[Revelation 9 (the two demon armies) is regarded as one of the most difficult passages in the Revelation.]
(Cf. Joel 2:1-9, 15, 28; Joel 3:2, 9-16; 2Pe 3:10, etc.) Remember: the Restrainer has been removed. It now gets pretty rough...
[1] “And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth.”
“Star”: already fallen. Star = angel? Dan 12:3; Isa 14:12-16.
“Him” (a person): given a key; a king over the beings in the pit (Rev 9:11). Authority not complete—key had to be given to him. [Satan beheld as lightning falling from heaven: Luk 10:18; prophesied by Isaiah (Isa 14:12).]
Abousso: “bottomless pit”; 9X in NT; 30X in Old Testament; 7 times in Rev (Rev 9:1-2, 11; Rev 11:7; Rev 17:8; Rev 20:1, 3). Angels that sinned (Gen 6:2, 4; 2Pe 2:4; Jde 6). Demons beg to avoid abousso (Luk 8:31); after “many days,” the abousso will be visited (Isa 24:21-22); Satan is imprisoned there in Rev 20:10.
[2] “And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit...”: “Smoke”: Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:28); Giving of the Law (Exd 19:18)
[3] “And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.”
(Cf. 8th plague of Egypt (Exd 10:14-15); those locusts were after herbs; no king; never to be repeated.) These locusts here are not normal locusts: they have no king (Prov 30:27).
“Gog” is also King of locusts (Amos 7:1—LXX only). Five months? Gen 7:24.
“Scorpion”: Isa 9:15 (Cf. Joel 2:2, 4; Eph 6:12).
[4] “And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads”: Sealed of God. He knows who are His: 2Ti 2:19.
[5] “And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment [was] as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.”
[6] “And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.”
[7] “And the shapes of the locusts [were] like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads [were] as it were crowns like gold, and their faces [were] as the faces of men”: Even natural locusts have the appearance of horses equipped with armor: the German term is Heupferd, “hay-horse”; the Italian, cavaletta, “little horse.”
[8] “And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as [the teeth] of lions”: Cf. Joel 1:6.
[9] “And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings [was] as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle”: Even the sound of natural locusts are terrifying. These are demonic creatures...
[10] “And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power [was] to hurt men five months”: (Cf. Isa 9:14-15. Also, Amos 5:18-19).
[11] “And they had a king over them, [which is] the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue [is] Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath [his] name Apollyon.”
Abaddon (Hebrew), Apollyon (Greek). Abaddon: 6 X in OT (Job 26:6; Job 28:22; Job 31:12; Psa 88:11; Prov 15:11; Prov 27:20). Apollyon: “destroyer,” Jhn 10:10. “Prince of the Air”: Eph 2:2; Jhn 14:30; Isa 14:15.
Prov 30:27: the locusts have no king. [Cf. Amos 7:1 (LXX): Gog is the king of those locusts.]
As God’s people, we can be thankful that Jesus alone holds the keys of hell and death: Rev 1:18. He has His timetable: nothing will occur too soon nor too late.
[12] “One woe is past; [and], behold, there come two woes more hereafter”: Supernatural armies have previously appeared in the Scriptures:
•; Horses and a chariot of fire separated Elijah from Elisha when Elijah was taken up into heaven (2Ki 2:11);
•; When Dothan was besieged by the army of Syria, God opened the eyes of Elisha’s servant and he saw the horses and chariots of fire (2Ki 6:13-17).
[The Lord Jesus Christ will also be attended by the armies of heaven riding on white horses.]
Another demonic army follows:
[13] “And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God”: This is at the Altar of Incense featured in Rev 8:3-5. The Avenger of Blood is about to answer those prayers. [Note: Blood offered here, too, on Yom Kippur (Exd 30:10; Cf. 1Ki 13:2-3).
[14] “Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates”: [Four seems to be the number of creation. Could this be because we know only 4 of the 10 dimensions of the universe?] These are apparently wicked angels since they are bound and must be loosed.
Eastern boundary of Israel (Gen 15:18; Cf. Deu 1:7; Josh 1:4; 1Ki 4:21, 24). Also, it’s the traditional boundary of east and west (e.g., Roman Empire). The Romans lived in constant fear of the Parthian Empire on the other side of the river.
Reference to this river dates from Eden! (Garden: east of Eden.) Sin began here (Gen 2:14-15; Gen 3:6-7); the first murder, (Gen 4:8); Nimrod (“We will rebel”) Gen 10; Gen 11; Tower of Babel = Babylon: The fountainhead of idolatry and false worship. Babylon will be the scene of the last stand (Zech 5:5-11).
A divided kingdom cannot stand. This appears to be a division in Satan’s kingdom. As far as Asia is concerned, demon religions are all east of the Euphrates. India is said to have 33 million gods. All the gods of the heathen are demons (Psa 96:5 LXX).
It is interesting that in the 1991 Gulf War, the US Army’s 24th Mechanized and 101st Airborne Divisions trapped the elite Republican Guard of Iraq by pinning it against the Euphrates River.
[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 men”: Since 1/4 were killed already (Rev 6:8), this means that over half of the world’s population will be dead by the time the 6th trumpet is completed.
[16] “And the number of the army of the horsemen [were] two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them”: 200 Million Army? A demonic “army” from the Far East? [The enormous population of China is one of its most powerful weapons. Russia is terrified of the growing emigration jeopardizing its eastern border. Also, the 30 nation coalition in the 1991 Gulf War—and the opposing army of Iraq—added up to a combined total of about 1 million.]
These, however, appear to be demons.
[17] “And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses [were] as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone”: Colors are as striking as the creatures are unnatural: fiery red, dark blue, bright yellow. If you believe, you scarcely need any comment. Difficulties with the passage emerge from lack of belief. Demonic forces are at work here.
[20] “And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk”: These judgments are not remedial, but retributive. Men persist in their sins. “There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God” (Rom 3:11).
This is demon worship (1Cr 10:19-21). Idols can include work of their own hands, buildings, machines, cities, et al. Dead sinners worshipping dead gods (Psa 115). Few people set out to worship demons, knowing they are demons. They may seek the advice of a “spirit being” through a channel or medium. Or perhaps it begins with an amulet, a lucky charm, or a horoscope or ouija board. Anything can be an “entry.” It is amazing to observe well-educated, successful, intelligent men and women of our own culture harboring believes and practicing rituals that are repackaged pagan rituals of prior ages... We become what we believe and worship (Psa 135:18).
21] “Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts”: Murder, drugs, sex, thefts. Just like today. We even subsidize murders prior to birth.
“Sorcery” = pharmakia, use of drugs. J.A. Seiss (born 1823, published the following in 1860, before the Civil War):
“We have only to think of the use of alcoholic stimulants, of opium, of tobacco, of the range of cosmetics and medicaments to increase love attractions, of resorts to the pharmacopoeia in connection with sensuality—of magical agents and treatments alleged to come from the spirit-world for the benefit of people in this—of the thousand impositions in the way of medicines and remedial agents, encouraging mankind to reckless transgression with the hope of easily repairing the damages of nature’s—of growing prevalence of crime induced by these things, setting loose and stimulating to activity the vilest passions, which are eating out the moral sense of society—for the beginnings of that moral degeneracy to which the seer here alludes as characteristic of the period when the sixth trumpet is sounded.”
[Drug trade is the largest economic constituency in Washington DC, and the primary source of funds to the covert intelligence community which some believe presently control the affairs in political life.]
It is interesting that even ancient pagan cultures had laws to protect the family, since it was the source of young men to man the armies. Population growth was a primary strategic resource. Abortion was a capital crime.
Theft includes socialized abrogation of property rights. Plunder and confiscation is not limited to individuals, but its most insidious forms include social policy and institutionalized theft. Deception will increase (2Ti 3:13). Be not deceived (Eph 5:6).