NOTES for Rev 16:2-21
2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image. |
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea. |
4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood. |
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus. |
6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy. |
7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments. |
8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. |
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory. |
10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, |
11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds. |
12 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. |
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. |
14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. |
15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. |
16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. |
17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. |
18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. |
19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. |
20 And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. |
21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great. |
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As we can see, witness to the Kingdom can turn out to be for the world not only a word of God's love, but also an outpouring of God's wrath. At first glance, such a turn of events seems strange for the God of love. But the explanation appears to be that this is the end of history, a situation in which everyone has already made his final choice and is now reaping its fruits. The one who accepts God and the Messiah sent by Him enters the Kingdom, and the breath of God that permeates this Kingdom opens to him as the breath of love. But the one who rejects God experiences His breath as a fiery, cleansing power, which seems merciless to him because there is no place for him in the renewing world, the place he himself had already refused.
Earlier, seen from the earth, the proclamation of the approaching day of Judgment and the triumph of the Kingdom was revealed to John as the sound of angelic trumpets. Now, seen from heaven, from the Throne, it is revealed to him as bowls of God's wrath poured out on the earth. There are seven of them, just as there were seven angelic trumpets. The first four bowls, like the first four trumpets, affect nature and humanity (vv. 2-9; compare Rev. 8:7-13). "Fiery hail" that produces certain "sores" on those it strikes, a "fiery mountain" falling into the sea and destroying every living thing in it, a "star from heaven" that makes the water in the rivers turn "bloody" and unfit to drink, scorching rays of the sun burning people: all of this, of course, can be explained by natural causes, but then one has to admit that natural cataclysms become the norm at the end of history. As we can see, God no longer has any reason to restrain the world from chaos by upholding the covenant-union once made with Noah, for there are no righteous people left in the world.
The remaining three bowls directly affect the "throne of the beast," provoking resistance from the dark powers and eventually leading to decisive confrontation, to that final battle of the forces of light with the forces of darkness that precedes the definitive triumph of the Kingdom (vv. 10-21; compare Rev. 9). John describes its coming using the language and style of the later prophets (vv. 18-21; compare Isa. 2:19-21). For those who refuse to perceive the reality of the Kingdom, however, what is happening appears not as the renewal and transformation of the world, but as a catastrophe destroying the whole order of things to which they are accustomed. Even then they remember God only in order to accuse Him of all their misfortunes and sufferings (v. 21).
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