Revelation 8:6

f. The fresh series of disasters does not advance matters any further than the previous seal-series. Both lead up to the final catastrophe, and upon the edge of it melt into a further development which practically goes over the same ground once more. This reflects of course literary artifice, not any successive or continuous scheme of events; it is iterative not historically chronological. It is doubtful if the prophet intended to suggest the idea which occurs to a modern mind, viz., that such apparent cycles seem to recur in history. At certain epochs everything seems to be working up to some mighty climax for which men look in dread or hope, and yet the world rights itself for another epoch; the dénouement fades for the time being into the far horizon; the powers of evil gather themselves afresh in other forms. Neither here nor in the previous seven cycles can the astrological reference (to the colours and characteristics of the planets, cp. Exp. Ti. xx. 426 427) be worked out with any plausibility.

Revelation 8:6 In the scheme of the trumpet-visions, as of the seal-visions, the first four are differentiated from the next three; the fifth and sixth in both cases stand by themselves and are separated by a considerable interlude from the closing seventh. It is remarkable that even the final trumpet of Revelation 11:15 f. does not correspond to the loud trumpet-blast which according to Jewish and early Christian tradition, was to awaken the dead to resurrection or to rally the saints (Matthew 24:31) at the close of the world. The Apocalypse knows nothing of this feature, nor of the tradition (preserved by R. Akiba) that the process of the resurrection would be accompanied by seven trumpet-peals from God. The first four trumpets set in motion forces of ruin that fall on natural objects; in Sap. 5:17 23 (Revelation 16:17-21) the world of nature is used directly by God to punish men. The closing three concern human life, i.e., the godless inhabitants of the earth. The general idea is that of the Jewish tradition (see on Revelation 15:2) which prefaced the second great redemption by disasters analogous to those preceding the first: cf. e.g., Sohar Exodus 4 b, tempore quo se reuelabit rex Messias, faciet Deus omnia ista miracula, prodigia et divinae uirtutis opera coram Israele, quae fecit olim in Aegypto, quemadmodum scriptum est Micah 7:15; also Jalkut Sim. i. 56 b, Targ. Jon. on Zechariah 10:11, etc. The disasters remind one now and then of the Egyptian plagues (cf. Jos. Ant. ii. 14 15; also Amos 4:4 f., Isaiah 9:7 f.). The first four visit earth, sea, waters, and the sky. Hail-showers were a traditional scourge and weapon of the divine armoury; on their association with thunderstorms see G. A. Smith's Hist. Geog. 64, 65.