Vision Five - the Seven Plagues of Wrath
Revelation Chapter 16
When Revelation 15:1 refers to the contents of these bowls as plagues, one set of imagery that comes to mind is
the sequence of plagues in Exodus that Moses called on the nation of Egypt to persuade the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go.
Another relevant image is found in
Leviticus 26:14-39,
where God warns these same Israelites that were freed by His plagues that He would send worse plagues to them if they refused
to follow His will. Therefore, these bowls of wrath complete the promise that God made about humanity's defiance of His will.
There is an exact parallel between the actions of each bowl and the tribulations described with the seven trumpets earlier. In
order, these seven trumpets and bowls strike the earth, the sea, the rivers and springs, the sun, create darkness, dry up the
Euphrates, and invoke a loud voice from heaven. There are purposeful differences - the trumpets brought tribulation and affected
a third of the world, while the bowls bring judgement and affect all the world. Also, these judgements immediately affect humanity,
while the first of the tribulations directly affected nature.
The first three bowls (16:2 - 16:4)
2 And the first went, and poured out his vial ["bowl"] upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous ["ugly and painful"] sore
upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.
This parallels the sixth Egyptian plague, in
Exodus 9:8-12. There
is also a parallel and contrast with the story of Job, where he was given "ugly and painful sores" in
Job 2:1-10. Job's response
to "unearned" judgement was to praise God; the inhabitants of the earth, receiving "earned" judgement, will later be seen cursing God.
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.
4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
These two plagues parallel the first Egyptian plague, in
Exodus 7:14-20, with
the difference in Egypt, that there was only fresh water to afflict.
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
In parallel to the fourth vision, there are two voices, representing a true witness, between the third and
fourth angels and bowls. The message of this testimony is that God's wrath is just, because it responds in kind to the evil
that these unrepentant people have done.
There is no where else in scripture that a specific "angel of water" is mentioned. However, the identity given to this angel lends
credibility the assessment of the fairness of the plague on the waters. This is also the only place where the altar speaks, although
in 9:13, a voice came from among the four horns of the altar of incense. The altar in this case is appropriate as it relates to the
sacrifice of the lives of the faithful.
Notice here again the reference to God who are and was, with no longer the need of a reference to He who is to come.
8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they
repented not to give him glory.
The reaction of those on earth is a reminder that God's mercy was so patient that everyone who might have
repented and turned to God had done so, and all that were left on earth were those that would never follow God. This clarifies
that although the time was up and the judgement had started, God was not "shutting the door" on the unrepentant, they
were "slamming the door" on the only true Power.
10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed
their tongues for pain,
11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.
That this plague strikes the counterfeit throne of the first beast emphasizes the total defeat of the Satan
and his forces.
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the
kings of the east might be prepared.
To first century Christians, the kings of the east would have meant the Parthians, and their leader would have been the Nero. This
plague partially represents the fall of the Roman empire by removing the geographical barriers to a Parthian invasion. However, this
image is not of the "good" Parthians fighting the "bad" Romans. John is showing that God is allowing, encouraging, even demanding all
the world's power to assemble and stand up to Him. God challenged Job in
Job 38:3 to "gird up
your loins like a man, I will question you and you shall declare to me," but Job responded correctly, with humility and repentance. In
this final battle, Satan and his human followers have refused and will continue to refuse to repent.
There is a historical parallel to drying up the Euphrates, with a reference to this found in
Isaiah 44:27-28. Cyrus
the Persian found when he went to attack Babylon that the defenses of the city were too strong for his army to overcome. However,
since the Euphrates River ran under the city walls, Cyrus came up with an inventive idea to divert the flow of the river. With this done,
he marched his army under the city walls on the dry river bed and conquered the city. Since John uses Babylon frequently to
refer to Rome, this historical reference provides another foretelling of the downfall of Rome.
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and
out of the mouth of the false prophet.
At one level, this is a reference to the plague of frogs in
Exodus 8:2-14. It is
also a reminder that these judgements were aimed at the evil trinity along with their followers. This evil theme is also seen in the instruction in
Leviticus 11:10 that
frogs were to be considered unclean and "detestable." Frogs were widely considered as the epitome of empty rhetoric, or as Augustine
wrote, "The frog is the most loquacious of vanities." In the Persian religion, probably widely known in Asia Minor, frogs were the
harbingers of plagues and the agents of the Power of darkness. With all this, there is also an absurdity to the forces that this false
trinity can muster -- not dominating lions, deadly leopards, ferocious bears, mighty oxen, or even goats -- but frogs.
14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather
them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
These frogs clearly represent superstitions, deceptions, and lies, in the form of demons in opposition to God, rallying everyone on
earth in opposition to God. This brings about the ultimate end, the "great day of God."
15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
This verse is placed in parentheses in almost every modern translation. This quotation comes from the Risen
Christ to John's readers, with the omission of an identification of the speaker giving more emphasis that Christ is the source of
the saying. The parallels to this message include
Luke 12:35-40, in
the context of Christ's apocryphal teaching,
Matthew 25:13, with the unprepared bridesmaids, and
1 Thessalonians 5:2-6, with
a thief in the night. This repetition adds another condition to the analogies in chapters 2 and 3 of being either awake or
asleep. With the churches in Asia Minor and the problem of "lukewarm" Christianity, Christ warns that those awake may be "ready,"
but still could be humiliated by their nakedness and the lack of attention to their preparation.
16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
There is a catch to the name of the location identified, for there is no "Har-Mageddon." This name literally means
the mountain of Mageddon, which most likely did not exist. The name "Mageddon" most likey refers to "Megiddo," as Megiddo was
the site of many battles, as in
2 Kings 9:14-27 and
2 Kings 23:29. However,
Megiddo is a city in the flatlands on a key road in Palestine between the coastal plains and the Plain of Esdraelon. In this name may be
a similar logic to that Samuel Butler used in his book Erewhon ("nowhere" spelled backwards), which was a satire of the English
government. I believe John did not intend for the location of this final battle to be identified, so called it a contradictory name.
Another of these key battles in the vicinity of Megiddo is recorded in
Judges 4:1-5:31, where
Sisera had 900 iron chariots ready to attack the almost unarmed troops of Israel at Mount Tabor. However, the Lord fought and
disabled the opposing army and their weapons, and they all were killed.
John brings us to the edge of the great final battle, but stops there, just as he has done in earlier visions. This final battle isn't seen
until chapter 19.
17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the
throne, saying, It is done.
This loud voice, God's voice, uses the perfect tense of the Greek verb, meaning "it has been accomplished and
remains so forever." The verb here is different from the earlier "it is finished," carrying more of a meaning that it came to pass.
This final bowl was poured into the air, both a dramatic gesture from the angel and a direct confrontation to the three demonic frogs. In
Ephesians 2:2, Paul makes
reference to a common belief of the time that the air was the habitation of demons and evil spirits.
18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were
upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
God's power, indicated over and again by these signs, is now on earth in more completeness that ever in human history.
19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before
God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
20 And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent [~100 pounds]: and men blasphemed
God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.
Evil humanity, evil Babylon, and even the mountains and islands are "laid low" before God, so that all human structure
completely collapses. John even uses a different word, plege, which means a "plague, wound, or calamity," to distinguish
this incident from the other plagues, so that this is understood as the decisive end event.
While the identity of the "great city" in this verse is not important, there is some disagreement in which city this means. Some
interpret it to mean Jerusalem, especially in the context of the condemnation of Jerusalem for taking part in the killing
of the two witnesses in 11:8. It is more likely Rome (=Babylon), because of the impact on the rest of "the cities of the nations" and
the special condemnation of Babylon that follows.
In our wonderment of a God that readily "forgives and forgets," we must remember that it is a "contrite heart"
(Psalm 51:17) that
must ask for God's forgiveness. God's grace and God's patience are incredible, but when rejected as great Babylon has done,
God has an incredible memory!
Applicability for today
Charles Talbert draws on the progression of evil and judgement throughout the Bible to place these seven bowls
of wrath in context. In
Genesis chapters 6-9, God noted
that evil was so widespread that only Noah and his family were saved when God passed judgement and destroyed the world by
flood. There is an optimism God expressed towards sin in the world by this action, implying that with a fresh start and a dramatic
sign of God's power and love, that people would be faithful. Even though the only humans left on earth were those that had been saved
because of their faithfulness, those who had seen God's intervention in their lives, both Noah and his son, Ham, are recorded as
sinning in
Genesis 9:20-27.
The same story happens in the book of Exodus, as Moses leads the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, through incredible
signs of God's power like the parting of the Red Sea. In
Exodus 19, God leads
the people to Mt. Sinai and shows His greatness and presence on top of the mountain, then calls Moses up the mountain to receive
a covenant between God and His people. But in
Exodus 32, we read that
before Moses had returned from the presence of God, these people, within eyesight of God's power and glory, had decided to make
themselves a god in the image of a golden calf.
The book of Jeremiah describes the sin into which the southern kingdom of Judah had fallen, and describes the punishment that God
will hand down in the destruction of Judah by the Babylonians. Jeremiah then prophesies that the faithful remnant will be allowed to
come out of Babylon and rebuild the nation. This came about such that the Jews that fell away from their beliefs stayed in Babylon
and those that were true to God came back to rebuild Jerusalem. However, the books of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi portray
that instead of the rebuilt Judah being faithful, the people were as sinful or moreso than they had been before the exile.
By the time of Christ, faithful Hebrew scholars recognized in these cycles of God's patient punishment and restoration a sense of how
sinful mankind truly is, and developed a deep pessimism towards Evil and humanity's inability to resist it. No matter how good God is
to people, or how clear and firm He is in conveying his will, we will give in to evil. Paul, a formidable Biblical scholar before he became
a Christian missionary, states it eloquently in
Romans 7:21-25:
21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which
is in my members.
24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
What God does at the End Time is consistent with this pessimistically realistic view of Evil and of humanity's weakness
to oppose evil. God obliterates Evil from the earth and does not allow Satan, his angels, or his followers to enter His new heaven and
new earth. Only by this radical surgery can God restore the beauty and holiness of His creation.
What then does God expect from a Christian in this fight against Evil? Although redeemed, although we have God's presence residing
in our lives, we are hopelessly weak in opposing evil. Our strength, our wisdom, our resolve is futility. Anything that we can "do"
or "say" will fail, except when we draw close to God in our prayer and our worship. While our humanistic view of life, with it's emphasis
on personal worth and "empowerment" would see worship and meditation as an interlude between meaningful activity, we must in
humility recognize prayer as the only activity that we should choose to do for God, so that in our prayer, submission, and worship,
God can choose for us what He wants us to do.
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