presumably is only because other judgments followed so swiftly. Without water to drink there is no future for the human race.
5. John heard ‘the angel of the waters’ (NEB), a designation that appears to be found nowhere else. Among the Jews angels were often thought to be responsible for specific areas of the universe (see the list in the Index to vol. 2 of Charles’s Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament). Thus there is nothing surprising about John’s expression. Indeed, there is at least one passage which speaks of angels (plural) ’who were in charge of the waters’ (1 Enoch 66:2). But there is certainly nothing like it anywhere else in the Bible.
‘The angel of the waters’ sees in these proceedings an excellent example of making the punishment fit the crime. He speaks of God as just and his activity as judging. The pouring out of the bowls is not a series of arbitrary actions, but a solemn act of judgment. God is described in terms of his eternity (for who are and who were see note on 1:4). This time there is no ’who is to come’ for the consummation has arrived. Instead of a reference to a future coming we have the Holy One, perhaps better, ‘O Holy One’ (RSV, GNB; the article is equivalent to a vocative). For ’holy’ see note on 15:4.
6. The ‘punishment fits the crime’ theme becomes explicit. The sinners in question shed the blood of your saints and prophets and because of that you have given them blood to drink. It is fitting that those who delighted in shedding blood should now drink it (cf. Wisdom 11:16, ’one is punished by the very things by which he sins’). Those who so readily shed the blood of Christ’s followers now find themselves caught up in fighting one another and consequently in the shedding of their own blood. The forces of evil do not present a united front (17:16). There are hatreds and divisions and strifes among its members. The crisp as they deserve puts an emphasis on their desert as the final touch. Kiddle reminds us that ’experience has an abundant store of examples to prove to whatever nation cares to pay heed that communities do suffer proportionately to their crimes, and that often enough there is a grim and obvious aptness in the ill effect of an ill cause’. Preston and Hanson bring this up to date: ’The comment is not unlike that which many people are making today about the atom bomb: “thou hast given blood to drink”. God has allowed us to discover one of nature’s greatest secrets, and we look like celebrating the event in blood.’
7. For the altar see note on 6:9. This is the only place in Revelation where the altar is said to speak, though earlier there was a voice from its horns (9:13). The altar is especially connected with the prayers of the saints (8:3) which introduced judgments of God (8:5). The angel who commanded that the vine of the earth be reaped came from the altar (14:18), a further link with judgment. The altar now interjects its agreement with the angel. It does this first with yes, and follows with an address to God as Lord God Almighty, a most appropriate address in view of the divine power put forth in the judgments under consideration. Then secondly the altar speaks of God’s judgments as true and just. The same adjectives, though in the reverse order, were used of God’s ways (15:3).