Introduction
The last verse of the preceding chapter, as before stated, belongs and is introductory to this chapter. Four of the seven trumpets have already been sounded; and now John is permitted to see in a vision the herald of the remaining three which are yet to sound. (It is a characteristic of the sevens in this book, that they are divided into fours and threes, or threes and fours. Compare the division of the parables in Matthew 13.) He beheld an eagle— for this is the true reading—flying through the midst of heaven, proclaiming a threefold woe upon the inhabiters of the earth, by reason of the coming voices of the trumpets.
The “inhabiters of the earth” is a moral expression, as in Revelation 3:10; the words are the same, though differently translated. They indicate a class; those whose hearts and hopes are set upon earth, those who, in the language of the Apostle Paul, mind earthly things. The judgments following upon the preceding trumpets, if the interpretation given of “the third part of the earth” be correct, are confined to the west, whereas these, at least the fifth and sixth, fall upon the east; and this fact sustains the moral significance of the term, dwellers upon earth. It will, moreover, be seen at a glance that the judgments of the “woe” trumpets are of a very different character from those already passed under review. This will be more clearly apprehended as we proceed.
Revelation 9:1
We read then, first of all, that “the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit” (vs. 1). The symbolism of a star has been explained in connection with Revelation 8:10; it means generally some subordinate authority or power, one that should be the means of light and order for the earth. It is evident in this case that he becomes, if he had not been directly so before, a Satanic agent for the infliction, by God’s permission, of torment upon the class delivered into his hands. The key of the bottomless pit (“the pit of the abyss”) is given (by whom is not said) to him. We learn from the gospel of Luke that this is the place which demons shunned to enter (Luke 8:31), and this at once gives the clue to its character. If the four previous judgments were providential, though inflicted judicially by God, this, while still under God’s control, is diabolical in its origin and nature.
Revelation 9:2-3
Thus, upon the bottomless pit being opened,“there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power” (vss. 2-3). What the smoke exactly represents it may be difficult to say, but its source and effect are manifest. It comes from the abyss, from hell, it obscures the sun and the air, and shuts man off from all that is needful for his moral and spiritual welfare. It is thus Satan’s smoke today that darkens the Word of God from the souls of men, who breathing it instead of the pure influences of the Scriptures, become morally poisoned and tormented; and this enables us to understand the effect of the smoke here in darkening the sun and the air.
Note, moreover, that the locusts come out of the smoke upon the earth; they originate with, or are produced by, the smoke. The prophet Joel gives us figuratively an insight into the terrible nature of the judgment God can inflict with actual locusts. Today there is no scourge more feared in the east and in some parts of Africa, and none before which man is more entirely impotent. Every green thing is often devoured, and so dense are the masses in which they move when they fly, that sun and sky (as with the smoke in this chapter) are entirely obscured. This will explain the use of the figure here, and allows us, at the same time, more readily to conceive the character of the visitation indicated by these moral locusts that have come out of the abyss.
Revelation 9:4
Their power is limited; for we read, “It was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads” (vs. 4). Two things are determined by this command; first that, as before stated, they are moral and not real locusts, because it is precisely the herbage and trees of the earth that the natural locusts ravage; and secondly, that the object of this awful visitation is apostate Jews. We learn from Revelation 7 that the servants of God who were to be sealed in their foreheads are the elect of the twelve tribes, and accordingly those not sealed would be Jews outside of this elect number. And from the subsequent unfoldings of this book, it is very evident that the location of these unsealed Jews will be, for the most part, if not entirely, in Jerusalem and Palestine. This fact, and it is of great significance, indicates both the sphere and the character of the judgment. It is, in other words, Jewish in its sphere and is confined to Jews. Through missing these points, those who have adopted what is termed the historical method of interpretation contend that the plague here spoken of was realized in the invasion of Europe by the Saracens and Mohammedans; while others of the same school would combine Popery with the Saracenic visitation. That this moral plague had some correspondence with the language of our chapter few would deny; that it is its entire fulfillment, none who accept its application to apostate Jews in Palestine could for one moment admit. Besides the locusts of our chapter had no power to kill, whereas slaughter and that of immense numbers was especially that which characterized the Mahommedan inroads and conquests.
Revelation 9:5-6
The next two verses (Rev. 9:5-6) give the nature, duration, and effect of this judgment. The “locusts” were not permitted to kill, only to torment, and this for the space of five months. (For those who favor the application of this prophecy to the Saracens, it is necessary to adopt the “year-day” theory in explaining the five months; that is, taking a day to represent a year, the five months are extended to the period of one hundred and fifty years; and this it is affirmed, corresponds with the period of the Saracenic domination. Unfortunately for the upholders of this view, the year-day theory finds no support whatever in this book.) The effect of the torment is that the subjects of it become weary of their lives, desire to die, but death flees from them. Death would be a relief from their agony, but, suffering by God’s appointment, covet it as they may, they are not permitted to find it. This torment is caused by the “locusts,” for “their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.” (vs. 5) Of the nature of this, whether mental or otherwise, we are not told; but if, as we conclude, these “locusts” are diabolical agents, the seat of the torment would be in the soul rather than in the body.
Revelation 9:7-10
The shapes, appearance, armor, and so forth of the locusts are now given (Rev. 9:7-10). They were like war-horses prepared unto battle, kingly in their dignity, for “on their heads were as it were crowns like gold” (vs. 7); together with the faces of men, they had the hair of women, and the teeth of lions; they had breastplates as it were of iron, “and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.” (vs. 9) The historical interpreters, to whom allusion has been made, love to see in all this description a faithful photograph of the Saracenic armies; and if the inroad of these hordes in the seventh and eighth centuries were even a partial fulfillment, which became a shadow of the entire realization, of this prophetic vision, there might be some foundation for this contention. But those who have a truer insight into the nature of the Apocalypse will rather see in this detailed description the moral features which will characterize the work and activities of this legion of Satan in their cruel and judicial mission. The following words will explain this to the reader: “They had the semblance of military imperial power, crowned, and with masculine energy, to those that met them; but they were, if seen behind and the secret disclosed, subject and weak: their faces were as the faces of men, their hair as the hair of women. But they were armed with a steeled conscience” (Synopsis, J. N. Darby, 5:531). Rapidity in execution would seem to be indicated by the sound of their wings.
Then after calling attention to the fact that their sting was in their tails and repeating that their commission to hurt men was limited to five months, John reveals that their king and leader is the angel of the bottomless pit (the abyss), and that his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, in Greek Apollyon. In both languages the meaning is nearly the same—the former being—Destruction, the latter Destroyer. Satan’s chief angel, the angel of the abyss, governs this destructive army; and the vengeance wielded falls on those who bear the name of the people of God (Jews), but who now, alas! have become apostates. It is under Satan’s wiles and temptations that they have fallen from their high estate; and now he, whose servants they have become, is their vindictive enemy and tormentor. So is it always when by his diabolical ingenuity he succeeds in entrapping his prey, even though he be but a blind instrument to execute the just judgment of God.
Revelation 9:11-15
The declaration is now made that the first woe is past and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter [after these things] (Rev. 9:12). Thereupon “the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an” (it should be the) “hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, [Rendering the hour instead of an hour, the indefinite article before day, month, and year should be omitted] for to slay the third part of men” (vss. 13-15). The golden altar is that mentioned in Revelation 8:3, the altar of incense; and the voice that proceeds from its four horns is without doubt that of God Himself; and coming out as it does from the four horns will signify that all the strength of the altar (a horn is an emblem of power) is against the objects of the succeeding woe, and this probably, as in chapter 8, in answer to the prayers of saints. All that God is, is in favor of His people who approach Him through Christ; but all that God is, is against His adversaries, and is seen to be so when He causes His judgments to fall upon the earth.
The mention of the river Euphrates shows that this “woe” takes its rise from the east and, inasmuch as the “third part” reappears here, falls upon the Roman empire in the east. The first four trumpets concerned the western empire; the fifth, apostate Jews in Palestine; and now the sixth deals with the eastern Roman empire, showing that there is order and method in the judgments. Four angels are the instrumentality of this woe. The reader will remember that angels are the administrators of God’s providential government; and we thus gather that this “woe” will spring up apparently from human causes, that God’s hand will not be made bare in it, though, as this scripture teaches, the source of all that leads to it is in heaven. Unbelief will discover nothing in it apart from man; but faith will connect all with God.
Observe, moreover, that the exact time of this “woe” has been divinely fixed. The angels are prepared for the hour, day, month, and year. What a striking proof of the fact that God ever holds the reins of governments in His own hand, and that nothing can be done by man without His permission! How quietly then the believer may rest at all times!
Revelation 9:16-19
The angels are loosed, and an army appears. The angels are God’s providential agents. The army is expressive of man’s power—man acting, it may be, solely from the lust of conquest, and yet, at the same time, the executor of God’s judicial will. It is an immense host—200,000,000; and the weapons of their warfare are fire, smoke, and brimstone, emblems of God’s direct judgment, which issue out of their horses’ mouths—while their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads—portraying Satanic vengeance. The heads of the horses, moreover, were as the heads of lions. The whole imagery sets forth God’s judgment executed, however, through Satan’s craft and power, portending an unparalleled woe. The effect is, that “the third part of men” (vs. 15) are “killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone” (vs. 18). And it would seem, from the general statement in verse 19, that with their tails “they do hurt,” (vs. 19) that others, if not killed, fall under the direct influence of this terrible judgment.
What then does this vision of judgment shadow forth? The interpreters of the historical school answer at once, “The irruption of the Turks into the eastern Roman empire in the fifteenth century.” It is quite true that this event happened, and that, coming from near the Euphrates as the Turks did, it might have been, as in the case of the Saracens, a shadow of the fulfillment of this prophecy. With the view taken of this book in these pages, with its divinely-given threefold division, the Turkish subjugation of the Roman eastern empire could be nothing more than a vague foreshadowing of this “woe”; for its real fulfillment can only take place after the rapture of the church. Premising this, it is quite possible that hordes from the East might in the future, as in the past, be the instruments of this divine vengeance—vengeance poured out upon a godless and a God—denying atheistical empire. The saints of that day will then discover whence the chastisement proceeds, and understand its real object and character as depicted in the written Word.
Revelation 9:20-21
The chapter concludes with an account of the hardened condition of those who “were not killed by these plagues.” (vs. 20) They “repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts” (vss. 20-21). What a commentary upon the hardened heart of man under the control of Satan! God’s judgments had been before their eyes. They had seen their fellows swept away from the earth by “these plagues” (vs. 20); but their conscience, seared as with a hot iron, was untouched. God had spoken and warned but they were utterly deaf to His solemn voice.
Note, too, the awful moral condition that will characterize the people of this day. God is refused, idols are accepted in His place; all ties between man and man are broken, and the flesh runs riot in every kind of abominable sin. And this is the issue of modern progress and civilization, of perfected methods of education, of enlightened laws for the improved government and reformation of society! For let it be remembered that this revived Roman empire, the sphere of this “woe,” will be the expression of man’s highest ideal, the issue in this world of all his strivings after the “perfectibility of the race.” Behold then the result!