Kalev Creative

 2/25/2024

We’re reading through Revelation along with NT Wright’s Revelation for Everyone. These notes include discussions of topics of additional interest and attempt connections with more Old Testament material. Quotations on this page are from the NET Bible.

8:7-9:21

As seven angels blow seven trumpets one at a time, plagues result, affecting part but not all of the earth. Each of the first four plagues is a kind of reversal or unmaking of the Creation order – elements of the sky harm the ground; elements of the land harm the sea; an element of the heavens harms the rivers; and part of the sun, moon, and stars become dark. A similar dynamic occurs in the Exodus 7-11 Egyptian plagues where dust and ash become tormenting elements in the air, hail and locusts from the sky destroy plants and animals on the ground, etc. Here, the destruction is widespread, but not complete. 1/3 of the earth burns, 1/3 of the sea turns to blood, 1/3 of the rivers are bitter and poisoned, and 1/3 of the heavens go dark.

For the next three trumpets, the focus shifts from impersonal elements of creation to deliberate acts by apparent spiritual beings. Revelation 1 told us that the seven stars held by the son of man are seven angels. If the imagery remains consistent, it is an angel who falls from sky to earth to open the abyss/underworld.

Smoke as “from a giant furnace” emerges (a phrase used in previous judgment passages including Sodom, the plagues on Egypt, and in Malachi 4), followed by bizarre hybrid beings with both human and animal attributes. We’ve looked at similar creatures before. Roman religion does not have many hybrid beings (though Faunus/Pan is one example), so John is likely reaching back to Daniel, Ezekiel, and other Exile-era writings that include imagery familiar to inhabitants of Assyria and Babylon – hybrid animal-human representations of spiritual beings whose animal attributes often corresponded to their functional roles.

The role of Revelation 9’s creatures is that of an invading army. The Exodus plagues and Joel show us an army of plant-consuming locusts, with Joel comparing them to predatory animals and a human army, but here they are hybrid locust/human/scorpion creatures whose purpose is to torment humans. Details like long hair and armor likely are intended to evoke the image of fearsome warriors, as ancient armies including the Greek Spartans and Rome’s northern enemy the Parthians were known for wearing their hair long to appear intimidating in battle. Like the hybrid beings pictured above, it seems likely these are best received as spiritual powers, warring creatures released from the abyss to bring a judgment limited by God’s decree.

Their king is named “Destroyer” in Hebrew and Greek. Apollyon’s name resemblance to the god Apollo suggests to some interpreters an allusion to one of the contemporary Roman rulers, possibly Nero who minted coins with images of himself portrayed as Apollo.

The “golden altar that is before God” is almost certainly the incense altar, in the Tabernacle positioned immediately in front of the curtain screening the Most Holy Place. The angel has poured incense and the prayers of the saints on that altar, and God now speaks from behind it, calling forth four bound angels and an army of judgment.

The Euphrates River has a long history in biblical narrative and prophecy as one of the rivers of Eden (Genesis 2), the idealized northern boundary of the land promised to Abraham (Genesis 15) and the Exodus and Conquest generations (Exodus 23, Deuteronomy 1 and 11), and the border of Solomon’s complete kingdom (1 Kings 4). In the ancient past, Babylon prospered on its banks. In Rome’s day, it was the border with Rome’s powerful, lasting enemy, the Parthians. Symbolically, it represents the border of the promised/fruitful/ordered land with the realm of the wilderness/hostile/predatory.

The number of 200,000,000 (2x10,000x10,000) mounted soldiers likely exceeds the population of the known world at the time. It is overwhelming force. The sulfur and serpent imagery indicate alliance with the ancient enemy of Genesis 3 and an origin in the underworld. With heads like lions, power like horses, and tails like snakes, they are super-predatory creatures commissioned to injure and kill.

Yet we learn that “The rest of humanity, who had not been killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands” and persist in the worship of other gods and corrupt behavior of the kind that in earlier stories, like the Flood (Genesis 6) and Sodom (Genesis 19), led to final judgment.