Revelation 8:7

Revelation 8:7. And the first sounded, and there came hail and fire mingled in blood, and it was cast upon the earth. The language used both in this and the following judgments takes us back to the Old Testament, and more particularly to the plagues of Egypt. Pharaoh, who was visited by these plagues, was always to Israel the symbol of the cruel and oppressive treatment by the world of the children of God; while the judgments of the Almighty upon Egypt, vindicating His own glory and effecting the deliverance of His people, became types of the manner in which the same great ends shall be effected in every age of the Church's history. But the plagues of Egypt are not followed in their order, nor are they alone resorted to for the imagery of these visions. All the figures of judgment used in the Old Testament are familiar to the mind of the Apocalyptic Seer, and he uses them in the manner which he thinks best adapted to his plan. That of this verse is founded on Exodus 9:23-25, where we are told that ‘the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous;... and the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field.' In some respects the judgment of the first trumpet seems less terrible than that on Egypt. In other respects the terrors of the latter are increased. More particularly is this the case with the mention of ‘blood,' for the fire and hail are not mingled ‘with' blood. They are mingled ‘in' blood; that is, the blood is what we see; but beneath its surface are hailstones and coals of fire. It seems unwise to attempt to connect particular judgments, such as wars or pestilences or the incursions of barbarians or the demolition of cities, with the special things mentioned as objects of terror either in this or the following visions. By no enumeration could the Seer have given symbolical expression to all the variety of ways in which the world has suffered because it has refused the revelation of Divine truth offered it in Christ Jesus, and has persecuted those by whom, at one time in word, at another in life, that truth has been received and faithfully proclaimed. Any selection from these would, therefore, have been arbitrary, or might even have misled us as to the relative importance of different Divine judgments. It is more natural to think that these objects of terror simply denote judgment in general, and that they are to be interpreted neither of classes of judgments nor of individuals of a class. The effect of the judgments spoken of is, that the third part of the earth, that is, of the surface of the earth, and the third part of the trees, and all green grass, were burnt up.

Again, as at chap. Revelation 7:1 (see note), we are not to interpret these words in any specially metaphorical sense. The figure, as belonging to the third part of the earth, would indeed prove quite incongruous if we did, for the trees would necessarily perish when that portion of its surface was destroyed, and the statement of the next clause, that only a third part of the trees was burnt up, would be incorrect. Neither does it seem as if any particular meaning were intended by the ‘third part' mentioned. It was necessary to fix upon some fractional part in order to leave room for the heavier judgments that are yet to come, and the ‘third' may have been selected for no more important reason than that the numeral three plays so large a part in the general structure of the Apocalypse, or that the instruments of judgment mentioned immediately before bad been three in number.