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Rev_8:12. The fourth trumpet brings damage to sun, moon, and stars, whereof the third of all is darkened, and thus the light is withdrawn from a third of the day and of the night, ἐπλήγη . That a “preternatural striking” is to be thought of,[2492] which has as its consequence the intended darkening ( ἽΝΑ ΣΚΟΤ .), Wolf already mentions, in opposition to the leaning towards the rabbinical way, whereby the darkening itself of sun and moon is represented as a “smiting.”[2493] The miraculous eclipse is in itself, as already according to the O. T. representation,[2494] a foretoken of the coming day of judgment;[2495] the limitation of the same, however, to a third of the sun, moon, and stars, and consequently to a third of the day and night ruled over by them,[2496] corresponds to similar statements in the preceding trumpet-visions.
ΚΑῚ Ἡ ἩΜΈΡΑ ΜῊ ΦΆΝῌ , viz., as the apposition ΤῸ ΤΡΊΤΟΝ ΑὐΤῆς more explicitly says, the third part of the day. And likewise the night. The words cannot mean that the light proceeding from the smitten stars has lost the third of its brilliancy, the reverse of Isa_30:26;[2497] still less does the expression bear the explanation of Ebrard, “that the third of the stars was smitten with respect to time, so that they were darkened only for a third of the day, contrasted with nighttime, while for the other two-thirds they are bright.” But the idea is this: Since a third of the sun is eclipsed, a third of the day (regarded in its temporal length) is deprived of its sunlight, and the night likewise of the shining of moon and stars. So De Wette, who judges likewise that here the sameness between the third of the stars and the third of day and night “is carried out even to what is unnatural.” The exception is correctly taken, and therefore expressed without impiety, because the present vision of John is to him as little as all the rest an absolutely objective incident, a likeness presented him by God as complete;[2498] of course, also, no real fiction,[2499] but a view communicated through the prophet’s own subjectivity.
[2492] Cf. Exo_7:25.
[2493] Succa, p. 29, Revelation 1 : “When the sun is struck, it is a bad sign to the whole world.” In Wetst.
[2494] Joh_3:4; Amo_8:9. Cf. Exo_10:21
[2495] Cf. also Rev_6:12 sqq.
[2496] Gen_1:16.
[2497] Beng., Züll., Böhmer, Klief.
[2498] Against the inspiration theory of Hengstenb., etc.
[2499] Against Eichh., Ew., De Wette, etc.
The allegorical expositors find here[2500] the obscuration, confusion, and diminution of beneficial institutions, whether of a spiritual or a political kind. Beda proposes the disturbance of the Church by false brethren; N. de Lyra, the heresy of Eutyches. The injury done by Islam is understood by Stern, who mentions the fact, that instead of the full moon the Church has become a half moon ( ἐπλήγη
τὸ τρίτον τ . σελ .), and many stars have vanished, i.e., the sees of many bishops have been overthrown. Wetst.,[2501] Herder, etc., propose political confusion; so, too, Vitr., Beng., who, however, have in mind the incursions of the Goths and Vandals into the Eastern Empire, and Hengstenb., who very generally understands sad times full of the calamities of war. Böhmer combines the reference to Jewish temporal relations with his interpretation of sun and moon as applying to spiritual things, already employed on Rev_6:12 : “That sun and moon and stars are smitten with darkness, we explain from the fact that sad prophecies have transpired, and the law has begun to be neglected. But the end of prophecy and the law has not, as yet, actually come, on which account only a third thereof is regarded as having been obscured.”
[2500] Cf. Rev_6:12 sqq.
[2501] “There was pure ἀναρχία , the magistrates were despised, all Judaea conspired for sedition.”
Concerning the visions coming with the first four trumpets, which are to be distinguished from the three immediately following (Rev_8:13), it is to be remarked in general: 1. The plagues described in them, which concern the entire sphere of the visible world (the earth, Rev_8:7; the sea, Rev_8:8-9; the waters of the main land, Rev_8:10-11; the stars, day and night, Rev_8:12; cf. Beng., Ew., etc.), are perceptible not only to unbelievers, but also to believers.[2502] This necessarily lies in the very nature of the plagues; and the sealing correctly understood (Rev_7:2 sqq.) in no way gives any other idea.[2503] 2. The allegorical explanation, and the reference founded thereon to events or circumstances of ecclesiastical or civil history,—of which Ebrard emphasizes the latter,[2504] has no foundation whatever in the text, and, therefore, leads necessarily to arbitrary suppositions. But the context, according to which the trumpet-visions proceed from the seventh seal, shows that this vision, in its eschatological significance, has reference to the end to be expected already after the sixth[2505] and in the seventh seal; viz., the actual coming of the Lord, in connection with which the plagues described by the first six seals are to be regarded as premonitory signs of the impending end of the same character as those described in the fundamental prophecy of Mat_24:29. The same relation as subsists there between Mat_8:29 and Mat_8:6-7, recurs in the signs portrayed in the four trumpet-visions and those described in the seal-visions. It is true that the sixth seal already has introduced foretokens of the nature of Mat_24:29, and this is developed in close connection until the description of the last end; but by the fact that in Rev_7:1, between the sixth and seventh seals, the four angels come forth who are to bring a new plague, the final development is further postponed. And if now the final catastrophe actually proceeds from the seventh seal,—as is to be expected after Rev_6:17,—yet this occurs only after a further development, which, as first of all in the first four trumpet-visions, brings with it new foretokens of the coming end. The introductory significance of this sign is expressed in the fact that only a third of the earth is concerned; thus a new course is designated after the points marked by the already strong signs of the sixth seal. Yet that a progress occurs, and that the trumpet-visions do not, in any way, again prevail before the sixth seal, the context indicates by the fact that the plagues befalling a third of the earth mark an advance when compared with the plagues of the fourth seal (Rev_6:8).
[2502] Against De Wette, etc.
[2503] Cf., on the other hand, Rev_9:4.
[2504] Cf. also Hengstenb.
[2505] Rev_6:12 sqq.