The Fifth Angel Sounds.—The first woe begins. A star falls from heaven, symbolizing a person of great authority who utterly apostatizes from truth, and who sells himself to the devil. To him is given the key of the bottomless pit.
The bottomless pit should be translated “abyss,” and is distinct from hell.
Hades is the condition of souls without a body. Death is the condition of bodies without souls.
Gehenna is hell itself, spoken of in the Revelation as “the lake of fire.”
The abyss is a place where God can confine the devil and evil spirits at His pleasure.
We learn from the description of the fifth trumpet that up to now God had kept in check to some extent the forces of evil, but that now He permits this fallen star to release them for His own wise purpose. Not that God initiates or provokes evil, but it may be His wisdom and purpose and time to allow what exists to express itself.
The immediate result of the opening of the abyss is a smoke as of a furnace arising out of the pit, which darkens the sun and the air. An evil, baneful, and we may add demoniacal influence arises, affecting supreme power (the sun) and permeating social order (the air).
Out of this smoke come locusts, symbolical of spiritual forces, evil spirits, being let loose for the work of judgment. The description of these symbolical locusts gives us an idea of the agencies they represent.
First of all in order comes the description of those who are the object of their malevolence, namely, those who have not the seal of God in their foreheads. In Revelation 7 we have recorded the sealing in their foreheads of 144,000 of Israel, a symbolical number, we believe. Here, those who have not the seal of God in their foreheads come into view, namely, the ungodly Jews, upon whom the judgment of God now falls.
Secondly, we have the extent to which the judgment can go. Like Satan, who was allowed to persecute Job short of taking his life, so these symbolical locusts, these agents from the bottomless pit, are not allowed to take the lives of their victims, but to subject them for a limited period (five months) to such extreme torture that death will be desired, but in vain. Their torment is likened to the effect of the sting of the scorpion. It is specially stated that their stings were in their tails
Isaiah 9:1515The ancient and honorable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. (Isaiah 9:15) throws light, we believe, on this statement: “The prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.” The sting in the tail, then, we believe to be the perversion of truth on the part of these demoniacal agents, resulting in such anguish of spirit on the part of those affected, as to make life unendurable.
Next we have the description of these monsters. They were like horses prepared for battle, that is, there is concerted organized attack.
On their heads were, as it were, crowns of gold, speaking of the claim to previous excelling in their deadly work, for the crown here is the reward of the victor in the games. They were no novices in their deadly work.
Their faces were as the faces of men, speaking of intelligence. Outwardly they were formidable, but behind the scenes subjection and effeminancy marked them, for we read they had hair as the hair of women. They were ferocious, for they had teeth like lion's teeth.
Breastplates of iron symbolizes that they were invulnerable when attacked, and finally we are reminded that they had tails like scorpions and stings in their tails, speaking of the form of trial they were capable of inflicting, even the instilling of untruth, which would produce exquisite anguish of spirit, making life intolerable.
Finally, we are reminded that Apollyon is their king, and that he is the angel of the bottomless pit, thus proving a controlling intelligence and subtle organization.
One terrible woe has fallen, two more are to come.
The result of this voice from the altar is the loosing by the angel of the four angels bound in the great river Euphrates. Here we get a picture of a great power held in check by God till the exact hour for loosing it for its deadly work has struck. So we are informed that the hour and day and month and year has arrived. To slay the third part of men was to be the result of the angels being loosed.
This shows that whilst the first woe visited the ungodly part of the Jewish nation—those men which had not the seal of God in their foreheads—this was to afflict the Roman earth.
The great river Euphrates, the spot where the angels were loosed, is the great barrier between east and west, the great barrier between what we call the Near East and the Far East. It signifies the letting loose of vast hordes of armed men in order to chasten the Roman earth.
The multitude of the horsemen is given at the prodigious number of 200,000,000, evidently not a literal number, but one setting forth the prodigious size of the armies employed.
Then again, the description of the horsemen and the horses must be symbolic. The horsemen had breastplates of fire, and of jacinth and brimstone, speaking of satanic energy and power and direction. The horses are one with their riders, for out of their mouths went fire and smoke and brimstone, and by these spiritual poison gases men were killed. Not only so, but the horses' tails were like unto serpents with heads, capable of inflicting hurt.
It looks as if something other than physical death (though leading up to that) was in view, even the effect of spiritual poison, leaving those who got under its influence in a state of utter departure from God, and pressed by the horsemen even to the length of physical death. It looks as if the decimation of the population of the Roman Empire under this truly terrible woe will be tremendous.
But the survivors are unaffected by all this, and go on with demon worship and idolatries and wickedness. Such is man!