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Rev_8:8-9. Upon the sound of the second trumpet, follows a sign which exercises its injurious effects upon the sea, together with creatures living therein and on ships.
ὡς ὄρος
θάλασσαν . Ebrard’s view, that a volcano was torn away from its station along the seacoast by the force raging within, and cast into the sea, conflicts with the ὡς as well as with the idea lying in the connection, that the ἐβλήθη (cf. Rev_8:7) occurred by a special, wonderful, Divine working.[2476] The meaning of the ὡς was given already by N. de Lyra.[2477] By the comparison with a great mountain all on fire, only the dreadful greatness of the fiery mass is made manifest, which, if we consider its source in general, must be regarded as coming from heaven (cf. Rev_5:7). Hence it cannot in any way be said,[2478] that the form of the representation is taken from that of a volcano. An allusion to Jer_51:21[2479] is entirely out of place.[2480] The effect (Rev_8:8 b, Rev_8:9) is described after the model of the Egyptian plague, Exo_7:20 sqq., only that here it is not as there all the water, but, in analogy with Rev_8:7; Rev_8:10 sqq., 12 sqq., a third that becomes blood, and likewise a third of living creatures and ships that is destroyed.
τὰ ἒχοντα ψυχάς . The expression designates all living creatures. The nom. apposition to ΤῶΝ ΚΤΙΣΜ . ΤῶΝ ἘΝ Τ . ΘΑΛ . stands like Rev_3:12, Rev_9:14, Rev_14:20, without construction.
The allegorizing commentators guess here and there without any foundation, because the text throughout contains nothing allegorical. Beda[2481] explains the whole: “As the Christian religion grew, the Devil swollen with pride, and burning with the fire of his own-fury, was cast into the sea of the world.” On Τ . ἝΧ . ΨΥΧ . he remarks: “those alive, but spiritually dead.” Luther: “Marcion, the Manichaeans, etc.” Grot, may be considered the representative of the expositors who make conjectures in general concerning the distresses of the Romano-Judaic war. According to him, ὌΡΟς , Κ . Τ . Λ ., designates the citadel of Antony, i.e., the soldiers therein who threw themselves with madness ( ΚΑΙΌΜ .) into the city ( ἘΒΛ . ΕἸς Τ . ΘΑΛ .), killed men ( ἈΠΕΘΆΝΕ , Κ . Τ . Λ .), and stole what was movable ( Τ . ΠΛΟΊΩΝ ). Also Vitr., Beng., Stern, yea, even Hengstenb, understand the whole as referring to the devastation of war, while they interpret the details with lack of judgment like Grot.,[2482] and only differ from him in that Vitr., etc., find the inroads of the Goths into the Roman Empire, and Hengstenb., wars in general, prophesied. Hengstenb, has the view in general, that, in all the trumpet-visions except the last, the same thing is represented, viz., war.[2483] According to Ebrard, the whole means that “the vulcanic, Titanic energy of covetous or pleasure-seeking egoism poisons the intercourse of men, the intellectual as well as especially the domestic.”
[2476] Cf. Hengstenb.
[2477] “A vast glowing globe.”
[2478] Vitr., Ew.
[2479] δώσω σε ὡς ὅρος ἐμπεπυρισμένον .
[2480] Against Vitr.
[2481] Cf. Zeg., etc.
[2482] The “ships,” e.g., are, according to Vitr., small states; according to Hengstenb., cities and villages; the “fish” are in Hengstenb., just as in Grot., men slain by the raging warriors.
[2483] Mat_24:7.