Revelation 16:1–21

1THEN I HEARD a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.”

2The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly and painful sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped his image.

3The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead man, and every living thing in the sea died.

4The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. 5Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters say:

“You are just in these judgments,

you who are and who were, the Holy One,

because you have so judged;

6for they have shed the blood of your saints and prophets,

and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.”

7And I heard the altar respond:

“Yes, Lord God Almighty,

true and just are your judgments.”

8The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. 9They 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.

10The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was plunged into darkness. Men gnawed their tongues in agony 11and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done.

12The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. 13Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty.

15“Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed.”

16Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

17The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, “It is done!” 18Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. 19The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. 20Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. 21From the sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible.

Original Meaning

More Plagues (16:1–11)

A VOICE COMES from “from the temple” (16:1), the heavenly temple that has just been mentioned (15:5–8). Jewish people would think most naturally of a heavenly voice from God, known to speak sometimes in the temple. Heavenly voices abound in Revelation (10:4, 8; 11:12; 12:10; 19:5; 21:3), at least sometimes representing Christ (1:12–13; 4:1), though not always (14:2). The wicked have trampled the earthly temple (11:2), so judgment goes forth from the heavenly temple (11:19; 14:15, 17; 15:5–16:1; 16:17). The “seven bowls of God’s wrath” represent urns in the temple, perhaps for libations of incense (see comment on 15:7).1 The bowls are much like the trumpets, even in sequence, the differences being “but variations on common themes,” though the bowls emphasize humanity’s rebellion and extend the areas judged under the trumpets.2

Most of the bowls, like the trumpets, recall the plagues of the Exodus: sores (16:2), water into blood (16:3–4), and darkness (16:10, and in this case its antithesis, 16:9). By recalling the plagues, this series of judgments also reminds believers that as God protected his own people in Goshen during the plagues, so he will protect them from his judgments (7:1–8; 12:6, 16). The final two bowls represent the promised end-time battle and the completion of God’s promises.

The water into blood plague is repeated for emphasis (16:3–4), to demonstrate the appropriateness of God’s judgment (16:5–7).3 Jewish people believed God assigned various angels to superintend various features of nature (which Greeks attributed to gods or other spirits); here “the angel in charge of the waters,” whose domain was turned to blood, praises God’s justice (16:5–6).4

The angel’s and altar’s praise provides the most striking feature of these judgments that adds to what the hearer already experienced in the trumpet judgments (16:5–7). The recitation of God’s justice (or righteousness) and holiness (16:5) develop the song of Moses in 15:3–4, which also comments on God’s judgments. The basis for recognizing God’s holiness and justice here is “because you have so judged” (16:5; again in 19:2).

Most Jewish people knew the story of Tobit, including Tobit’s cry, “Righteous are you, O Lord … and you judge true and righteous judgment forever” (Tob. 3:2). But whereas Tobit’s mention of God’s righteousness emphasizes his forgiving his people (3:3–4), our passage emphasizes the justness of his punishing the wicked (16:5–6).5 As God’s enemies “have shed” (“poured out”) blood (16:6), so he “poured out” judgments (16:1–17), including blood (16:3–4); he avenges the world’s repression of his servants, fulfilling his martyrs’ anticipation (6:9–11; 14:20; 17:6; 18:24). The appropriateness of blood for those who shed blood also fits the Jewish tradition that God turned the Nile bloody to avenge the earlier Egyptian murder of Israelite infants (Wisd. 11:6–7).6

“The altar” confirms God’s justice (16:7), undoubtedly because it harbors the prayers of the saints (either the altar of sacrifice [6:9] or the altar of incense [8:3, 5]); hence it participates in the judgment (9:13; 14:18). It echoes Moses’ song in 15:3: God is powerful enough (“Lord God Almighty”) to execute his “true and just” judgments.

The plagues of scorching sun and darkness (16:8–10) recall the Old Testament plague of darkness, a judgment on Egypt’s sun-deity, Amon-Re; they may also recall other events of the Exodus.7 That the darkness actually causes pain (16:10) may reflect the darkness of Moses’ day, which could be “felt” (Ex. 10:21; cf. Ps. 107:10).8 But instead of understanding God’s justice and responding with repentance, the objects of his wrath grow harder against God and blaspheme him all the more (16:9, 11; cf. 9:20–21; 16:21; on blaspheming, see comment on 13:1, 6).

Bridging Contexts

ON IDENTIFYING THE judgments. Those tempted to apply the judgments one at a time may find trouble differentiating some of them from others; trying to link them with specific past events is even more difficult. This is not to deny that such correlations have often been attempted. Jonathan Edwards recognized the parallels between the plagues on Egypt and those on the Antichrist, but believed that the first bowl was “poured out in the days of Wyclif, Hus, and Jerome of Prague, the second in the Reformation.”25

But we should not read too much into the sequence of individual judgments; they are meant to be read as a series. They presumably do not convey a time line or history written in advance, but summarize the sorts of judgments God inflicts on humanity; that is, the God who acted powerfully in the Exodus is the God who still acts in history. He still has his Moseses to speak for him (11:5–7), but sends his judgments as long as the world, like Pharaoh, hardens its heart and refuses to stop oppressing people.26

In the nineteenth century most Protestants identified the kings of the East either with the Turks or with the lost tribes of Israel. After the collapse of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, Japan became the new favorite of the prophecy movement until and during the Second World War. After Japan’s defeat and the ascent of Communist China, this “yellow peril” has become the new backdrop for modern Western interpretations of the “kings from the East.”27 On this view, the invasion from Communist China and the rest of Asia will require the rest of the world’s army to mobilize to fight them.28

This perspective reflects a total lack of understanding of what the Euphrates River represented to ancient hearers in the Mediterranean world. To be sure, the Parthians were no longer a kingdom; but a geographical equivalent would be closer to Iran and Iraq than to China. China’s military might is certainly formidable, and its role in future battles cannot be ruled out. My point, however, is that there is nothing in this text to indicate east or south Asia’s role in general or China’s role in particular; this reading of “kings from the East” is a wholesale guess based on the assumption that the current lineup of world powers is the final one, and it is uninformed by the most basic knowledge of how the expression was used in the ancient world.

Reducing prejudice. Many in our culture harbor anti-Asian prejudice, so we need to be careful how we articulate and apply the biblical texts lest we encourage such prejudice. As an example of such prejudice, we may take Chinese-American Vincent Chin, who at age twenty-seven was getting married in nine days. Some former Detroit Chrysler workers, wrongly assuming that Chin was Japanese and blaming Japan for their own unemployment, beat Chin to death with a baseball bat. As he passed out, he truly pleaded, “It isn’t fair.” Although they later received harsher sentences, at their first trial the murderers were given merely three years probation and a fine of $3,780 each.29

At the same time, a specific application to Iran or Iraq, though geographically more appropriate, is also questionable; it certainly would not have made sense to all generations of history. Whether it might apply at some point depends on whether John simply uses the Parthians to symbolize a terrifying invasion in general or more specifically an invasion literally from across the Euphrates. Certainly the “Parthians” of 9:14–19 were symbolic composite judgments, but a more specific invasion is possible here; the geography of the holy land certainly permits an invasion from the East. While the principle of invasion is clear, the way many biblical prophecies will be fulfilled is unclear until after the fulfillment. In any event, as Christians we need to be careful not to promote hatred of any people for whom Christ died, turning John’s images of terror for Rome into invitations for prejudice.

A conservative Baptist writer notes that the war with Iraq in 1991 challenged him to remember that we have a heavenly citizenship that is higher than earthly loyalties; one of his friends was a U.S. army chaplain and another an Iraqi-born Christian worker in Baghdad when the fighting started. He had friends from both countries to pray for.30 In any case, Scripture suggests that God will gather all nations for this judgment, not just the “kings from the East” (16:14; cf. Joel 3:10–16).

Contemporary Significance

DIVINE JUDGMENT AND its purpose. This passage announces that God’s judgments are just; the world oppresses God’s children and then wonders why it must suffer so much. Many people today do not like to talk about divine judgment; in their view, that is not what a god is for. But Santa Claus theology “cannot cope with the reality of evil” or seemingly senseless sufferings. To make God kind but never firm (as many liberals have done) is “to deny his omnipotence and lordship over” a world full of sufferings; facing such hardships without assurance that God has a purpose in them leads to fatalism.31 A God who never inflicts corporate judgments on the world is not the God of Scripture, but an idol of our own making. As A. W. Tozer observed, “when God acts justly He is not doing so to conform to an independent criterion, but simply acting like Himself in a given situation.”32

This is not to say that each of those sufferings on an individual level constitutes a judgment; one person may experience a particular kind of suffering as judgment whereas another experiences the same kind of suffering as a test of faith. The sufferings themselves do not reveal their purpose, but they do summon our attention to the God who can give us understanding of their purposes (see Contemporary Significance of 6:1–8).

God sends judgments not only to vindicate his oppressed people (6:9–11; 8:3–6), but also to get the world’s attention and offer them the opportunity for repentance (16:9, 11, 21). That many people do not repent when they face judgment is not too surprising (16:9). One survivor of a plane crash recounts that he always expected people who were dying to cry out to God for mercy in their final moments, but noted that he heard many respond with cursing, following the habits they had spent their lives developing. Whether God acts with justice or mercy, some refuse to believe (16:9). They are like the wicked who took Lot’s admonitions about impending judgment as jesting (Gen. 19:14), and when Lot tried to prevent homosexual rape, he was accused of being judgmental (19:9).

That the world dies unrepentant in the face of God’s judgments (16:9, 11, 21) reveals their obduracy and the depth of human rebellion against God. Seeking to illustrate the same sort of point, C. S. Lewis hypothesized that those committed to sin throughout their life might not choose life even after they have been banished to eternal alienation from God.33 While this perspective does not match literally what we read about hell in Scripture, it does illustrate the point about those who seek to be alienated from God in this life.

Propaganda and truth. That the beasts issue evil propaganda to gather the nations for a final battle against God and his people (16:13; cf. 13:1, 6) also fits our experience as Christians in the present world, whether in the professions, in the academy, or even in slander-filled churches. Horrible crimes like abuse of family members are a grim reality, but the sin is merely compounded when false accusations smear the reputation of godly leaders, as in a couple cases with which I am familiar. The horror of these crimes is so great that the accused have sometimes been judged guilty before the evidence has been evaluated, sometimes on the basis of “recovered memories.”34 If false accusations can devastate on a smaller level, that they occur on a larger level should not surprise us.

More often deception is used by oppressors (wife or child abusers, rapists, robbers, dictators, terrorists) to cover up their injustices or to get the rest of the world to think there may be “truth on both sides.” Both because there sometimes is truth on various sides and because relativistic culture has grown increasingly skeptical of truth claims, oppressors can generate the perception of moral ambiguity, leading avengers of injustice to equivocate. Christians must work to expose deceptions (Eph. 5:11–13) and not equivocate in the face of deception and injustice.35

At the height of the cold war American leaders portrayed the Soviet Union as a deadly evil empire; after its collapse Russia became a place for U.S. business investment, and various expansionist Middle Eastern regimes and Islamic terrorists have become the featured enemy. Although true evils exist in these places, they can be caricatured to make all Soviets or all Muslims appear alike. Even with the free press in the United States, truth can be manipulated to galvanize people to act with one mind, especially in times of war.

But these are people we Christians are called to love! Can we really settle for knowledge about political blocs while remaining ignorant of the people held in them? Muslims often grow up hearing falsehood about Christianity; one Saudi businessman quickly ran out of objections to Christianity after I answered the false propaganda he had heard about Christians as he was growing up. Races and tribes are often set against each other by atrocity stories which, true or false, cannot condemn every individual with one stroke, but often lead to countermassacres.36 Deception is a deadly game in this world, and Christians must work diligently to reveal truth.37

We are nothing before God. The “great city” (16:19) encounters judgment. That city stands for the world in its pomp; the might of empires like Egypt, Assyria, Timbuktu, and others are now but memories, and the glories of the old British empire and Soviet Union are quickly fading. The most magnificent of human power remains at best pretentious, nothing before God. We do well, then, to remember that we are nothing before him (1 Cor. 8:2; 2 Cor. 12:11; Gal. 6:3), and accordingly we should depend solely on his power (2 Cor. 12:9–10; 13:4).

Original Meaning

Racing Toward Judgment (16:12–21)

THE “GREAT RIVER Euphrates” (16:12) recalls the terrifying image of 9:14, just as “prepare” recalls the same passage’s emphasis that God will bring judgments at the appropriate hour (“kept ready” [9:15] is the same Greek verb as here). Although many rivers in the Near East occasionally dried up, the massive Euphrates was never known to do so under natural circumstances. This fact augments the terror of the image and is evidence of divine judgment (Isa. 50:2; Hos. 13:15; Nah. 1:4).9

Ancient Jewish hearers would have readily grasped the image of the drying of a river to invite invasion; one Jewish tradition announced that a river was to be frozen to allow the invasion of Asia (Sib. Or. 4.464–67), and some Jewish people expected God to part the Euphrates for the ten “lost” tribes to return to their land (4 Ezra 13:43–47; cf. Isa. 11:15–16).10 Indeed, the parting of the Jordan for Israel invited the conquest of Canaan (Josh. 3:14–17; 4:23–5:1).11 Yet as noted earlier (9:14), people in the ancient Mediterranean remembered the Euphrates especially as the boundary between the Roman and Parthian empires. People expected Nero to bring the kings of the East across the Euphrates to wreak his vengeance on Rome (see comment on 9:14–16; 13:1–4).12

The text may be suggesting the dragon, beast, and false prophet as a sort of a satanic trinity (see comment on 13:11–12). That it speaks of frogs coming out of their mouths may recall another Egyptian plague (Ex. 8:2–13; Ps. 78:45; 105:30), but like the plague of locusts (Ex. 10:13–14; Rev. 9:3) it is transformed into something different in Revelation’s symbolism. Presumably there are three frogs because they issue from three mouths; because they issue from mouths, they probably represent propaganda (13:2, 5–6; contrast 14:5). In the end, however, the frogs prove no match for God’s truth as a sword from the mouth of the Word made flesh (1:16; 19:15).

The image is grotesque; ancients usually viewed frogs as unclean, ugly, and vicious.13 They could function as a terrible omen, especially if they leaped from another creature’s mouth.14 One writer close to John’s day remarked tongue-in-cheek that Nero nearly was reincarnated as a viper, but mercifully was allowed to become a frog so he could continue his singing.15 Some Jewish people also expected the release of more demons in the end time (16:14; 2 Bar. 27:9). These “spirits of demons” perform persuasive “miraculous signs” (Rev. 16:14), like the beast they serve (13:13–14).

The devil and his agents then gather the nations together in order to battle the true God, though in reality they were being gathered simply for God’s great day, that is, for their destruction (16:14; cf. 19:11–18; 20:8–9). The gathering of the wicked for their own destruction is a common end-time image (Joel 3:10–16; Mic. 4:11–13; Zeph. 3:8; Zech. 12:3–4; 14:2–3).16

Such an announcement proves an appropriate point for John to remind his hearers that Jesus will come like a thief (16:15), as he stated earlier (3:3) and as most early Christians seem to have been warned (Matt. 24:43; Luke 12:39; 1 Thess. 5:2, 4; 2 Peter 3:10). Alluding back to this earlier warning (esp. harsh toward the sleeping church of Sardis), John insists that those found unprepared will be stripped instead of walking with Jesus in robes of white (cf. Rev. 3:4–5, 17–18); nakedness was a great shame to Jewish people.17 The righteous must remain righteous without compromise, for terrible times are coming; but Jesus will come when the world does not expect him.

The meaning of “Armageddon”—most likely Hebrew for “Mount Megiddo”—is obscure. Megiddo lay on a plain (2 Chron. 35:22; Zech. 12:11) rather than on a mountain (though it was above sea level and near hill country), but apocalyptic geography allowed considerable symbolic flexibility. The valley of Megiddo was the site of some significant battles in history (Judg. 5:19; 2 Kings 23:29) and was strategically located for further ones. Although a valley would have worked well as an image of end-time judgment (Joel 3:12, 14), Megiddo may appear here as a mountain to symbolize its stature or as a contrast with Mount Zion (21:10), where in some traditions the Messiah would do battle with the gathered nations (4 Ezra 13:34; cf. Rev. 14:1).18

The seventh bowl “poured out … into the air” (16:17) refers to judgment either over the air (cf. winds in 7:1) or over the entire world in the “air realm” (the lowest of the heavens in Greco-Roman thought).19 In either case it reminds the reader of God’s continuing sovereignty over the cosmos. With this judgment, the judgments are “done” (16:17), as at the final trumpet (10:7) and the consummation of God’s plan for history implied in the new creation (21:6).

The thunder, lightning, and earthquake (16:18) suggest a revelation of God’s glory as at Sinai (Ex. 19:16; see comment on 4:5; cf. 8:5; 11:19); but the earthquake also signals the end of the age (6:12; 11:13).20 The “great city” that divided into three parts (16:19) may refer to Jerusalem (if that is the “great city” of 11:8, 13), but there only one tenth of the city is destroyed by an earthquake (if we press the details literally). The other “great city” is Babylon, called both “Babylon the Great” (14:8; 17:5; 18:2) and “the great city” (17:18; 18:10, 16, 18–21); because Babylon is called “the Great” immediately after this (16:19), Babylon (Rome) is certainly in view here.21 The city now drinks the cup of God’s wrath (cf. 14:8–10), a fitting image for one portrayed as sexually unfaithful (Num. 5:23–24).

Some allegorize the disappearance of mountains (16:20), connecting them with idol worship in ancient Israel (Ezek. 6:3, 13–14), but then find themselves hard-pressed to explain the islands (Rev. 16:20).22 But the moving of islands and mountains, as in 6:14, is merely part of the image of dramatic, cosmic judgment (Isa. 42:15; 64:1–3; Nah. 1:5–6), especially appropriate to the end time (Ezek. 38:19–20; Mic. 1:3–4; Zech. 14:5; 1 En. 1:6–7).

As in 8:7, the “hail” (16:21) recalls the plague against Egypt’s crops (Ex. 9:18–34), severe enough to kill those caught out in it (9:19). But this is a judgment at the end of the age, and one does not need training in modern physics to recognize that hailstones weighing “about a hundred pounds each” will easily kill whomever they strike.23 Yet in contrast with the repentant of Jerusalem (11:13), Babylon’s inhabitants become harder and curse God all the more when judged (16:21), having learned nothing from their unrepentance during earlier plagues (16:11).24 The world dies in its sin, unwilling to repent.

Bridging Contexts

Contemporary Significance