The Mystery of Ephraim

Chapter 9 starts the woe, woe, woe; three times to the inhabitants of the earth; incorporating all peoples, with heavy calamities; answerable to the three trumpets soon to be blown; and which are therefore called the woe trumpets.

Revelation 9

¹ And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth; and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit.

² And he opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. — the fifth angel blows his trumpet, and a star falls; the key of the bottomless pit is given to him, which being opened by it, out of it comes smoke to the darkening of the sun and air, and out of the smoke locusts, who have power like scorpions.

³ And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth; and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. — and there came out of the smoke locusts the earth…. not literally, for these locusts might not meddle with the grass, nor any green thing, or tree, as locusts do, only men, Revelation 9:4; and had a king over them, Revelation 9:11; which locusts have not.

⁴ And it was commanded to them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those men who have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

Sealing on their foreheads; this could be a parallel in Ezekiel:9:4;

and the Lord said unto him, “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and who cry because of all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof.” — and you shall mark a sign: you shall mark a sign on the foreheads of the righteous men in order to show the destroyers those men whom they should not strike.

Gill: it is a Rabbinical thought, mentioned by Kimchi that Gabriel had orders to write the letter ת (tav; the last letter of the alphabet) in ink upon the foreheads of the righteous, which signified תחיה, “thou shall live”. And for the wicked the same letter ת were written in blood upon the foreheads, but it signified תמות, “thou shall die”.

⁵ And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months; and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. — it was granted to them (are they the same as the “six men” or six destroyers in Ezekiel 9:2?) that they should not kill them (the people still living on earth), but should torture them five months; with excruciating pain, and their torture is as the torture of a scorpion when it strikes a man;

— “four angels”, as some think, because of the four names of Saracens, Turks, Tartars, and Arabians, though all Mahometans. 

⁶ And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. — the scorpion signified a vicious and dangerous opponent, whose attacks are worse than death; it signifies how troublesome and afflictive those locusts were; as in Ezekiel 2:6.

⁷ And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared for battle; and on their heads were, as it were, crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. — the heads of locusts are very much like the heads of horses: and here they are compared to horses;

— it was the east wind which brought the locusts on Egypt Exodus 10:13, and they must therefore have come from some area of Arabia – for Arabia is the land that lies over Egypt in the east.

And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts, Exodus 10:13

Gill: and it is a remarkable coincidence that Muslim tradition speaks of locusts having dropped into the hands of Mahomet, bearing on their wings this inscription – “we are the army of the most high God; we are the ninety and nine eggs, and if the hundred should be made perfect, we should consume the whole world, and whatever is in it.”

Gill described “Mahomet the king of the locusts.”

Mahomet were referred to as:

(a) Mohammed, the founder of Islam; and who gave birth to over a billion of Muslims today;

(b) Mehmed II, at the age of 21, the General of the Ottomans Turks who conquered Constantinople in 1453 after 53 days of siege. After the conquest Mehmed claimed the title “Caesar” of the Roman Empire based on the fact that Constantinople had been the seat and capital of the surviving Eastern Roman Empire since its consecration in 330 AD by Emperor Constantine.

⁸ And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. — and their faces like faces of men, and they had hair the hair of women, and their teeth like those of lions: weird descriptions, could these vile men be using chemical or germ warfare like those Unit 731 or those flying planes spraying Orange Agents?

⁹ And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots with many horses running to battle. — the hardness of their hearts, their thick skulls for their protection; the whirring noise made by them when in flight; these sound like war-like machines, the helicopters.

¹⁰ And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stingers in their tails; and their power was to hurt men five months.

¹¹ And they had a king over them, the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue his name is Apollyon. — Benson: Abaddon in Hebrew, and Apollyon in Greek; that is, the destroyer. Mede imagines that this is some allusion to the name of Obodas, the common name of the kings of that part of Arabia from whence Mohammed came, as Pharaoh was the common name of the kings of Egypt, and Cesar of the emperors of Rome; and such allusions are not unusual in the style of Scripture;

— and they had a king over them…. the ‘locusts’ has a king a “destroyer” over them, who can he be? An Antichrist? A Mahdi? Commentator Matthew Henry (1708) believed Abaddon to be the Antichrist.

¹² One woe is past; and behold, there come two more woes hereafter. — one woe is past…. one of the three woe trumpets, the first of them; that is, in the vision which John had saw:

— and behold there come two woes more hereafter; under the blowing of the sixth and seventh trumpets.

¹³ And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which stands before God,

¹⁴ saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Loose the four angels who are bound in the great river Euphrates.” — loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates; not the four angels in Revelation 7:1; they stood upon the four corners of the earth; these were in, or at the river Euphrates; they held the four winds, that they should not blow.

¹⁵ And the four angels were loosed, who had been prepared for an hour and a day and a month and a year, to slay a third part of men. — for to slay the third part of men; which may in general denote their readiness, vigilance, and quick dispatch: they lay for a good while hovering over the banks of the river Euphrates, as if they were waiting for an order;

— that would be well over 2 billion people; killed!

¹⁶ And the number of the army of horsemen was two hundred thousand thousand, and I heard the number of them. — the army of horsemen of two hundred thousand thousand; or “two myriads of myriads”; two hundred millions;

— many commentators, like Gill, Benson, Kretzmann, etc, mentioned the Turk attack the Roman Empire in the year 1453, when Turkish Mahomet took Constantinople, “filled the hearts of the Mohammedan hordes, fire and smoke and sulfur issuing out of their mouths (Kretzmann);”

— Benson: when Mohammed the Second besieged Constantinople, he had about four hundred thousand men in his army, besides a powerful fleet of thirty larger and two hundred lesser ships;

— could a parallel occurs again? Good to watch Iran and Turkey, with a significant higher number of 200,000,000.

And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared, Revelation 16:12.

¹⁷ And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and they that sat on them had breastplates of fire and of jacinth and brimstone; and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions, and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.

¹⁸ By these three was a third part of men killed by the fire and by the smoke and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. — a third part of mankind would be well over two billions; that’s a great amount!

¹⁹ For their power is in their mouth and in their tails; for their tails were like unto serpents and had heads, and with them they cause hurt.

²⁰ And the rest of the men, who were not killed by these plagues, yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold and silver, and brass and stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk;

²¹ neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. — and the rest of men, that were not killed in these plagues, yet repented not of the works of their hands, not to worship demons and idols of gold and of silver; and they repented not of their murders nor of their magic arts nor of their fornications nor of their thefts;

— even as Pharaoh hardened his heart in spite of the many evidences of God’s power performed in his sight, even as the children of Israel in the wilderness refused again and again to turn to the Lord in true repentance, in spite of the many miracles by which He sought to influence them, thus it has ever been in the history of the world;

— the Lord may send ever so many plagues, wars, pestilences, famines, and yet, as soon as He withdraws His chastening hand, men harden their hearts once more and refuse to repent of the works of their hands, of their idolatry. This is a description of the abyss of human depravity, such a picture as we see but rarely in its entirety, although glimpses are seen often enough in these last days before the coming of the Lord.

Revelation 10

¹ And I saw another mighty angel (angelon ἄγγελον) come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud; and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. — angelon ἄγγελον here or angelou ἀγγέλου, not angelous ἄγγελος);

and I saw another strong angel descending out of heaven, clad in a cloud, and a rainbow on his head and his face like the sun and his feet like columns of fire;

— a parallel scene in the wilderness, descended on Mount Sinai, but by God, dwelt in the tabernacle and later in the temple; later left on the Temple Mount and ascended to heaven.

² And he had in his hand a little book open. And he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,

βιβλαριδιον, a little book, different from the βιβλιον or book, mentioned before: and it was open, that all men might freely read and consider it. It was indeed a codicil or supplement to the larger book, and comes along with the sixth trumpet;

— and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left on the earth; to show the extent of his power and commission; this angel set his right foot on the sea toward the west, his left on the land toward the east, so that he looked southward;

— southward, that is, toward the great continent of Africa, but bits of Asia; or this angel might be given authority over land and sea?

— but the Q remains, what is the little book? We are told it’s open and that all men could read it freely, not sealed. So what is its message?

— perhaps since it is “open” as the seals were unloosed, and the things in it revealed, perhaps it represents the numerous books and booklets of Christian literatures we are flooded with, every men can study these literatures on our own time and space?

— of course that include online Bibles of different versions, Septuagint, Targum, Talmud, various rabbis and theology experts from the last many hundred years; now internet excess for easy study.

³ and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth. And when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.

⁴ And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write, and I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me, “Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.” — John heard the voice, was going to put it down in writing, but he was forbidden to write them down;

— so the contents of the seven thunders remain sealed; kept secret from mankind, at least for the time being; would they be revealed later? (more at the end)

⁵ And the angel (ἄγγελος), whom I saw standing upon the sea and upon the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven.

⁶ And he swore by Him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are therein, and the earth and the things that are therein, and the sea and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer,

⁷ but that in the days of the voice of the seventh angel (ἀγγέλου), when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets. — that time should be no longer; that is, that these times should wait be no longer; that these dates would be up, and the events affixed to them be accomplished, when the seventh angel should begin to sound his trumpet: the same divisions of time are made in Revelation 12:14.

⁸ And the voice which I heard from heaven spoke unto me again and said, “Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel (ἀγγέλου) who standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.”

⁹ And I went unto the angel (ἄγγελον) and said unto him, “Give me the little book.” And he said unto me, “Take it and eat it up, and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.” — of course the taste of the little book start with the mouth first, which is sweet as honey, then when eaten, it goes down to the belly, and it is bitter.

¹⁰ And I took the little book out of the angel’s (ἀγγέλου) hand and ate it up, and it was in my mouth sweet as honey; and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter. — perhaps it goes like this: the message of the Gospel that mankind will be saved by grace, which is sweet, but that before attaining it, mankind has to go through lots of trials and tribulations, even being martyred, which is bitter, to get into the kingdom.

¹¹ And he said unto me, “Thou must prophesy again before many peoples and nations, and tongues and kings.” — thou must prophesy again; if the prophecy begin here again anew, the subject be resumed from the beginning, and all that follows be contained in the little book, then the little book contains more matter than the larger book;

— the little book, the supplement includes the numerous literatures that we have, will go to the nations, preached and re-preached; our knowledge increases day by day.

~~~

But the contents of the seven thunders remain sealed; it’s kept a secret from mankind, at least for the time being; would they be revealed soon? We can be sure they will be revealed. The Question is when will that be.

The Greek word translated “thunder” means “to roar.” Thunder is often a mark of judgement as in I Samuel 2:10, II Samuel 22:14, and in Revelation 8:5, 11:19, 16:18, so these seven powerful voices are crying out for God’s judgement upon the whole earth. The thunder represents the voice of God. Psalm 18:13 says, “The LORD thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded.”

Further evidence of the seven thunders being the voice of God is in Revelation 4:5: From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder; as in Mount Sinai before the children of Israel. There are seven spirits of God with seven lamps all blazing before the throne. Again the voice of God is depicted as thunderous rumblings that display the power, majesty and glory of our mighty Lord to give the whole world an unique Mount Sinai experience. In this verse, John saw a preview of the divine wrath to be poured out on the earth as described in full from Revelation chapters 16 to 19.

The seven thunders are the only words in Revelation that are still sealed. Would these seven thunders be revealed in our lifetime?

~ by Joel Huan on October 19, 2021.

Posted in Revelation