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Rev_9:13-15. At a divine command the trumpet-angel looses the four angels bound thus far at the Euphrates, under whose direction the immense army of horsemen is to bring its plagues.
καὶ ἤκουσα , κ . τ . λ . What John hears[2608] in the vision, he represents just as what he beheld (Rev_9:17), in consequence of the trumpet-vision.
φωνὴν μίαν ἐκ τῶν ( τεσσάρων ) κεράτων τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου , κ . τ . λ . In a linguistic respect it is possible that the precise number is intended indefinitely,[2609] so that it is left entirely undecided as to whom the voice belongs, as Rev_6:6,[2610] although it is impossible to take ἐκ in the general sense of ἀπό ,[2611] and to explain that the voice came from God enthroned back of the altar.[2612] Cf., on the other hand, also, Rev_16:7. Yet a more definite reference of the μίαν would result in connection with the fact that the voice proceeds from the four horns of the altar. The altar from whose horns the voice proceeds is expressly designated as that mentioned Rev_8:3 sqq.[2613] The circumstance, accordingly, that from its horns the voice proceeds which loosens the plagues described immediately afterwards, must have a similar meaning as the circumstance in Rev_8:5, that the fire cast upon the earth was taken from the same altar, i.e., the command of the angels to loose appears as a consequence of the prayers presented at the altar;[2614] but after that, it is proper to understand the one (Divine) voice making manifest this special hearing of prayer, in contrast with the many voices of those who pray, heard and referred to also in Rev_8:3 ( τ . προσευχ . τῶν ἁγ .).
It is a perversion, however, to consider the one voice in any special relation to the four horns of the altar; for, even apart from the critical uncertainty of the reading τεσσάρων , the sense forced from it[2615] is extremely feeble, while the allegorical[2616] explanation[2617] is without any support. Also the relation, which is in itself arbitrary, between the four horns and the “four sins,” Rev_9:21, and likewise the four angels,[2618] falls with the spurious τεσσάρων .
τῷ ἕκτῳ ἀγγ . From the fact that here the trumpet-angel not only sounds the trumpet, but is himself engaged in the act which follows, the inference dare in no wise be drawn that the same relation occurs also in other passages where it is not explicitly stated.[2619] But if the question be asked why there is ascribed here[2620] to the proclaimer of the plagues a co-operation with them, any reference to “economy of means”[2621] affords no satisfactory answer; for why this economy just here, which nevertheless does not universally prevail? As a reason lying in the subject itself is not perceptible, it appears to be adopted only to avoid a barren uniformity, which would occur if the same angel who (Rev_8:5) cast the fire from the altar to the earth, or even if a new angel, who yet would have substantially the same position with that of the trumpet-angels, received now the command to loose the four angels at the Euphrates.
Αῦσον
Ἐυφράτῃ . The article τοὺς τέσσ . ἀγγ . has its definite reference, as Rev_8:2, to the following τοὺς δεδ ., κ . τ . λ .,[2622] but throughout does not indicate the identity, adopted by Beda, etc., of the angel here named with that mentioned in Rev_7:1 sqq. That the four angels are wicked angels,[2623] not good,[2624] also not “corruptible,”—as De Wette and Ebrard say, when they uncertainly remark that we must not think directly of wicked angels,—is to be derived from their being bound,[2625] from their position on the Euphrates, and from the fact that they lead an army of an infernal kind, in which respect they are to be compared with the star which fell from heaven, Rev_9:1, as well as with the angel of the abyss, the king of the locusts, Rev_9:11.
The number four of the angels does not correspond to the four parts of the army led by them,[2626] for of this the text says nothing,[2627] but indicates[2628] that the army is to be led on all four sides of the earth, in order to slay[2629] the third of all men.[2630] Ebrard, in the interests of his allegorical explanation, emphasizes the number four of the angels leading the army, Rev_9:16 sqq., in contrast with the one king of the locusts, Rev_9:11. Thus in the one case there is a monarchical and in the other a democratical constitution; with which it also harmonizes, that in Rev_9:17 nothing is said of crowns as in Rev_9:7. Nevertheless, Ebrard does not expect the elucidation of the sixth as well as of the fifth trumpet-vision until its future fulfilment: the “spiritual mercenary hosts of superstition” are only foretokens of the still impending plagues. [See Note LIX., p. 293.] ἐπὶ τῷ ποταμῷ τῷ μεγάλῳ Ἐυφράτῃ . This local designation has been received literally;[2631] and the application has been made, that the Parthian armies, so perilous to the Romans, mentioned in Rev_9:16 sqq., came from the neighborhood of the Euphrates,[2632] or it is said that the Roman legions indicated in Rev_9:16 sqq. moved from the Euphrates against Jerusalem.[2633] The latter is without any truth;[2634] Grot. already was therefore compelled to explain: The armies of the Roman commanders, i.e., the four angels, extended to the Euphrates![2635] But it is a valid objection to the view of Ewald, as well as that of Herder,[2636] that the armies portrayed in Rev_9:16 sqq. are by no means human armies, but just as certainly of a supernatural kind, as the locusts of Rev_9:1 sqq., in their way. If the language of Rev_9:16 sqq., concerning actual martial bands, were to be interpreted therefore allegorically, Vitr., Beng., and many older expositors would be justified, who understood the army (16 sqq.) of the Tartars and Turks, and likewise, in connection with this, took the mention of the Euphrates in its proper geographical sense. But, unless we charge John with great confusion, we dare not say that “the bound angels” are allegorical,
Parthian,[2637] Roman commanders,[2638] or Turkish caliphs,[2639]—the “Euphrates” on which they are bound literal, and the troops led by them again allegorical. Such confused inconsistency the purely allegorical explanation indeed avoids; but it also appears here so untenable and visionary, that, as it itself rests on no foundation, it offers no point whatever where it can be met by a definite counter argument. Wetst. says that the Euphrates is the Tiber, just as Babylon, ch. 14 sqq., is Rome;[2640] but in that passage it is explained, in the text itself, as to how Babylon is meant, while here nothing whatever concerning Babylon is said. With entire indefiniteness, Beda: “The power of the worldly kingdom, and the waves of persecutors.”
The context itself offers the correct conception, by recalling in the formal expression τ . ποταμῷ τῷ μεγἀλῷ Εὐφρ .[2641] the O. T.;[2642] combining with this local designation, to be comprehended from the O. T. history, the description of an army whose dreadfulness far surpasses every thing of a human character, and actual historical experience, but, besides, has an allegorical meaning as little as the locusts, Rev_9:1 sqq. The mention of the Euphrates is schematical; i.e., John designates with concrete definiteness the district whence the supernatural army-plague is to traverse the world, by naming the precise region whence, in O. T. times, the divinely sent plagues of Assyrian armies came upon Israel.[2643] An entirely similar schematical sense would have occurred if John had called the place whence the locusts went forth, Egypt. That the Euphrates is the boundary of the land of Abraham[2644] and David,[2645] is to be urged here as little as that it was the boundary of the Roman Empire;[2646] the only matter of consequence is, that from the Euphrates formerly “the scourges of God” proceeded.[2647] It is also irrelevant to this schematical idea, that the subject of consideration is now a plague for all men, while previously the scourges of God were sent against Israel: the mode of view of the writer of the Apocalypse is only indicated as rooted in the O. T., in the fact that this concrete local designation appears before his gazing eyes. [See Note LX., p. 293.] ἡτοισαμένοι . Cf. Rev_8:6, where also ἵνα follows. They were already prepared; only, up to the present, the bands held them In Rev_9:16, therefore, the description of the army breaking forth under their command directly follows; the released angels immediately put themselves in motion with their armies.
εἰς τὴν ὥραν
καὶ ἐνιαυτόν . Although the gender of the nouns is different,[2648] the art. is placed only before the first, not only because it combines in general the common conception of time, but also the close inner relation and determination of the individual conceptions to one another and through one another affords the idea of essential unity. For the expression, ascending from the hour to the year,[2649] shows that the fixed hour occurs in the fixed day, the day in the fixed month, etc.[2650] Incorrectly, Luther: “for an hour,” etc. Just as incorrectly, Bengel: Since the art. occurs only once, a continuous period of time is indicated,—which, as a prophetic hour contains about eight ordinary days, and a prophetic day an ordinary half-year, he reckons as about two hundred and seven years, and understands it of the times of the Turk (634–840 A.D.).
τὸ τρίτον τῶν ἀνθρ . Men, in reference to whose torment (Rev_9:1 sqq.) nothing was said of a third (cf. Rev_9:4), are now slain by the sixth trumpet-plague in the same proportion as previously trees, ships, etc., were destroyed.[2651]
[2608] Cf. Rev_6:3; Rev_6:5; Rev_6:7; Rev_6:10.
[2609] “A voice.” Ewald. Cf. Rev_8:13. Winer, p. 111.
[2610] De Wette.
[2611] “Forth from,” like the Heb. îÄï , which includes the meaning of both prepositions.
[2612] Ew. i., Stern.
[2613] And Rev_6:9 sqq.
[2614] Cf. Hofm., De Wette, Bleek, Hengstenb., Ebrard, Klief.
[2615] “That these four horns gave forth simultaneously, not a diverse, but one and the same voice” (Vitr., Hengstenb.).
[2616] If it be considered that Beda, who does not have the “four” in his text, yet explains “the horns, the Gospels projecting from the Church,” the conjecture is readily made that the number ten. was inserted in the interests of this allegorizing interpretation.
[2617] “It indicates the harmonious preaching of the one Church, or the one faith, from the Four Gospels” (Zeger. Cf. also Calov, etc.). Or, according to Grot., who understands by the voices, “the prayers of exiles beseeching that they may return at some time to their ancestral abodes,” “all places to which the Jews sent into exile the worshippers of Christ.”
[2618] Hengstenb. Cf. also Beng., Züll., Hofm.
[2619] Against Beng.
[2620] Cf. Rev_17:1.
[2621] De Wette.
[2622] Ebrard.
[2623] Beda, Bengel, Ebrard, etc.
[2624] Boss., Hengstenb.
[2625] For the explanation of Bossuet, “What binds the angels is the supreme command of God,” which Hengstenb. adopts, is a spiritualistic subtilization that, besides, has no sense at all if Hengstenb. explains away the concrete idea of angel itself by the interpretation that in the angels the truth is embodied, that the bands of warriors led by them only act when they are sent.
[2626] Ewald.
[2627] Ew. ii. refers entirely to various nations which must have rendered military service in the Parthian army. Cf. Dan_7:4; Epiphan. (Haer. li. 34), who mentions Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, and Persians.
[2628] Cf. Rev_7:1.
[2629] Cf. De Wette, Hengstenb.
[2630] Rev_9:15; Rev_9:18.
[2631] Cf. Rev_16:12.
[2632] Ewald. Cf. also De Wette, Rinck, Volkm.
[2633] Herder. Cf. Grot., Eichh., etc.
[2634] Cf. Tacit., Hist., v. 1.
[2635] “Ingentes exercitus ad E. usque pertingebant.”
[2636] Cf. also Bleek.
[2637] Ew. i.
[2638] Herd.
[2639] Beng.
[2640] Cf. N. de Lyra: “The Euphrates is the Roman Empire.”
[2641] Cf. Gen_15:18; Deu_1:7; Jam_1:4.
[2642] De Wette, Züll., Hofm., Hengstenb.
[2643] Isa_7:20. Cf. Isa_8:7; Jer_46:10. Hengstenb. Cf. Primas, Züll.
[2644] Hofm.
[2645] Züll.
[2646] De Wette.
[2647] Hengstenb.
[2648] Cf. Winer, p. 120.
[2649] Cf. Num_1:4; Zec_1:7; Hag_1:15. Hengstenb.
[2650] De Wette, Hengstenb., Ebrard.
[2651] Cf. Rev_8:7; Rev_8:9; Rev_8:11-12.
LIX. Rev_9:14. τοὺς τέσσαρας ἀγγέλους
LX. Rev_9:14. τῷ ποταμῷ τῷ μεγάλῳ Εὐφράτῃ