Revelation Chapter 8: The 7th Seal & the Golden Censer

“When he (Christ) opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour” (v. 1).

At the beginning of this chapter, instead of the loud praises in heaven, we encounter complete silence. This follows the brief interlude we encountered in chapter seven. It is a time of serious reflection and anticipation of the reality of the judgments that are about to begin and a time to hear the prayers for deliverance and justice by the persecuted saints suffering on earth. It has been described as an “…awesome silence before the great storm of God’s wrath on the earth” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Abridged Edition): New Testament, Rev 8:1).

Vv. 2-5: “2 And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 3 Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. 4 The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand. 5 Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.”

In ancient Israel, trumpets were blown by the watchmen on the city’s wall to warn as a call to battle or to gather warriors to repel an impending attack. Trumpets were also sounded on the first day of the seventh month (the month of Tishrei; which is late-March to late-April on the Gregorian calendar), to warn the people to prepare for the Day of Atonement. They also were used to announce important events and, early in Jewish history, trumpets were used by priests to praise God (see Psalm 150:3: “Praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise Him with the harp and lyre, praise Him with timbrel and dancing, praise Him with the clash of cymbals, praise Him with resounding cymbals”).

In the book of Revelation, trumpets are signals of impending judgments, as described in chapters eight, nine, and eleven. The trumpet judgments in Revelation are not so destructive as the final bowl judgments (chapter 16).

John describes seven trumpet judgments and seven plagues referred to as bowl judgments or plagues. The purpose of the trumpet judgments is to warn the people of the earth, the day of judgment is near. The trumpet and bowl judgments will render the earth utterly desolate. Opening of the seventh and final seal unleashes the bowls of God’s wrath.

Seven angels, and not Christ, will mete out the judgments of the seven trumpets to be followed by the seven bowls of God’s wrath. The length of time for each judgment is not determined, except for the fifth trumpet judgment, which will last five months (see 9:10).

The seven trumpet judgments come before the return of Christ to the earth, while the seven bowl plagues begin after He returns and has removed His people.

In v. 5, John describes an angel holding a censor of burning coals and incense, symbolizing the answer to the saints’ prayers for vengeance rising to God on His throne. The angel hurls the censor full of burning coals to the earth, bringing a terrible judgment of thunder, lightning, and earthquakes to the people remaining on earth during the beginning of the second half of the tribulation. These are earthquakes more severe than the great earthquake of the sixth seal (see 6:12).

The first four trumpet judgments announce God’s destruction of the ecology of the earth. The last three involve demonic devastation of the earth’s inhabitants (9:1-21; 11:15).

The Sounding of the Trumpets Begins

 

Vv. 6-13: “6 Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them. 7 The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. 8 The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, 9 a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. 10 The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— 11 the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter. 12 The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night. 13 As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice: ‘Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!’”

The first four trumpets seem to differ from the last three, which are called “woes” (8:13; 9:12; 11:14) and remind many commentators of the plagues in the book of Exodus. Commentators also have related these trumpet judgments to the “…four winds…” of the “…wrath of the Lamb…” (see 6:16–7:3), which will be delayed until the sealing of the servants of God.

After the sounding of the first four trumpets, one-third of the earth and its plant life are burned, one-third of the sea can no longer sustain life or enable shipping, one-third of the world’s fresh water is poisonous, and the sun, moon, and stars are darkened. While some commentators believe the trumpets passage is symbolic symbolic, most understand it to contain  prophecies of literal impacts God’s judgments will have on nature during the reign of the Antichrist.

The judgments seem to come in quick succession, reminiscent of the judgments in Egypt when Pharaoh refused to let the Jewish slaves leave (Exodus 7 and following).

The First Trumpet

The hail and fire of the first trumpet judgment (v.7) is roughly parallel the fourth plague Moses describes in Exodus 9:23-26, with the addition of hail and fire mixed with blood. The result is that “A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up” (v. 7). This may be description of volcanic activity resulting from severe earthquakes. The steam and water are blasted high into the atmosphere by volcanic eruptions and freeze into hail stones, which fall to earth along with ash, rocks, and hot lava.

The blood in v. 7 is either literal by divine action or rain contaminated by fine dust and gaseous volcanic emissions so that it appears red. The lava flows from the volcanoes, and the burning lava falling from the sky destroy by fire 1/3 of the earth’s plant life.

The Second Trumpet

At the sounding of the second trumpet (vv. 8-9), what seems to be a large meteor or asteroid collides with the earth (v. 8: “…something like a huge mountain all ablaze…”). It is blazing as it heats up from the friction of the atmosphere, and it will bring huge devastation as it impacts in an ocean. The resulting tidal waves will destroy one-third of the world’s ships and will kill one-third of the sea life (v. 9).

A third of the sea turned into blood… (v. 8) may be literal—God’s direct act—or it could be from all the debris stirred up from the ocean’s bottom or dead micro-organisms known as “red tide.” Whatever it is, it will be a dramatic demonstration of the wrath of God in judgment of the sin of the people left on earth in the tribulation.

The Third Trumpet

At the sounding of the third trumpet (vv. 10-11), John describes a “…a great star, blazing like a torch…” falling from the sky and turning a part of these fresh water supplies into very bitter water. Such a calamity in poisoning fresh water sources would mean that many people would die.

The name of the falling star is “…Wormwood…,” which is a reference to the bitter herb Artemesia absinthium that is native to the middle east. In the Old Testament both the prophets Jeremiah (in Jeremiah 9:15; 23:15; and Lamentations 3:15, 19) and Amos (5:7 ) refer to the wormwood herb. The Artemesia absinthium herb still grows today in the middle east. Its leaves are pleasant smelling, but its root is bitter, and consuming it causes a kind of drunkenness and eventually death.

In the Old Testament Hebrew, wormwood could mean poison or sometimes is even used to refer to the poisonous hemlock tree. In the Greek of the first century, the word had become a synonym for “undrinkable” and “poisonous.”

There also is a divine messenger associated with this falling star, described in 9:1-2:

 

“1 I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. 2 When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss.”

 

The Abyss is what the Bible calls the underworld where Satan and his demons dwell and from which they emerge to roam the earth. The Greek term is ἄβυσσος (abyssos) and means “Abyss, the deep place, the underworld, the abode of the dead and demons, an “unfathomable depth.”

The Abyss is not a place the demons want to be. In Luke 8:26-33, Jesus confronts the demons in the demon-possessed man. They beg Jesus not to order them to return to the Abyss, but to send them to possess a nearby heard of pigs, who then rushed off a cliff and drowned.

We also learn more about the function of the Abyss in Revelation 20:1-3:

 

“1 And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. 2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. 3 He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.”

The Fourth Trumpet

John relates that when the fourth trumpet sounds, a partial darkness occurs on the earth, reminiscent of the ninth plague (Exodus 10:21-23). There are some Old Testament parallels to this phenomenon, as the darkening of the heavens appears in connection with the visible manifestation of God in judgment (see Isaiah 13:10; Ezekiel 32:7-8; and Joel 2:10; 3:15) and when Christ was crucified (Matthew 27:45).

As this judgment is given, God will supernaturally reduce the intensity of the light and energy of the sun by one-third and dim the moon and stars the same amount, causing severe impact for the remaining inhabitants of the world, mainly a drop in temperature that will produce changes in weather, eventually meaning the deaths of millions from the cold and lack of food production.

Later, in the fourth bowl judgment, the sun brightens again, but with such intensity that the heat would kill many people (see 16:8-9):

 

“8 The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire. 9 They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify Him.”

As if the judgments that had already taken place were not enough, now John hears a flying eagle call out “…woe…” three times (v. 13):

 

“As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice: ‘Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!’”

The eagle’s cry indicates the terrible impact of the last three plagues, which kill a third part of the population of the earth (9:18: “A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths.”). This is a warning that the worst is yet to first half of the tribulation (“…the beginning of birth pains…,” Matthew 24:8) will not be as horrible as the final half (“For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again,” Matthew 24:21).

The “…eagle that was flying in midair…” of v. 13 is symbolic. In the book of Revelation we find only two other references to eagles (4:7; 12:14); 4:7 refers to one of the four living beings, and it may be that John intends the eagle in 8:13 to have the same significance.