Robertson Word Pictures - Revelation 6:12 - 6:12

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Robertson Word Pictures - Revelation 6:12 - 6:12


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

There was a great earthquake (seismos megas egeneto). “There came a great earthquake.” Jesus spoke of earthquakes in his great eschatological discourse (Mar 13:8). In Mat 24:29 the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Seismos is from seiō, to shake, and occurs also in Rev 8:5; Rev 11:13, Rev 11:19; Rev 16:18. The reference is not a local earthquake like those so common in Asia Minor.

As sackcloth of hair (hōs sakkos trichinos). Sakkos (Attic sakos), Latin saccus, English sack, originally a bag for holding things (Gen 42:25, Gen 42:35), then coarse garment of hair (trichinos, old word from thrix, here only in N.T.) clinging to one like a sack, of mourners, suppliants, prophets leading austere lives (Mat 3:4; Mat 11:21; Luk 10:13). Here the hair is that of the black goat (Isa 50:3). Cf. Joe 2:10; Eze 32:7.; Isa 13:10; Mar 13:24. See Ecc 12:2 for eclipses treated as symbols of old age. Apocalyptic pictures all have celestial phenomena following earthquakes.

As blood (hōs haima). In Act 2:20 we find Peter interpreting the apocalyptic eschatological language of Joe 2:31 about the sun being turned into darkness and the moon into blood as pointing to the events of the day of Pentecost as also “the great day of the Lord.” Peter’s interpretation of Joel should make us cautious about too literal an exegesis of these grand symbols.