In our last post, we began showing how Inmillennialism can account for the signs in Revelation’s third vision (i.e., of the seven trumpets). Some of them have kernels of physical reality inside John’s figurative language. Others continue long-standing prophetic traditions where the figures portray God’s judgments against Israel.
Let’s resume our discussion of the second trumpet.
Second Trumpet—A Mountain Displaced (cont.)
“And the second angel sounded . . . and the third part of the sea became blood” (Rev. 8:8).
Perhaps some of John’s first readers had seen a full blood moon over the Sea of Galilee.1 It’s unlikely they had seen anything that resembled the reality behind his sea-of-blood imagery.
Josephus describes the reality that unfolded. In a horrific scene in the AD 66–70 wars, the Roman general Vespasian pursued the fleeing Jews. The resulting battle turned the sea into blood. Josephus says:
But now, when the vessels were gotten ready, Vespasian put upon shipboard as many of his forces as he thought sufficient to be too hard for those that were upon the lake, and set sail after them. . . . Sometimes the Romans leaped into their ships, with swords in their hands, and slew them; but when some of them met the vessels, the Romans caught them by the middle, and destroyed at once their ships and themselves who were taken in them. And for such as were drowning in the sea, if they lifted their heads up above the water they were either killed by darts, or caught by the vessels; but if, in the desperate case they were in, they attempted to swim to their enemies, the Romans cut off either their heads or their hands; and indeed they were destroyed after various manners everywhere, till the rest, being put to flight, were forced to get upon the land, while the vessels encompassed them about [on the sea]: but as many of these were repulsed when they were getting ashore, they were killed by the darts upon the lake; and the Romans leaped out of their vessels, and destroyed a great many more upon the land: one might then see the lake all bloody, and full of dead bodies, for not one of them escaped.2
The reality matched John’s imagery.
Third Trumpet—A Star Falls
The third, fourth, and fifth trumpets expand the “cosmic collapse” imagery in Jesus’s Olivet Discourse. Speaking of the soon-coming “great tribulation” (Matt. 24:21), the Lord said in “those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken” (Matt. 24:29). This would occur in the generation then living (Matt. 24:34).
Thus, when John’s third trumpet sounds (Rev. 8:10–11), a “great star from heaven” falls into the waters. The name of the star is “Wormwood,” a reference to “the quite bitter herb Artemesia absinthium found in the Near East.”3 The collapse of Israel’s world would be a painful blow from the Almighty.
Israel’s prophets often associated this image with God’s judgment of Israel after the flesh (Jer. 9:15; 23:15; Lam. 3:15; Amos 5:7). John continues this tradition.
Fourth Trumpet—The Cosmos Collapses
Israel’s cosmos continues to collapse as the fourth trumpet sounds (Rev. 8:12–13). We noticed in previous posts how the Jewish prophets used this imagery to show God’s coming judgment of a city or nation.4
Jesus said God’s judgement of Israel would bring tribulation and “men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth [or, “land” (Gk. gē)]: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken” (Luke 21:26).
John’s vision again amplifies Jesus’s images in the Olivet Discourse and speaks of the catastrophe about to strike “those dwelling upon the land” of Israel (Rev. 8:13, YLT).
Fifth Trumpet—Hell Opened
During the latter part of his ministry in Galilee, the Jewish scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign (Matt. 12:38). He responded with a series of images showing God’s judgment that would come on their generation (Matt. 12:39–45). One of these images forms the basis for John’s fifth-trumpet imagery.
Jesus said his generation was like an unclean spirit cast out of a man. The evil spirit could not return to his house because someone (i.e., Jesus) had remodeled it. What does the spirit do? “Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation” (Matt. 12:45).
The latter stages of the generation then living would be worse than the first. With the fulfillment would come devil-empowered men. Jesus said before Jerusalem fell, “there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders” (Matt. 24:24). Demons would give these men miracle-working power, but it would come with a high price tag.
John’s fifth trumpet shows this increased demonic activity in vivid imagery. Regarding the star that falls from heaven to the land (Rev. 9:1), Milton Terry says:
The star fallen from heaven, to whom is given the key of the pit of the abyss, can scarcely denote any other than the Satan whom Jesus saw falling like lightning from heaven (Luke 10:18), and the names Abaddon and Apollyon are but symbolic names of Satan, the prince or chief of the demons. It should be noticed also that in Rev. 18:2 the fallen Babylon is described as having become a habitation of demons, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird.5
John sees these demons (and the men they possessed) as locusts from the bottomless pit. He says “they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions” (Rev. 9:8).
Josephus again gives a kernel of physical reality for the imagery. Here is his description of the Jewish Zealots inside Jerusalem during the siege by the Roman army:
Their inclination to plunder was insatiable, as was their zeal in searching the houses of the rich; and for the murdering of the men, and abusing of the women, it was sport to them. They also devoured what spoils they had taken, together with their blood, and indulged themselves in feminine wantonness, without any disturbance till they were satiated therewith; while they decked their hair, and put on women’s garments, and were besmeared over with ointments; and that they might appear very comely, they had paints under their eyes, and imitated, not only the ornaments, but also the lust of women, and were guilty of such intolerable uncleanness, and they invented unlawful pleasures of that sort. And thus did they roll themselves up and down the city, as in a brothel house, and defiled it entirely with their impure actions; nay, while their faces looked like the faces of women, they killed with their right hands; and when their gait was effeminate, they presently attacked men, and became warriors, and drew their swords from under their finely dyed cloaks and ran everybody through whom they alighted upon.6
One might suspect Josephus had read the Revelation before he wrote his history.7
Conclusion
We will reserve our discussion of the last two trumpets for the third post regarding this vision.
If you wish to track our progress, please refer to our outline of Revelation here.
Nothing we have seen so far indicates these visions pertain to something other than John’s immediate future. The images he uses fit well into the inmillennial prophetic model and into the historical record of that period.
Footnotes
- The image shown here is not necessarily of the Sea of Galilee. Pictures like this are common on websites proclaiming the “great tribulation,” rapture, etc. in our near future, not John’s.
- Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1974), 3:10:9. Emphasis added.
- Alan F. Johnson, “Revelation,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Hebrews through Revelation, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 12 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981), 492.
- For example: The World Ended and We Missed It!, A Parting of the Ways — Part 1, and You blew it up!
- Milton S. Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics: A Treatise on the Interpretation of the Old and New Testaments, Vol. 2, Library of Biblical and Theological Literature (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1890), 362n2. Biblical references modernized.
- Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, 4:9:10. Emphasis added. Quoted by David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation, (Tyler, TX: Dominion Press, 1987), 247.
- I know of no evidence that he did.
