Revelation 16 Symbols

Revelation 16  •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 10
 
2. Noisome Sore: Moral distemper and misery (Ex. 9:8-9; Isa. 1:6).
8. Blood as of a Dead Man: Final open apostasy and alienation from God.
4. Rivers and Fountains of Waters: (See Rev. 8:10). These popular influences became the power of death.
7. Altar: Witness of the blood-shedding of saints (Rev. 6:9).
8. To Scorch with Fire: Intolerable tyranny and persecution.
12. Euphrates: The securing boundary of the Western prophetic power. The commercial prosperity of Babylon.
13. Three Unclean Spirits Like Frogs: The open energy and hostility of Satan; the renewed Roman Empire as come up out of the bottomless pit; and Antichrist, a certain analogy with the evil of Cain, Balaam, and Core. [Frogs were regarded by the Greek poets as the proper inhabitants of the Stygian lake.]
16. Armageddon: A mystic name (Compare Judg. 5:9, 20).
17. Air: The universal moral influence that acts on man (Compare Rev. 9:2).
18. Voices, Thunders, Lightnings, and Earthquake: (See Rev. 8:5).
19. The Great City: The public confederation of European civilization; all that was established within the Roman Empire.
The Cities of the Nations: All that the nations outside of Rome had built up politically. The other European centers of social life.
Babylon: (See Rev. 17:5).
20. Islands and Mountains: (See Rev. 6:14).
21. Hail the Weight of a Talent: Rapid and overwhelming incursions of hostile armies (Joel 2:2, 9; Isa. 28:2; 30:30).