The Seventh Seal. Chap. 8 Revelation 8:1 1. _there was silence_ All the promised signs of Christ's Coming have been fulfilled everything has, apparently, been made ready for it: and we expect Him to come, and the world to come to an end: but the series of signs concludes not with a catastrophe but i... [ Continue Reading ]
The Seven Trumpets. Chap. Revelation 8:2 to Revelation 11:19 2. _the seven angels which stood_ Should be, WHICH STAND. It is probably a designation of seven Angels (commonly, perhaps correctly, called Archangels) who permanently enjoy special nearness to God. We have in Tob 12:15 an evidence of pop... [ Continue Reading ]
The Angel with the Golden Censer, Revelation 8:3-6 3. _another angel_ In Tobit, l.c. it is the seven Angels themselves who present the prayers of the Saints before God: but, though the detail varies, the passages agree in assigning a priestly work to Angels on behalf of God's people on earth. _at t... [ Continue Reading ]
_which came with_ Again a misleading gloss: the most literal translation is, AND THERE WENT UP THE SMOKE OF THE INCENSE FOR THE PRAYERS OF THE SAINTS, OUT OF THE HAND OF THE ANGEL, BEFORE GOD. It went up for the prayers of the Saints, i.e. to consecrate and ratify them, to unite _all_His spiritual c... [ Continue Reading ]
_and cast it_ Probably cast the censer full of burning coals, but possibly only "scattered the fire," as Numbers 16:37. The meaning must be, to represent the same instrument as obtaining God's mercy on His people, and executing His vengeance on His enemies: cf. Ezekiel 10:2. _there were voices_, &c... [ Continue Reading ]
The First Trumpet, Revelation 8:7 7. _The first angel_ Read, AND THE FIRST. _hail and fire mingled with blood_ Cf. Exodus 9:24: but here the _blood_marks the plague as more terrible, and more distinctly miraculous. "The stones of hail and the balls of fire fell in a shower of blood, just as hail a... [ Continue Reading ]
The Second Trumpet, Revelation 8:8-9 8. _a great mountain burning with fire_ Cf. Jeremiah 51:25. It can hardly be said how far the image may have been suggested to either prophet by the natural phenomenon of a volcano: of the two, St John is likelier to have seen one than Jeremiah. Volcanoes are al... [ Continue Reading ]
The Third Trumpet, Revelation 8:10-11 10. _burning as it were a lamp_ Rather, LIKE A TORCH, with a flaring trail of fire. The same image is used of natural shooting stars, e.g. Verg. _Aen._ii. 694.... [ Continue Reading ]
_became wormwood_ We are perhaps to be reminded, as before, of the plagues in Egypt, so here of the mercy to Israel, Exodus 15:25: here, as those are intensified, so that is reversed. _many men died_ Of course such water would be unwholesome for ordinary use, though wormwood is not exactly poisonou... [ Continue Reading ]
The Fourth Trumpet, Revelation 8:12-13 12. _the third part of the sun_, &c. Here we may think either of the Egyptian plague of darkness, Exodus 10:21 sqq., or of a _reversal_(as in the last case) of the blessing of Isaiah 30:26. There, as here, there seems to be no distinction made between an incre... [ Continue Reading ]
_an angel_ Read, AN EAGLE: or more literally ONE EAGLE. But apparently there was a tendency in late Hebrew for the numeral to sink, as in modern languages, into a mere indefinite article; and here, and perhaps in one or two other places, we seem to have it so used in the N. T.: e.g. Matthew 8:19; Ma... [ Continue Reading ]