| Scripture |
Expanded Comments |
| |
|
| 1 And the fifth angel sounded his trumpet: and I saw a star out of the heaven fallen to the earth; and there was given to it the key of the pit of the abyss. |
The fifth angel – Under the Saracens. HG77:2
When Othman first invaded the Roman empire, July 27, AD 1299, ending in July 1449, and the independence of the eastern possession of the empire virtually passed away. Constantinople fell two years later, in AD 1451. HG77:3
|
| 2 And it opened the pit of the abyss; and there went up smoke out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke of the pit. |
The air – The Greek word here is used symbolically to represent government or controlling power over the earth. R152:6
|
| 3 And out of the smoke came forth locusts on the earth, and power was given to them as the scorpions of the earth have power; |
|
| 4 and it was said to them, that they should not injure the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but the men who have not the seal of God on their foreheads: |
|
| 5 and it was given to them 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 it strikes a man. |
Not kill – This being a symbol, is political, not literal death. HG77:3
Tormented – During this 150 years, the Saracens murdered, robbed and taxed the people, while the government at Constantinople was too weak to give protection. HG77:4
Five months – Five months is five times thirty, or 150 days--in symbolic time, 150 years. HG77:4
|
| 6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall in no way find it; and shall desire to die, and death flees from them. |
Seek death – The people earnestly desired political death, that their own government might be abolished. HG77:4
|
| 7 And the likenesses of the locusts were like to horses prepared for war; and upon their heads as crowns like gold, and their faces as faces of men; |
|
| 8 and they had hair as women's hair, and their teeth were as of lions, |
|
| 9 and they had breastplates as breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to war; |
|
| 10 and they have tails like scorpions, and stings; and their power was in their tails to hurt men five months. |
|
| 11 They have a king over them, the angel of the abyss: his name in Hebrew, Abaddon, and in Greek he has for name Apollyon. |
|
| |
|
| 12 The first woe has passed. Behold, there come yet two woes after these things. |
|
| |
|
| 13 And the sixth angel sounded his trumpet: and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, |
The sixth angel – Under the Mohammedans. HG77:2
|
| 14 saying to the sixth angel that had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound at the great river Euphrates. |
Euphrates – The people supporting the system of Babylon. Q720:4
The restraint of the Christian nations, the waters of the Euphrates, "the waters on which the harlot"--mystic Babylon--"sitteth," was to be let loose, or taken off from the Mohammedans so that the sixth trumpet or downfall of Constantinople and the east, might be accomplished HG77:5
|
| 15 And the four angels were loosed, who are prepared for the hour and day and month and year, that they might slay the third part of men; |
An hour, and a day – 391 years, 15 days, commencing July 27, 1449, ending August 11, 1840. HG78:1
In August 1840 the combined Ally fleet knocked at the door of the Sultan at Constantinople. On that very day, the independence of the Turkish empire virtually ended. HG78:2
To slay – Not torment merely, but death, political death. HG77:6
|
| 16 and the number of the hosts of horse was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard their number. |
|
| 17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and those that sat upon them, having breastplates of fire and jacinth and brimstone; and the heads of the horses were as heads of lions, and out of their mouths goes out fire and smoke and brimstone. |
|
| 18 By these three plagues were the third part of men killed, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which goes out of their mouths. |
|
| 19 For the power of the horses is in their mouth and in their tails: for their tails are like serpents, having heads, and with them they injure. |
|
| 20 And the rest of men who were not killed with these plagues repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and the golden and silver and brazen and stone and wooden idols, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. |
Worship devils – Evil spirits, operating along the line of man's natural and religious instincts, have diverted his worship from God, sometimes directly to themselves, and sometimes to four-footed beasts. R3068:3
|
| 21 And they repented not of their murders, nor of their witchcrafts, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. |
|