Revelation 8:6-13
Trumpets and Judgment (1)

In the Old Testament, trumpets announced an alarm that holy judgment was to be engaged against Israel’s enemy, or against Israel as God’s enemy. Thus, Joshua against Jericho (Joshua 6), or Gideon against the Midianites (Judges 7), or the Babylonians against Israel (Jeremiah 4).

The Joshua/Jericho pattern is particularly interesting because in the that story it was the seventh sound of the trumpet that brought upon Jericho the final cataclysmic destruction of the city walls. The first six were portents of judgment. Likewise the first six trumpets in Revelation are anticipatory of the final judgment of the "Great City" (11:8) of which the battle of Jericho is the most memorable Old Testament incident in which trumpets played a major role. Now, when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the LORD had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until we had crossed over, their hearts melted and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites. At that time the LORD said to Joshua, "Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again." So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath Haaraloth. Now this is why he did so: All those who came out of Egypt -- all the men of military age -- died in the desert on the way after leaving Egypt. All the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the desert during the journey from Egypt had not. (Josh. 6:1-5).

Trumpets were also used for in the wilderness period as signals for marching, battles and festivals (Numb. 10:1-2). Perhaps, the most prominent use of trumpets was to announce the beginning of Rosh-Hashanah, or New Year’s Day which signaled the holiest Day of year fourteen days later, Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement (Numb. 29:1-6). Trumpets also signaled the beginning of the year of Jubilee, proclaiming liberty for all captives and oppressed (Lev. 25:8-9).

But the New Testament, too, with its references to the Second Coming as accompanied by the sound of trumpets add to the significance of the trumpets in Revelation 8 and 9. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first (1 Thess 4:16).  And He will send His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other (Matt. 24:31).  Both references allude to Isaiah 27:13: "And in that day a great trumpet will sound. Those who were perishing in Assyria and those who were exiled in Egypt will come and worship the LORD on the holy mountain in Jerusalem."

Together these images provide expectations of war, a new beginning, of final release from captivity, of cleansing from sin and its consequences. The trumpets signal the dawning of the kingdom of God in all its finality and fullness.

Just as in the case of the seven seals, the seven trumpets portray six trumpets depicting a series of happenings or calamities that will repeatedly occur throughout the history of the world (8:6-9:21), followed by seventh trumpet depicting the Day of Judgment itself (11:15-19).

1. It is crucially important for us to realize that, just as in the case of the seven seals, the seven trumpets are God’s responses to the prayers of the persecuted saints in 6:10.  And, since the first six seals, as well as the first six trumpets, represent judgments of God in history. These temporal judgments are upon "the inhabitants on the earth" (note the repetition of the phrase at 6:10, 8:11 and 11:10). Given the identification of the seventh trumpet (11:15-19) with the Day of Judgment, and given the fact that a similar identification was made with the seventh seal (8:1-5), it follows that the seven trumpets have to interpreted in some way as a repetition of what has already been portrayed by the first six seals in chapters 6 and 7. It is the form of a recapitulation. The author is telling the same story all over again, only with additional detail and stress.

2. There is, however, a difference of emphasis between the seals and the trumpets. Whereas the seals in particular had emphasized the way in which God’s church would be kept safe (though not in any way removed from [raptured!] the trials), the trumpets seem to emphasize the judgment of God upon the enemies of the church. The seals seem concerned to answer the question: How will the people of God survive these judgments?   The trumpets seem to answer another question: What can unbelievers expect from these judgments?

3. That these judgments represent actions of God in history seems to be confirmed by the fact that only a "third" (thirteen times in verses 7-12) is affected.  The judgments do not mark a termination point. They are not final in any sense, but warnings, precursors of the final judgment of God. These serve notice of God’s intent.

4. Every part of the universe is affected: earth, including: trees, grass, mountains, and rivers; seas and rivers; the moon and stars. There is no place to hide from the wrath of God.

5. But are we to think of these judgments merely, or exclusively in "natural disaster" terms? Of course, the very term "natural" disaster awakens us to a false notion, for in one sense, these things are not natural; they are interventions of wrath by a divine hand. God is at work in every movement of the universe. Even in earthquakes and storms, God is present. It is an idolatrous concept of God that removes him from the events of this universe. It is a denial of providence. The puritan, Thomas Brooks, described the power of God in these terms: "The sovereignty of God is that golden scepter in His hand by which He will make all bow, either by His Word or by His works, by His mercies or by His judgments."  But, this is to miss the literary features that John is employing here from the Old Testament depiction of the Egyptian plagues, features that would readily have captured the imaginations of the early Christians to whom Revelation was written.

Trumpet Description Revelation Exodus
First hail and fire 8:7 9:22-25.
Second/Third the Nile turning into blood 8:8-11 7:15-25
Fourth darkness over Egypt 8:12 10:21-23
Fifth locusts 9:1-11 10:12-15

The use of Exodus-type language to depict may give us a clue as to what is intended here in Revelation. The history of the world is one of the history of two seeds: the seed of the woman which culminates in the coming of Christ and His Second Coming in Judgment of the world (Gen. 3:15; Rev. 22:20). Exodus portrays the Covenant God of Israel as the only true; the Egyptian gods are powerless before him. So in the final book of the Bible, the rule and reign of God is portrayed in cosmic dimensions.

6. Are we, then, to interpret these events literally?  If by "literally" we mean "in accord with literary patterns", then the answer is affirmative.  Mountains, for example (the second trumpet, 8:8) are often used to describe kingdoms in the Bible (Isa. 41:15; 42:15; Ezek. 35:2-7; Zech. 4:7). Jewish readers familiar with this imagery, of a blazing mountain being hurled into the sea, would readily understand the literary allusion to the triumph of God over all the hostile kingdoms of the world.  We are, then, not to look for historical accounts of volcanoes or the like as fulfillments of this prophecy. Rather, the allusions are to far greater works of destruction in the collapse of every hostile force arraigned against the Lord. The similarity of verse 8 with that of 18:21 might lead us to suppose that the mountain view, here, is that of Babylon the Great, the anti-Christ kingdom that the kingdom of God will eventually overthrow. Revelation picks up the Old Testament allusion to Babylon scattered throughout the prophets and sees it as representative of what will eventually happen to the kingdoms (kingdom!) of this world. This anti-Christian kingdom is to be specifically identified in chapters 11-18 as Babylon.

7. Similarly, the "great star" of verse 10 is to be understood as having Old Testament significance. One such passage is Isaiah 14:12-15 where the fall of Satan is thought to be depicted, and referred to as "morning star."   Here he is called "Wormwood" because of the bitterness he brings to all living water (an opposite story to the cleansing of the bitter waters at Marah at Exod. 15:25).  It is a figure of speech used before in such passages as Deut. 29:17-18 – where the allusion is to idolatry; Prov. 5:4; Lam. 3:15, 19; Amos 5:7; 6:12).   Idolatry is that which naturally springs up in the mind fallen man. "Man’s mind is a perpetual factory of idols," wrote Calvin in the Institutes.

8. The fourth trumpet parallels the Egyptian plague on the sun god, Ra, of whom Pharaoh was considered to be an incarnation, when darkness descends on the face of the earth for three days (Exod. 10:21-23).  Again, idolatry is seen as the problem.

What about organized religion and the stupidity of alliances with co-religionists, afraid that one day we shall wake up to find that atheism has ruled the world.  That is a denial of Romans 1.

9. To prepare us for the final three trumpets a visions of eagle is announced in which it is heard to cry a warning as to their severity, thereby mimicking the increased severity of the plagues of Egypt (8:13; other versions have "angel" here and not "eagle"). Their character is identified as "woes" (8:13; 9:12). Covenant disobedience had been predicted in the Old Testament as punishable by the coming of Assyrians and Babylonians, whose language the Jews would not understand, and announced using the picture of an eagle (Deut 28:49).   Prophets who lived through this judgment, like Jeremiah, picked up the metaphor: "This is what the LORD says: ‘Look!  An eagle is swooping down…’" (Jer. 48:40).

10. The fifth trumpet is announced in a similar way to that of the third trumpet in 8:10, with an allusion to "a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth" (9:1). Because of what follows, it is impossible (even for extreme literalists) not to interpret this figuratively (note the use of "looked like" in 9:7 when comparing locusts to horses in battle dress, which lends support for the interpretation of the third trumpet in a figurative way also).  Whilst some interpreters see here a reference to a "good" (unfallen) angel, seeing a parallel picture in 10:1, it is hard not to pick up the allusion that Jesus makes to the disciples mission, whenever he said: "I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven" (Luke 10:18). The entire allusion sounds like 12:9, where the Fall of Satan is described in this way: "The great dragon was hurled down -- that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him."  In that case, the picture here is of a fallen angel, an interpretation confirmed by the name given to him as the angel of the Abyss, "Apollyon" or "Destroyer" (9:11; note the repetition of "Abyss" in 9:1 and 9:11).

11. The surrealist picture given is of an evil being (Apollyon) put in charge of an army of scorpions. Locusts wearing iron breastplates will ascend from the pit of hell. These seemingly insignificant creatures will swell in size so that they look like horses dressed for battle. The whirr of their wings will sound like the thundering of horses’ hooves. They bare teeth that look like those of the lion, and in their tail is the sting of the scorpion. This hellish mass is directed by a king related to Satan himself.

The entire picture is reminiscent of Joel 2, including the references to the darkening of sun by the smoke that rises from the Abyss (9:2; c.f. Joel 2:10), but the primary allusion is again to the plague of locusts in the exodus story which also darkened the land (Exod. 10,5,15). Covenant disobedience had been threatened by a re-visitation of the plague of locusts (Deut. 28:38-39, 42). The fact that this smoke and the locusts emerge from the Abyss seems to indicate that the judgment of God upon the demonic realm is now being extended to include those who worship Apollyon. The locusts are forbidden to destroy the vegetation (9:4, in contrast to the Egyptian plague, Exod. 10:15). They are to harm only unbelievers, "those who did not have the seal of God upon their foreheads" (9:4; c.f. 7:3). Whatever the precise nature of the fifth plague, those who bear the seal of God are entirely safe from its effects, in much the same way as the Israelites were protected from the Egyptian plagues (Exod. 8:22; 9:4,26; 10:23; 11:7).

Behind this image may also be the cult of Apollo. Interestingly, this cult, too, used the symbol of locusts, and the Roman emperors Caligula, Nero and Domitian claimed to be incarnations of Apollo. In this case the destructive powers of hell has as its king the emperor of Rome!  That would be high irony for the first readers of Revelation (c.f. 17:16-18).

12. That the star "was given" to key to the shaft of the Abyss (9:1); that the locusts were told the extent to which they could wreak their havoc ("they were told…" 9:4; "they were not given power to…" 9:5; c.f. the command to the sixth angel to release those "bound" by the Euphrates River in 9:14-15 at a time that is fixed down to the very hour, day, month and year) indicates a Bible truth emphasized throughout, that God is sovereign over the totality of existence, including sin and Satan. The duration is to be "five months" (9:5, corresponding to the life-cycle of the locust, spring through late summer).  Just as Satan is limited in his power over Job and cannot do anything except by God’s express authority (Job 1:12; 2:6), so here the Lord is in total control.

It is vitally important to grasp the role Satan plays in this judgment. It is a mistake to focus our attention completely upon Satan. That would be his desire, but it would prove a fatal mistake on our part. The One in control of all things is not Satan, but God.  Satan's powers are curtailed, as we have seen. Satan holds no power independently of God. Satan is 'God's tool' though he never has nor will admit it. In his malevolence, Satan is irrational; he has lost his grip on reality. Like Hitler in the bunker, he cannot believe that the war is over though at this point in redemptive history the decisive battle was yet to be fought. In allowing him some rope, God uses him to execute judgement on a fallen world.  'Just as a man can make use of a savage dog which hates him to drive unwelcome visitors off his estate, so God makes use of Satan to punish those who have sinned.'

13. The sixth plague (9:13-21). The mention of the altar reminds us of the context of these trumpets. They are the answers to the prayers of the saints for retribution and justice (6:10), whose prayers rise to the altar of God (8:3-5).  Allusions to the plagues of Egypt reminds us how "Egypt" becomes synonymous with all that is evil in much the same way that "Babylon" also does.   It is not surprising, therefore, that the sixth trumpet should now depict in Old Testament language a vision of the judgment that will come upon "Egypt."   The Old Testament passage in question is Jeremiah 46 where an army of horsemen from the north (Babylon) are depicted in terms of serpent-like locusts, wearing breastplates and standing by the Euphrates River (Jer. 46:2, 22-23). This same picture will be taken up again in the depiction of the sixth bowl (16:12).  In Apocryphal writings, a similar threat from the Parthians (Persians) in John’s day was often alluded to in terms of a threat from the "Euphrates."  They appear to be same as the four winds of 7:1.

14. The number of troops under the command of these four angels is two hundred million (9:16), a general number indicating a vast quantity. Since 10,000 is a biblical way of expressing a vast number (Lev. 26:8; Numb. 10:35; Deut.32: 30; 33:2,17 etc.), this number may a way of expressing 2 x 10,000 x 10,000.  The allusion is to Jeremiah 46 where the number of troops are said to be innumerable (Jer. 46:23). The monstrosity of the picture is added to by mixing metaphors, describing them as like horses, lions and snakes (9:17-19).  Plagues of fire, smoke and sulphur comes our of their mouths (9:18). This time, in contrast to the fifth trumpet, death is brought upon "a third of mankind" (9:16; c.f. 9:6).

15. The cause of the judgments is now expressed: the sins of murder, magical arts, sexual immorality and theft of which a summary concept is idolatry (9:20-21). The list is surprisingly similar to Jeremiah 7:5-11. God will not be silent about our sins. Romans 1:17-32. There is no such as atheism.

John Calvin, Institutes: "Man’s mind is a perpetual factory of idols."

16. The rest of mankind did not repent (9.20; c.f. 21). The rest, here, are the rest of the ones who were not marked with a seal and who did not die. These, too, despite the expectation that judgment might lead to reformation, did not repent. It provides the basis for seeing that there is such a thing as retributive judgment in which the purpose is not to convert, but to condemn.  And lest we think this unfair, the context provides with a picture of men who know that God exists, but refuse to worship Him, turning instead to idols of God’s created order to whom they ascribe religious worship.  It is not that they do not know; it is that knowing they refuse to acknowledge it, and turn to idolatry instead. Man’s idols are his greatest crimes against God.  False worship is the ultimate expression of man’s rebellion.

17. One of the consequences of these visions of seals and trumpets is the expectation of evil that this world can expect. In one sense, the progressive nature of these seals and trumpets would seem to indicate an increasing presence of evil and hostility in the world. Those interpreters who expect the latter days of this New Testament era to be accompanied by times of great blessing and glory are forced to interpret these visions along preterist lines, that is to say, along lines which insist on their fulfillment in the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and its temple in 70 AD.   The interpretation adopted here views the progress of the gospel seems to parallel increasing hostility.