The φιάλαι shallow bowls or saucers, do not exhale a smoke (like the censer of Revelation 8:4) grateful to God; they are filled with poisonous, hot, bitter wine, while the smoke pours from the divine majesty, whose intense holiness (Revelation 15:4, as in O.T. theophanies) is breaking out in judgments against human sin (δόξα = the divine δύναμις in action or expression). Smouldering fires of indignation are now on the point of bursting into punishment from the arsenal of anger. Hence, till the plagues are over, God's presence is unendurable (as in Enoch xiv. 18 f.). This emphasis on the unapproachable, austere majesty of God is consonant with the general religious feeling reflected in the Apocalypse (cf. on Revelation 1:2).

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Old Testament