A Commentary in Simple English on Revelation

CHAPTER 8

Verse 1:The Lamb opens the Seventh Seal

We read in 6:12 that the Lamb opened the sixth seal. [8.1] Now at last the Lamb, Jesus opens the Seventh seal. Now He can open the book or scroll. Now He can read what God has written in it. (5:9). No one else has this honour. It is because Jesus has won the war against sin and death that He can open and read the scroll. Now we expect Jesus to read out what the scroll says. And because that was the last of the seven seals, we expect to hear that Jesus comes again to the world. We expect to hear about the end of the age. But we do not. Instead, there is no sound in heaven for half an hour. John does not hear anything, but he sees something different in the next verse.

No one is at all sure what this 'silence' means. It seems best to think of the priest who went into the Jerusalem temple to pray. (See Luke 1:10.) The time the priest was in the temple was about half an hour. While the priest was in the Holy Place, the rest of the people stood in silence outside. (Luke 10:21) [8.2]. And the priest had to burn 'incense' in the temple. 'Incense' was made from spices. When the priests burned it, smoke rose up. This smoke had a beautiful smell. So this was a picture of prayer (Luke 1:9). Our prayers rise up to God and to Him they are beautiful.

Verse 2: The Seven Trumpets (or War Horns)

So John says to God's people: 'The end is not yet here. We still have to wait for Jesus to come. He will come, but not yet. There will be a lot more trouble in the world. Christian people will still suffer. So pray - more and more!'

John sees seven angels. They are each given a 'trumpet' or war horn. (Think about Joshua 6:2-5. There nothing happened on the first six days when the priests blew the trumpets. It was only on the seventh day, when the priests blew the 'last trumpet' that the wall of Jericho fell down.) We do not know who gave the trumpets to the angels. Most likely it was God, but John does not say. We have to wait until verse 6 to read more about the seven trumpets.

Verses 3-5 Prayer

In the temple at Jerusalem there were two altars. One was the place where priests killed animals as an offering to God. The priest would then burn part or all of the animal's body on the altar. This altar stood in front of the temple building. It was in the court or open space which was all round the temple building. But inside the temple building there was another altar. This stood in the Holy Place. It was made of gold. It was the altar of 'incense'. As we have seen, when the priests burned incense, it was a picture of prayer. (In 19:3 there is some very different smoke!)

So before the seven angels blow their trumpets, John gives us a picture of prayer. The people of God in the world pray. They do not pray enough. They know that they do not pray enough. But another angel comes and he has plenty of incense. He offers his incense. The smoke mixes with the prayers of God's people. Together the prayers and incense rise up to God. So when we feel that our prayers to God are not what they should be, we can think about this. Our prayers have much more added to them when they go up to God. And it is Jesus who helps our prayers like this.

Some people think that there is silence in heaven (verse 1) so that the prayers of God's people can be better heard. Even praise is silenced so that only our prayers can be heard.

Verses 3 and 4 tell us two other things about our prayers to God. One is that we are not on our own when we pray. We may feel alone. We may not have the company of other Christians. But our prayers go up to God with the prayers of all His people. The other thing that these verses tell us is this. Our prayers are never lost. God may not yet have given the answer to our prayers. But our prayers reach God.

Now verse 5 gives us another picture. No doubt many of the prayers which went up to God asked Him to do good. Christians ask God to do good to people who live near them and to their families. They pray for those who are not Christians. Now verse 5 tells us what happens. The angel takes the very same 'censer' in which he burns the incense. He fills it up from the fire that burns on the altar, which is made of gold. Thunder and lightning and the shaking of the earth follow. These are not the things which God's people prayed for. (Think of the way God's people pray and wait in 6:9-11.) Perhaps verse 5 says in a few words what will happen when the angels blow their trumpets.

God often answers our prayers in a way that we had not thought of. This is good for us. When God answers prayer in the way we thought He might, we may not be quite sure that it is God's work. But when He answers prayers in some way we had not thought of, we have no doubt He is really at work.

Verses 6-13 The first four trumpets

The last trumpet does not sound until 11:15. The other six trumpets are made up of four and two. The first four trumpets are in verses 7-12 of Chapter 8. They harm nature rather than men. Verse 13 is a break between the fourth and fifth trumpets. Then after the fifth and sixth trumpets (Chapter 9) there is a break (from 10:1 to 11:14). This is a shape that we find several times in Revelation. We saw it before in the seven seals.

So (verse 6) the seven angels get ready to blew their trumpets. Remember that one use of a trumpet was to warn people of danger. God gives warning to men. They must repent, leave their sins, and trust Jesus to save them.

In verse 7 the first of the seven angels blows his trumpet. (See perhaps Genesis 19:24,25.) No doubt John knew about 'The Burnt Land' north of Philadelphia. He may well have been there. This was an area where there were no trees. Vines would grow there. There were no great volcanoes or burning mountains, but earthquakes often shook the land. John seems to give us a picture of what he had seen there. No doubt hot ash, smoke and fire came up out of the ground in some places. (See also Exodus 9:13 for the 'plague' of Hail in Egypt.}

In verses 8 and 9, the second angel blows his trumpet. John sees a volcano or burning mountain. About fifteen years before John wrote, Vesuvius had blown up. Vesuvius is a mountain on the west coast of Italy. It is not far from the city of Naples. When it blew up in the year AD.79, it threw hot ashes and gases over a wide area. The volcano had been quiet for many years, and two towns had been built too near to it. The ashes buried them. Fire destroyed many ships on the sea. Great waves wrecked others.

Now John did not see Vesuvius blow up as far as we know. But he may well have talked to people who had seen what happened. And there were other volcanoes, like Etna, in that part of the world. Some of them were islands in the sea. Some might be seen from Patmos. So here again John writes about something that he knows about. (Jeremiah 51:25; see also Exodus 7:14 for the plague of blood in Egypt).

In verses 10 and 11 we read about what happened when the third angel blew his trumpet.

At night we can sometimes see 'shooting stars' in the sky. These are points of light, which travel at great speed across the sky. Many of them are burnt up in the air. A few bigger ones do hit the earth. We call them 'meteorites'. These are lumps of rock. Now there was more than one old story about how the city of Ephesus began. But one of them was about a meteorite. This stone was built into the form of the 'goddess' Artemis (or Diana). The Temple may have been built just where the meteorite fell. [8.3]. You can read in Acts 19:23-41 the story of the riot at Ephesus. You will see how strong the feelings of the people in the city were about Artemis. But also you will see (verse 35) that they thought that their 'goddess' had fallen from the sky. So once again, John knew something about this story.

We do not know whether it is the same star that we read about in 9:1. 'Wormwood' (or 'absinth') is bitter but not a poison. It has several uses. The plant from which wormwood comes is a kind of 'artemisia'. [8.4]. The water was made too bitter to drink.

In Exodus 15:23, Israel are in the wild country. The sun is hot. They have no water. They are thirsty. They come to Marah, where there was some water. But this water was so bitter that they could not drink it. In verse 25, God shows Moses a tree or piece of wood. Moses throws this into the water. The water becomes pure and fit to drink. The tree is a picture of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. What happened at Marah is the opposite of what happens here in Revelation.

In verse 12, the fourth angel sounds his trumpet. There is darkness. In Exodus 10:21 we can read about the 'plague' of darkness in Egypt.

As the first three trumpets were to do with things that John knew about, it is likely that the fourth one is too. The picture may be of a sandstorm, when there is a strong wind and dust fills the air. This sometimes shuts out the light of the sun. Or the picture may be of 'eclipses' when a shadow passes over the sun or moon. What John says in verses 6-13 is rather like this. 'We know that these things happen. They warn us to worship the one true God, and His Son Jesus. If men do not leave their sins and serve God, these things will become much worse'.

In verse 13, John looks and hears. Often he hears and then looks. He sees a lonely eagle. The eagle is the greatest of all birds. (See Hosea 8:1.) This eagle flies in the part of the sky where the sun is at noon. 14:6 is very much like this verse, so this eagle may well be an angel. [8.5]. This eagle has a message. 'Woe, woe, woe' is a Jewish way of speaking. (See 4:8).

The message is: 'What has happened so far has been very bad. But there are still three more trumpets to sound. What will happen when they sound will be far worse'.

For 'those who dwell on the earth' see Revelation 3:10; 6:10; 1: 10; 13:8; 13:14; 17:8. This means the people who do not want anything more than this life and what this world can give to them. The Christian wants glory. He wants the reward God promises to him. He wants the prize of eternal life. So he does not just live on the earth. He is a follower of Jesus. He travels to God. He is a 'pilgrim'.