9 

9:13 And the sixth angel sounded - Under this angel goes forth the second woe. And I heard a voice from the four corners of the golden altar - This golden altar is the heavenly pattern of the Levitical altar of incense. This voice signified that the execution of the wrath of God, mentioned Rev 9:20-21, should, at no intercession, be delayed any longer.

9:14 Loose the four angels - To go every way; to the four quarters. These were evil angels, or they would not have been bound. Why, or how long, they were bound we know not.

9:15 And the four angels were loosed, who were prepared - By loosing them, as well as by their strength and rage. Tokill the third part of men - That is, an immense number of them.For the hour, and day, and month, and year - All this agrees with the slaughter which the Saracens made for a long time after Mahomet's death. And with the number of angels let loose agrees the number of their first and most eminent caliphs. These were Ali, Abubeker, Omar, and Osman. Mahomet named Ali, his cousin and son - in - law, for his successor; but he was soon worked out by the rest, till they severally died, and so made room for him.They succeeded each other, and each destroyed innumerable multitudes of men. There are in a prophetic

Now, the second woe, as also the beginning of the third, has its place between the ceasing of the locusts and the rising of the beast out of the sea, even at the time that the Saracens, who were chiefly cavalry, were in the height of their carnage; from their, first caliph, Abubeker, till they were repulsed from Rome under Leo IV. These 212 years may therefore be reckoned from the year 634 to 847. The gradation in reckoning the time, beginning with the hour and ending with a year, corresponds with their small beginning and vast increase. Before and after Mahomet's death, they had enough to do to settle their affairs at home. Afterwards Abubeker went farther, and in the year 634 gained great advantage over the Persians and Romans in Syria.Under Omar was the conquest of Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt made. Under Osman, that of Afric, (with the total suppression of the Roman government in the year 647,) of Cyprus, and of all Persia in 651. After Ali was dead, his son Ali Hasen, a peaceable prince, was driven out by Muavia; under whom, and his successors, the power of the Saracens so increased, that within fourscore years after Mahomet's death they had extended their conquests farther than the warlike Romans did in four hundred years.

9:16 And the number of the horsemen was two hundred millions - Not that so many were ever brought into the field at once, but (if we understand the expression literally) in the course of "thehour, and day, and month, and year." So neither were "the third part of men killed" at once, but during that course of years.

9:17  And thus I saw the horses and them that sat on themin the vision - St. John seems to add these words, in the vision, to intimate that we are not to take this description just according to the letter. Having breastplates of fire - Fiery red.And hyacinth - Dun blue. And brimstone - A faint yellow. Of the same colour with the fire and smoke and brimstone, which go out of the months of their horses. And the heads of their horses are as the heads of lions - That is, fierce and terrible. And out of their mouth goeth fire and smoke and brimstone - This figurative expression may denote the consuming, blinding, all - piercing rage, fierceness, and force of these horsemen.

9:18 By these three - Which were inseparably joined.Were the third part of men - In the countries they over - ran.Killed - Omar alone, in eleven years and a half, took thirty - six thousand cities or forts. How many men must be killed therein!

9:19 For the power of these horses is in their mouths, and in their tails - Their riders fight retreating as well as advancing: so that their rear is as terrible as their front.For their tails are like serpents, having heads - Not like the tails of serpents only. They may be fitly compared to the amphisbena, a kind of serpent, which has a short tail, not unlike a head from which it throws out its poison as if it had two heads.

9:20 And the rest of the men who were not killed - Whom the Saracens did not destroy. It is observable, the countries they over - ran were mostly those where the gospel had been planted.By these plagues - Here the description of the second woe ends.Yet repented not - Though they were called Christians. Of the works of their hands - Presently specified. That they should not worship devils - The invocation of departed saints, whether true, or false, or doubtful, or forged, crept early into the Christian church, and was carried farther and farther; and who knows how many who are invoked as saints are among evil, not good, angels; or how far devils have mingled with such blind worship, and with the wonders wrought on those occasions? And idols - About the year 590, men began to venerate images; and though upright men zealously opposed it, yet, by little and little, images grew into manifest idols. For after much contention, both in the east and west, in the year 787, the worship of images was established by the second Council of Nice. Yet was image worship sharply opposed some time after, by the emperor Theophilus. But when he died, in 842, his widow, Theodora, established it again; as did the Council at Constantinople in the year 863, and again in 871.

9:21 Neither repented of their murders, nor of their sorceries - Whoever reads the histories of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, will find numberless instances of all these in every part of the Christian world. But though God cut off so many of these scandals to the Christian name, yet the rest went on in the same course. Some of them, however, might repent under the plagues which follow.