Revelation 9 Part 3 Bible Teaching

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If you haven’t been with us we have deconstructed these gatherings down to the essentials:

We begin with prayer
Sing the Word of God set to music (as a means to get it into our heads) and then we sit for a moment in silence here at the Church/Studio.
When we come back we pick up where we left off last week in our verse by verse study.

So we wrapped up talking about the locusts coming out of the abyss and their description and we also talked about the one called Their King who was named Apollyon.

Alright, deeper into the fifth trumpet. Now, we remember that earlier an Eagle (or angel) was crying, “wo, wo, wo,” Well continuing at verse 12 John writes:
Revelation 9. Part III
Meat
September 17th 2017

12The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.

Let’s quickly cover the woes for a minute:

Woe is a term in scripture that means “affliction or anguish or suffering.

The three woes of Revelation are the final judgment God pronounces on the evil inhabitants of the land in order to spur them to repentance.

Since being exposed to Facebook I have had what I consider the misfortune of reading all sorts of ideas about God pouring out Woes upon the earth today in preparation for his coming.

Admittedly, we have had some woes lately in floods and earthquakes and rumors of wars but this is a world of woes and we have constantly lived under a barrage of catastrophe, right?

Well here in Revelation there are specific woes that are being pronounced on Judea through the Revelation.

So remember, God’s judgments during this tribulation are pictured as seven seals which are opened one at a time.

And the “seventh seal” reveals what we call the seven trumpet judgments.

In Revelation 8:13 the fifth, sixth, and seventh trumpets are called the three woes.

As we have seen, the first woe is revealed after the fifth trumpet judgment.

It involves something like locusts that have the ability to sting like a scorpion (Revelation 9:3).

As we have also read these creatures are permitted to harm only those people who do not have the “seal of God on their forehead” (Revelation 9:4).

And then we have also read that those bearing God’s seal are the 144,000 (Revelation 7:3-4) or possibly all believers during that time (Ephesians 4:30).

These demonic locusts are allowed to torment unbelievers for five months (Revelation 9:5) with painful stings. Although victims will long for death (Revelation 9: 6), it will not be given them.

We covered much of this last week.

The second woe is revealed after the sixth trumpet judgment.

This woe begins when a voice commands in Revelation 9:14, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”

After second woe passes (Revelation 11:14), there comes a clear division in the book with the announcement from heaven,

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:15).

We’ll discuss this passage when we get to it.

The third woe is revealed after the seventh trumpet judgment. This woe is parallel to the trumpet that sounds in Joel 2 and signals the consummation of God’s plan.

This third woe marks the finishing of God’s judgment on sin; it occupies the book of Revelation through the 19th chapter, when Christ’s Kingdom is established on earth.

Incorporated within this third and final woe are the seven “bowls” of God’s wrath, described in Revelation 16:1-21.

This series of judgments is the greatest horror the citizens of earth have ever seen. Jesus said, “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive” (Matthew 24:22).

So there is an update on the Woes.

And now we are introduced to the sounding of the sixth trumpet.

So let’s read beginning at verse 13

13The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God.
14It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”
15And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind.
16The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.
17The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur.

In Revelation 9:1-12 John sees a vision of an army from the Abyss and its earthly reflection in the Roman legions. In remainder of this chapter, John describes the effect of the sounding of the next trumpet–the sixth trumpet. In the sixth trumpet, John sees another army. This army is the auxiliary cohorts which reinforced Titus’ Roman legions.
The voice coming from the horns of the golden altar instructs the sixth angel to release the four angels bound at the Euphrates.

Recall as stated above that people on earth are sometimes called angels (2 Chronicles 36:15-16; Haggai 1:13; Malachi 3:1; Matthew 11:10; 24:31; Luke 7:24; 9:52; 1 Timothy 3:16; and Revelation 2:1, 8, 12, 18; 3:1, 7, 14; 21:17).

And if it is true that Titus is the earthly counterpart of the “the angel of the Abyss” in v. 11, then it follows that these four angels bound at the Euphrates may also have human counterparts. This would certainly not be the first time that angels and humans though separate beings are addressed together (Ezekiel 28, Daniel 10:10-21; 12:1).

I believe the human reflections of these four angels are the four kings that aided Titus in his campaign against Jerusalem by supplying auxiliary troops during the siege of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

I believe these four kings or angels are Antiochus, Agrippa II, Sohemus and Malchus.

At the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem there were four Roman legions and four auxiliary units who reinforced these legions.33

According to Josephus, these four auxiliary units were collectively furnished by the four Roman client kings mentioned above–Antiochus, Agrippa, Sohemus, and Malchus.

These four Roman client kings who reinforced Titus’ Roman legions are the earthly representatives of the four angels bound at the Euphrates mentioned in v. 16 because Sohemus and Malchus ruled kingdoms on opposite sides of the Euphrates.

Thus two out of these four units were drawn directly from the Euphrates in fulfillment of v. 14:

“Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”

Upon the release of these four angels, thousands of auxiliary troops specifically those under the authority of Antiochus and Sohemus were drawn from Euphrates in order to reinforce Titus’ Roman legions stationed at Caesarea, near Mt. Megiddo fulfilling vs. 14-16.

From there, Titus’ coalition of Roman legions and auxiliary troops closed in on Jerusalem intent on killing the Jewish rebels seeking refuge within the protective walls of the city.

The sixth trumpet is a call to mobilize these allied troops stationed at the Euphrates.

Now in the revised versions of the Bible verse 15 reads:

15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of mankind.

The term is better translated, men, therefore it removes us from the idea that this was a world-wide cataclysm.

Which brings us to another passage where the translation can be difficult and has led many believers to think that what is being described here has to be world wide:

Take a listen:

“The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.”

We have two problems to address with this verse.

First the number of 200 Million and second that these were all MOUNTED troops.

In and of itself we can reasonable say that this is hyperbole, or representational, or a mistranslation.

I mean even today the WORLD horse population is guestimated at 58 million – so this is talking about a number three times that amount.

Something is wrong. Let’s start with the number 200 million itself – as representing just soldiers.

An army of 200 MILLION, of course, would never describe an army around Jerusalem.

Most translational problems in the Bible deal with dates or numbers and this is no exception.

But the Revised translations all assign this number as two hundred million.

However, as indicated in the word-for-word “Interlinear Translation” (from Greek to English) this verse would perhaps most literally read,

“[A]nd the number of the armies of the cavalry [was] twice ten thousand ten thousands[.]”

Interestingly, the word-for-word Interlinear also appears to translate the Hebrew equivalent of this number as “20,000” in Psalm 68:17:

“[T]he Lord of angels [even] thousands twenty thousand of God [are] [t]he chariots in holiness . . .”

Then the New King James Version also translates Psalm 68:17 in the same way: “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, Even thousands of thousands[.]”

Young’s Literal Translation also suggests that the number of soldiers might be more accurately translated “20,000” and it says,

“[A]nd the number of the forces of the horsemen [is] two myriads of myriads[.]”

In Greek antiquity, a myriad is a unit of ten thousand. Thus two myriads is 20,000 troops–which is historically proven to be the exact number of Roman auxiliary troops present during the siege and fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

Then the horsemen or those mounted.

Josephus says that Antiochus, Agrippa, Sohemus and Malchus each furnished one thousand horsemen to the fight.

Therefore, out of these 20,000 auxiliary troops roughly four thousand were cavalry.

But doesn’t Revelation suggest that all 20,000 of these soldiers are horsemen?

As cited above, in the word-for-word Interlinear Translation from Greek to English, Revelation 9:16 literally reads,

“[A]nd the number of the armies of the cavalry [was] twice ten thousand ten thousands[.]”

Though some Bible translations explicitly indicate that the “twice ten thousand ten thousands” are horsemen, the majority of English Bible translations translate Revelation 9:16 similar to the Interlinear:

“[A]nd the number of the armies [or army] of the cavalry . . .”

In translating the Greek in this way it is less clear as to whether the entirety of the army are horsemen or if the total number of soldiers in the army is “twice ten thousand ten thousands” and the horsemen just compose a part of this total force.

The 20,000 Roman auxiliaries who supplemented Titus’ legions during the siege of Jerusalem were about 20% horsemen. This is a very high percentage especially when compared to the Roman legions whom they reinforced which totaled about 480 cavalry out of the roughly 40,000 soldiers in the four legions under Titus’ command!

It therefore seems that John’s intention was to number the total army, not just the number of horsemen, in v. 16.

I say this because 20,000 horsemen is a grossly inflated figure for any besieging force in ancient times.

Horses were just not that useful during a siege.

Additionally, and this is important to the futurist/preterist discussion – it is very unlikely that v. 16 would be fulfilled in anyway in the future as modern armies no longer use horsemen in battle.

One other thought on the numbering here. If it IS correct, then we may have to look at in in another way.

As is often the case in Revelation, vs. 12-18 may have a dual fulfillment in both the heaven and earth. This is because, as stated many times in this commentary, events in heaven often have earthly types or shadows.

If so, the myriads of myriads of soldiers bound at the Euphrates described throughout the remainder of this chapter could be both human and angelic warriors drawn from this river.

Therefore, the four angels bound at the Euphrates brought with them a heavenly army of myriads of myriads of angels to aid the Roman auxiliaries–also from the Euphrates–in their battle against Jerusalem.

This would mean that the heavenly army appears to have worked in concert with these human forces to assist in the fall of Jerusalem in the same way that an invisible heavenly army aided Elisha in 2 Kings 6:17.

Okay, then verse 17

17The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur.

In verse 17 the cavalry have fiery red, hyacinth and sulfur yellow breastplates. These colors hint at the fire, smoke and sulfur of the Abyss.

They may also foreshadow the fire, smoke and sulfur soon to engulf Jerusalem when it was burned by the Romans at its fall in A.D. 70.

Earlier in v. 9, John reveals the fact that these soldiers wore breastplates of iron.

If we go next door and talk to our welder friends they will admit that when it comes to welded and heated iron that it can be found in a wide array of colors and is responsible for the pigmentation of an assortment of different colored crystals.

As indicated in this verse, using ancient chemical techniques, iron can be manipulated into colors ranging from sulfur yellow to red ochre or Prussian blue: the colors of fire, smoke and sulfur.

Then we read:

17The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur.”

Perhaps one of the most compelling pieces of evidence linking the locusts of Revelation 9 to the Roman cavalry of the Jewish War is this enigmatic statement:

“the heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions.”

The reason this is a compelling piece of evidence is that some of the Roman cavalry placed helmet over the head of their war-horses so as to protect them from blows and arrows and these often contained the imagery of a lions heard perhaps to give them added strength and fearfulness.

Then in the final line of verse 17 we see a tie in to the likeness of the mythical hydra, which again was seen in the cosmos on the first day of the five month siege.

This tie in comes in the line:

“and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur.”

Here, as we read in Job 41 of Leviathan, these horses are said to breathe fire.

John ties the locusts of this army to the leviathan, a mythical sea monster which is often used in scripture to symbolize an oppressiveness of an invading empire.

As Job 41:19 reads, “Firebrands stream from his mouth.”

Firebrands are very different from fire as they are actual burning objects, like flaming arrows used as weapons of war.

These locust soldiers collectively seem to embody the mighty leviathan, Rome, who is shown here launching firebrands into the city of Jerusalem.

Though Josephus does not specifically say that the Roman army launched firebrands into Jerusalem, he does indicate that they had done so earlier in the war during the siege of Jotapata (Galilee) therefore, it seems reasonable that the Roman legions did the same during the later siege of Jerusalem.

And again, the leviathan is called to mind in this verse because it, like the other constellations mentioned, was also visible the first night of Titus’ five month siege in the form of the Hydra.

This is not just stripped out of the sky and applied to the scene. The Hellenistic conception of the Hydra is believed by many scholars to have been adopted from the Middle Eastern myth of the seven-headed leviathan.

Now, I am jumping out a bit but he fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of the mouths of the locusts in vs. 17-18 in all likelihood is “the fire from heaven” that we will read is mentioned in Revelation 13:13 which is the fire said to come from the mouths of the two witnesses in Revelation 11:5.

This fire from heaven said to come out of the mouths of the locust army seems to have been fulfilled in the firebrands this army likely shot into Jerusalem during the siege as mentioned above.

Thus as stated above this fiery locust army of Revelation is very similar to the locust army described in the Book of Joel which signified the Babylonian army who besieged Judah in the sixth century B.C.

Describing the Babylonians, Joel 2:3 reads,

“Before them fire devours, behind them a flame blazes. Before them the land is like the garden of Eden, behind them, a desert waste—nothing escapes them.”

Okay, verse 18

18 A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths.

According to Josephus’ estimates, One-Third of the People Trapped in Jerusalem during the Siege of A.D. 70 were Killed in Explicit Fulfillment of v. 18.

With his estimate of some 3,000,000 trapped in the city during the siege and 1,100,000 Jews then dying we have a direct fulfillment of verse 18 here.

Verse 19

19The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury.

It is in this description that the likeness of Ophiuchus is discovered in the Revelation.

Remember on the first day of the siege that John could have gazed up at the night sky and seen the constellations Serpens Cauda, the snake tail, and Serpens Caput, the snake’s head.

Again, lying directly above Scorpio, these constellations would also have been visible that Passover night at the start of Titus’ five month siege.

In v. 10, the tails of the horses were said to be like that of a scorpion.

In v. 19, they are compared to that of a snake.

We could come up with all sorts of configurations about why the switch-up but bottom line they seem to represent the Roman soldiers weapons in one way or another.

What about the remainder that were not killed? Verses 20-21

20 The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshipping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk.

21 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Now if you have been with us in Milk we have been working our way through the idolatry present in the surrounding areas of the Roman province.

A major fear among the church – one that came to fruition despite apostolic efforts – was idolatry or the embracing of the Greek or Roman Gods.

We know from the words of Jesus to the Seven Churches that some of them Jesus had ought with because they had embraced these idolatrous practices which often included sexual depravities and magic.

Verses 20 and 21 seem to speak directly to the heart of those who were not killed in the Roman siege.

It is very interesting that in the Midrash Lamentations, Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish attributes the destruction of both the first Temple (by the Babylonians) and the second Temple (by the Romans) to the worship of idols in Israel, saying:

‘Woe unto them that join house to house’: ye have joined the destruction of the first Temple to that of the second Temple. As with the first Temple [‘]Zion shall be ploughed like a field[‘] (Jer. 26:18), so with the second Temple ‘Zion shall be ploughed like a field’. [sic.] ‘Till there be no place’: what caused the ‘place’ to be destroyed? Because they left no place where idolatry was not practiced by them.”

Rabbi Lakish then goes on to list all the various places where the Israelites worshiped idols from the secret places to the rooftops, the mountains, the fields and in the streets in Jerusalem’s 70 AD history.

Of course iIdolatry (or image-worship or divine honor paid to any created object) is the crime that truly plagued the Nation of Israel.

They had a really hard time dropping it once and for all.

In Romans 1:21-25 Paul describes the origin of idolatry as men forsaking God and sinking into ignorance and moral corruption (28).

The forms of idolatry are throughout scripture includes the worship of trees, rivers, hills, stones.

Nature worship, the worship of the sun, moon, and stars, as the supposed powers of nature.

Hero worship, the worship of deceased ancestors, or of heroes.

Most of it in Scripture is regarded as of heathen origin, and as being imported among the Hebrews through contact with heathen nations.

The first allusion to idolatry (Genesis 31:19) is in the account of Rachel stealing her father’s teraphim which were the relics of the worship of other gods by Laban’s progenitors “on the other side of the river in old time.”

During their long residence in Egypt the Hebrews fell into idolatry, and it had a grip on them for quite a while.

But it is thought that most of the idolatry learned in Egypt was probably rooted out from among the people during the forty years’ wanderings; but when the Jews entered Palestine, they came into contact with the monuments and associations of the idolatry of the old Canaanitish races, and showed a constant tendency to depart from the living God and follow the idolatrous practices of those heathen nations.

It seems that the only thing that served to free them of it was Babylonian exile.

The first and second commandments are directed against idolatry of every form.

The Old Testament insights to the crime and punishments for idolatry are numerous and worth a look as the punishment is almost always death whether it be from an individual or through an entire nation itself.

When reading the Old Testament many people get really troubled by the command from God to the COI to go into cities and to wipe out every living creation – animals, women and children – why, we ask?

The demanded extermination of the Canaanites was the punishment of their idolatry (as we read in Exodus 34:15-16 and Deuteronomy 7:1-26; 12:29-31; 20:17) and perhaps we might see it the way we view the disease of leprosy. It ultimately infects everything to such an extent that there is no hope for those who have been steeped in it.

We tend to think of the Caananites being a peaceful, tranquil loving nation but perhaps they were ensconced from top to bottom with sexual depravity, bloodletting, and bestial activities.

One Bible commentator says:

“A city guilty of idolatry was looked upon as a cancer in the state; it was considered to be in rebellion, and treated according to the laws of war. Its inhabitants and all their cattle were put to death.”

Jehovah was the theocratic King of Israel, the civil Head of the commonwealth, and therefore to an Israelite idolatry was a state offence of high treason.

On taking possession of the land, the Jews were commanded to destroy all traces of every kind of the existing idolatry of the Canaanites (Ex 23:24,32; 34:13; De 7:5,25; 12:1-3)

In the New Testament the term idolatry is used to designate covetousness (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13; Colossians 3:5; Ephesians 5:5)

Perhaps this second temple destruction was in response to the people’s refusal to not embrace or receive Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior but who instead longed to worship anything and everything BUT Him!?

Let’s wrap today up with some little factoids revolving around chapter 9 that I have failed to mention:

The Roman attack on Jerusalem began on Passover and ended on the eighth day of Elul, five months later. According to the Bible, each time heaven and earth had been destroyed it often spanned a course of five months. The first time this occurred was during the Genesis flood. The second time was during the Babylonian siege according to the LXX version of Ezekiel 4, and the last time was during the Jewish War with Rome.

Between four to six signs of the zodiac are visible at any moment in the night sky. However, six to eight may become visible throughout the course of the night.

After Nero’s death, Vespasian initially stayed in Caesarea at the edge of the Roman province of Israel, the earth. From there he moved to Berytus–Beirut, the sea–in Josephus The Wars of the Jews 4.10.6. Then he departed to Alexandria in Egypt, the sea—according to Suetonius Lives of the Twelve Caesars 10.7. Cassius Dio Roman History 66.19. Titus’ siege began on the fourteenth of Nisan during Passover according to The Wars of the Jews 5.3.1. The siege ended five months later on the eighth of Elul as stated in The Wars of the Jews 6.10.1.

To be completely accurate, the constellation Virgo actually evolved from a combination of two ancient Babylonian female constellations, Erua and Shala.

Interestingly, Caesar Titus had an adulterous affair with the firstborn princess of Israel, Berenice, during and after the Jewish War. As is explained in detail in the commentary on Revelation 17, Queen Berenice is the human embodiment of Jerusalem, the whore of Babylon. The whore of Babylon had an adulterous affair with the beast according to Revelation 17 and 18.

Sagittarius is identified today as a centaur. However, this constellation represented the god Pabilsag in earlier cultures like the Babylonians. Like the locusts of Revelation 9, Pabilsag had wings and a lion’s head. The constellation of Sagittarius seems to have embodied many of the attributes of the locusts throughout the history of this constellation.

The name Apollo, Apollon in Greek, was often linked in ancient Greek writings with the verb apollymi or apollyo, “destroy.”

Q and A

October 31st 2017