Original Meaning
The Seventh Seal (8:1)
AFTER SIX THUNDEROUS seals of judgment (6:1–17) and a dramatic interlude in 7:1–17, the reader may be pardoned for a sense of anticlimax when reaching the final seal and hearing—silence. Yet this very anticlimax is part of the narrative’s dramatic jarring technique, shocking us into attention with its ironies. Scholars debate the meaning of the silence in 8:1. An assembly may experience silence because no one will volunteer for a difficult task, such as leading a battle; perhaps the time signals the inadequacy of those waiting until God’s appointed agent comes (cf. 5:3).2 Then again, it may recall the sort of silence appropriate to the completion of speech (1 Esd. 4:41), because matters have been settled; or the sort that characterizes a break in conversation before a new topic emerges.3
A better interpretation (although not the one we most prefer) is that all of heaven is silenced to allow the prayers of the saints to be heard.4 This interpretation has much in its favor. Most important is the evidence that incense and sacrifice were supposed to be offered in silence in the Jerusalem temple.5 One could even silence others’ prayers so that a leader’s prayer could be heard (3 Macc. 6:1). Commentators especially cite a Jewish tradition for the silencing of angels so Israel’s prayers may be heard (e.g., b. Hag. 12b), though this is of uncertain date.6 Against this interpretation one can protest that it allows some interpreters to think that the trumpets follow the seventh seal rather than coinciding with the earlier seals (8:2–5); but this objection will work only if John’s visionary time is identical with real time, which it is not.7 The schematic arrangement of the trumpets after the seals reflects the progression of John’s visions, not a chronological sequence of history.
A specifically eschatological interpretation to the silence, however, seems most likely. In some ancient texts, silence characterizes respectful listening to another’s speech.8 There is no speech mentioned here, but silence may similarly come from awe (Job 40:4).9 Texts refer to the world’s silence before God at the Day of Judgment (Zeph. 1:17; Zech. 2:13; Rom. 3:19; cf. Rev. 18:22–23; 20:12).10 The silence may be a signal of return to the primeval creation, characterized by such silence and followed by the resurrection (see 4 Ezra 7:30; 2 Bar. 3:7).11
Bridging Contexts
GOD’S ACTS IN THE PAST. By reusing the plagues of Exodus (and God’s protection of his own people there) Revelation alludes to God’s acts in the past, reminding us that his work in history is our firmest assurance for the future. (It is no wonder, then, that theological liberalism, shaped as it was by Enlightenment antisupernaturalism, has been inspired to doubt the historicity of anything supernatural in Scripture. But it is difficult to deny some historical miracles that Revelation itself predicts, such as the fall of the Roman empire, in contrast to the perseverance of Christianity and the Jewish people.)34 If God judged the oppressors of our spiritual predecessors, he will also overturn in due time the powers that seek to crush his people now.
The point of alluding to the plagues in Exodus is probably not that all water will literally turn to blood again, but to indicate that God is sovereign over these natural elements and sends judgments on such matters throughout history. (Today we might terrify some Westerners analogously by talking about a pervasively destructive computer virus.) Even if one applies these judgments literally and only to a future tribulation, the application principle for today is the same: God seeks people’s attention through judgment. Hail (8:7–8) shows us that God can use atmospheric weather conditions for judgments. We may think not only of hail, but of floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes.35 Likewise, we can find judgments against water (8:8–11) in the pollution of water and the shrinking supply of drinkable water for some cities and regions.36
Darkness (8:12) makes work more difficult, but also speaks to those terrified by forces of nature. The eagle indicates that matters will grow much worse. Our secular contemporaries prefer to explain such events by purely naturalistic causes; but while God works through natural forces, as also in the plagues of Exodus, he has his ways of getting our attention through them.37 When confronted with destructive judgments from which their reductionistic naturalism offers no protection, some secularists prove open-minded enough to become more religious!38
Contemporary Significance
SILENCE BEFORE GOD. That the world will one day be silenced before God (8:1) offers encouragement to those of us who hear its people loudly now. The arrogance of the political, academic, and other elites who ridicule or ignore God will be silenced. The text also has a word for those who declare, “When I get to heaven, I will tell God a thing or two,” a line I have heard more than once from those determined to blame God for the world’s injustices while trivializing the effects of human sin. Because of God’s mercy their tongues can spew invective now, but on the day of his justice they will be silenced along with all other perpetrators of injustice.
Prayer that shapes history. God is sovereign, but in his sovereign plan he has chosen to make the prayers of his people part of the exercise of his will. As Beasley-Murray puts it, it appears “that God has willed that the prayers of his people should be part of the process by which the kingdom comes.”39 Or as Eugene Peterson notes:
While conflicts raged between good and evil, prayers went up from devout bands of first century Christians all over the Roman empire. Massive engines of persecution and scorn were ranged against them. They had neither weapons nor votes. They had little money and no prestige.40
But they did have prayer. That prayer had the power to shape the course of human history! One may compare Daniel, whose prayer becomes the battleground for angelic powers greater than the earthly rulers affected by them (Dan. 10:13; 10:20–11:1); while the leaders of empires rise and fall as little more than pawns in the hands of a sovereign God (11:2–12:3), Daniel himself is greeted as one highly esteemed by God himself (10:11).41 We often fail to see the effects of our seemingly insignificant lives; in Hannah’s day, who would have thought that the future of Israel lay in her humble prayer rather than in the spiritual legacy of Israel’s high priest Eli (1 Sam. 1:10–20)? Details for which we pray are sometimes answered “No,” but in the big picture, the entire course of human history, God’s plan is secure and is advanced in his sovereign will through the prayers of his people.
We should therefore encourage fellow believers to continue banding together for strategic prayer on matters of long-range concern for God’s kingdom. Many Christians now band together on Fridays, the Muslim prayer day, to pray for outreach to the Islamic world, what has appeared the most impenetrable fortress against the gospel in our day; and reports abound of Muslims in “closed countries” being converted even through dreams and visions.42 One of the most useful prayer tools, which should be acquired and used by as many Christians as possible, is Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World.43 Though it is difficult to keep such works up-to-date and accurate on every detail for all nations, they provide one of our most strategic tools for relevant prayer for the nations.
God’s wrath and judgment. That judgment comes in response to prayer may not seem high on our priority list of prayer requests. But for suffering, persecuted people, judgment on the world that represses them is a sign of hope, a signal that God will not wait only until the Second Coming to begin vindicating them. God will consummate history on that Day; but he is Lord of history even now.44
God’s wrath has important moral implications. While people suffer in much of the world, others frequently profit from their sufferings through political or religious repression. Yet as much as relativistic Western culture has forgotten it, God is a God of justice, who does acknowledge that one side can be right and another wrong in a situation. He is a God of wrath, who provides us the necessary “moral clarity” to take sides when clear examples of oppression are taking place.45 H. Richard Niebuhr rightly challenged the liberal social gospel movement of watering down the offense of the cross: “A God without wrath brought me without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without the cross.” Yet while we evangelicals denounce such old-school liberalism, is our silence about impending judgment against sinful nations not a form of ignoring God’s wrath? And “once we have given up wrath, can sin, judgment, or the Cross be far behind?”46
Despite the protests of some marginal popular teachers like Charles Capps, the text also reminds us that God controls the events of nature (e.g., Ps. 65:6–12; 89:8–13; 93:3–4; 104:2–8; 107:23–30; 135:6–7; 147:15–18; 148:8) and often uses them as judgments (e.g., Isa. 5:10, 13; Amos 4:6–13; Hag. 2:16–19). In contrast to our modern worldview, natural catastrophes are not simply random events, nor is our ability to predict many of them the same as ability to harness and control them.
Too often we have viewed disasters as happening only in other parts of the world—floods in Bangladesh, an earthquake in Japan or Mexico, famine in East Africa—or at least in other parts of the country. Thus Midwesterners fear California earthquakes, Californians marvel that anyone would live in the Midwest’s tornado alley, rural people recognize that cities provide more vulnerable targets for missiles or terrorists, and so forth.47 But our assumptions are common to the ways we humans try to pacify our anxieties with dubious assurances (1 Sam. 23:7; 2 Sam. 18:25–27). The West’s relative prosperity at the moment of this writing does not guarantee God’s blessing; Babylon exercised far more military and economic power than Judah, yet Babylon’s empire has been no more than memories for over two millennia.
The history of parts of the West as mission-sending nations probably provided much of the divine favor under which we now live, but far more born-again Christians now live in the developing nations of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Meanwhile, the secular revolt against God and its accompanying moral apostasy are certainly inviting judgment. American Christians dare not now reecho Abraham Lincoln’s claim that its nation’s people are “the almost chosen people.”48 The tokens of Christian commitment that remain in the public square are surely no greater than Judah’s temple, but contrary to the assurances of Jeremiah’s contemporaries, even God’s house could not stay his wrath against a disobedient people (Jer. 7:4–15).
Indeed, the vestiges of Christian heritage and the remnant of Christian proclamation in our own day make us, like the biblical prophets’ contemporaries, all the more accountable (e.g., Amos 3:2). Thus, as evangelical Old Testament scholar Walter Kaiser, now president at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, put it a couple decades ago: “North American society is headed for destruction and judgment. And we had better believe it’s coming, because there is no sign that repentance is near. It is coming, or else God is a liar and His word is not true. The prophet’s message must be preached again today.”49
Judgments have already come to seize our attention; but surely greater judgments lie in store. Those who study both Scripture and the moral state of secular society can hardly think otherwise, though in our day, as in Jeremiah’s, there will surely remain false prophets of peace merely telling people what they wish to hear (Jer. 6:14; 8:11; 14:13; 23:17; see Ezek. 13:16; Mic. 3:5; 2 Tim. 4:3–4).
Original Meaning
The Power of Prayer (8:2–6)
THESE VERSES ADDRESS the efficacy of the saints’ prayers. The seven angels “who stand before God” (8:2) probably struck most of John’s audience as the seven archangels of Jewish tradition (e.g., Tob. 12:15; 1 En. 20:1–8)—powerful angels authorized to act directly by God himself. Many possible sources exist for the image of trumpets given to these angels, for people employed trumpets in a variety of ways.12 Given the other temple imagery in heaven (e.g., Rev. 4:6; 6:9; 15:5), however, the trumpets (8:2) likely recall those used in the temple for worship.13
Yet these instruments of worship also signal imminent judgments (cf. 15:6–8), playing on another common usage of trumpets as calls to war.14 The altar of incense and censer are temple instruments implying impending judgment (8:3–5). The idea of a heavenly temple was an ancient one, probably even implied in the symbolism of the original tabernacle in the desert (Heb. 8:5).15
Most important, however, the incense explicitly represents “the prayers of all the saints” offered before the heavenly temple (8:3–4), an idea those steeped in the Old Testament would easily understand (Ps. 141:2; Luke 1:10; cf. Jub. 2:22). That judgment immediately follows this offering of prayers makes sense when we consider the prayers of saints offered so far: They have been crying out for vindication (6:10), and though the final judgment is not yet (6:11), some of their vindication occurs within history.16 They may wonder why the answer to their prayers has been delayed (6:10); this passage may also provide an explanation, or at least a comparison that makes sense. Just as the full amount of proclamation and attendant suffering must be fulfilled (6:11), perhaps the prayers of the saints must also come to a particular level before the intervention takes place.
Thus, it is as fresh prayers for vindication are added to other prayers (8:3) that judgment is sent into motion. The sufferings of God’s people invite his intervention, even if his time is not always our time (Ex. 2:23–25; Luke 18:7).17 What takes place in heaven clearly affects what occurs on earth (Rev. 8:5), and though we cannot always see the processes, many judgments come in response to human prayers.18
Bridging Contexts
GOD’S ACTS IN THE PAST. By reusing the plagues of Exodus (and God’s protection of his own people there) Revelation alludes to God’s acts in the past, reminding us that his work in history is our firmest assurance for the future. (It is no wonder, then, that theological liberalism, shaped as it was by Enlightenment antisupernaturalism, has been inspired to doubt the historicity of anything supernatural in Scripture. But it is difficult to deny some historical miracles that Revelation itself predicts, such as the fall of the Roman empire, in contrast to the perseverance of Christianity and the Jewish people.)34 If God judged the oppressors of our spiritual predecessors, he will also overturn in due time the powers that seek to crush his people now.
The point of alluding to the plagues in Exodus is probably not that all water will literally turn to blood again, but to indicate that God is sovereign over these natural elements and sends judgments on such matters throughout history. (Today we might terrify some Westerners analogously by talking about a pervasively destructive computer virus.) Even if one applies these judgments literally and only to a future tribulation, the application principle for today is the same: God seeks people’s attention through judgment. Hail (8:7–8) shows us that God can use atmospheric weather conditions for judgments. We may think not only of hail, but of floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes.35 Likewise, we can find judgments against water (8:8–11) in the pollution of water and the shrinking supply of drinkable water for some cities and regions.36
Darkness (8:12) makes work more difficult, but also speaks to those terrified by forces of nature. The eagle indicates that matters will grow much worse. Our secular contemporaries prefer to explain such events by purely naturalistic causes; but while God works through natural forces, as also in the plagues of Exodus, he has his ways of getting our attention through them.37 When confronted with destructive judgments from which their reductionistic naturalism offers no protection, some secularists prove open-minded enough to become more religious!38
Contemporary Significance
SILENCE BEFORE GOD. That the world will one day be silenced before God (8:1) offers encouragement to those of us who hear its people loudly now. The arrogance of the political, academic, and other elites who ridicule or ignore God will be silenced. The text also has a word for those who declare, “When I get to heaven, I will tell God a thing or two,” a line I have heard more than once from those determined to blame God for the world’s injustices while trivializing the effects of human sin. Because of God’s mercy their tongues can spew invective now, but on the day of his justice they will be silenced along with all other perpetrators of injustice.
Prayer that shapes history. God is sovereign, but in his sovereign plan he has chosen to make the prayers of his people part of the exercise of his will. As Beasley-Murray puts it, it appears “that God has willed that the prayers of his people should be part of the process by which the kingdom comes.”39 Or as Eugene Peterson notes:
While conflicts raged between good and evil, prayers went up from devout bands of first century Christians all over the Roman empire. Massive engines of persecution and scorn were ranged against them. They had neither weapons nor votes. They had little money and no prestige.40
But they did have prayer. That prayer had the power to shape the course of human history! One may compare Daniel, whose prayer becomes the battleground for angelic powers greater than the earthly rulers affected by them (Dan. 10:13; 10:20–11:1); while the leaders of empires rise and fall as little more than pawns in the hands of a sovereign God (11:2–12:3), Daniel himself is greeted as one highly esteemed by God himself (10:11).41 We often fail to see the effects of our seemingly insignificant lives; in Hannah’s day, who would have thought that the future of Israel lay in her humble prayer rather than in the spiritual legacy of Israel’s high priest Eli (1 Sam. 1:10–20)? Details for which we pray are sometimes answered “No,” but in the big picture, the entire course of human history, God’s plan is secure and is advanced in his sovereign will through the prayers of his people.
We should therefore encourage fellow believers to continue banding together for strategic prayer on matters of long-range concern for God’s kingdom. Many Christians now band together on Fridays, the Muslim prayer day, to pray for outreach to the Islamic world, what has appeared the most impenetrable fortress against the gospel in our day; and reports abound of Muslims in “closed countries” being converted even through dreams and visions.42 One of the most useful prayer tools, which should be acquired and used by as many Christians as possible, is Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World.43 Though it is difficult to keep such works up-to-date and accurate on every detail for all nations, they provide one of our most strategic tools for relevant prayer for the nations.
God’s wrath and judgment. That judgment comes in response to prayer may not seem high on our priority list of prayer requests. But for suffering, persecuted people, judgment on the world that represses them is a sign of hope, a signal that God will not wait only until the Second Coming to begin vindicating them. God will consummate history on that Day; but he is Lord of history even now.44
God’s wrath has important moral implications. While people suffer in much of the world, others frequently profit from their sufferings through political or religious repression. Yet as much as relativistic Western culture has forgotten it, God is a God of justice, who does acknowledge that one side can be right and another wrong in a situation. He is a God of wrath, who provides us the necessary “moral clarity” to take sides when clear examples of oppression are taking place.45 H. Richard Niebuhr rightly challenged the liberal social gospel movement of watering down the offense of the cross: “A God without wrath brought me without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without the cross.” Yet while we evangelicals denounce such old-school liberalism, is our silence about impending judgment against sinful nations not a form of ignoring God’s wrath? And “once we have given up wrath, can sin, judgment, or the Cross be far behind?”46
Despite the protests of some marginal popular teachers like Charles Capps, the text also reminds us that God controls the events of nature (e.g., Ps. 65:6–12; 89:8–13; 93:3–4; 104:2–8; 107:23–30; 135:6–7; 147:15–18; 148:8) and often uses them as judgments (e.g., Isa. 5:10, 13; Amos 4:6–13; Hag. 2:16–19). In contrast to our modern worldview, natural catastrophes are not simply random events, nor is our ability to predict many of them the same as ability to harness and control them.
Too often we have viewed disasters as happening only in other parts of the world—floods in Bangladesh, an earthquake in Japan or Mexico, famine in East Africa—or at least in other parts of the country. Thus Midwesterners fear California earthquakes, Californians marvel that anyone would live in the Midwest’s tornado alley, rural people recognize that cities provide more vulnerable targets for missiles or terrorists, and so forth.47 But our assumptions are common to the ways we humans try to pacify our anxieties with dubious assurances (1 Sam. 23:7; 2 Sam. 18:25–27). The West’s relative prosperity at the moment of this writing does not guarantee God’s blessing; Babylon exercised far more military and economic power than Judah, yet Babylon’s empire has been no more than memories for over two millennia.
The history of parts of the West as mission-sending nations probably provided much of the divine favor under which we now live, but far more born-again Christians now live in the developing nations of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Meanwhile, the secular revolt against God and its accompanying moral apostasy are certainly inviting judgment. American Christians dare not now reecho Abraham Lincoln’s claim that its nation’s people are “the almost chosen people.”48 The tokens of Christian commitment that remain in the public square are surely no greater than Judah’s temple, but contrary to the assurances of Jeremiah’s contemporaries, even God’s house could not stay his wrath against a disobedient people (Jer. 7:4–15).
Indeed, the vestiges of Christian heritage and the remnant of Christian proclamation in our own day make us, like the biblical prophets’ contemporaries, all the more accountable (e.g., Amos 3:2). Thus, as evangelical Old Testament scholar Walter Kaiser, now president at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, put it a couple decades ago: “North American society is headed for destruction and judgment. And we had better believe it’s coming, because there is no sign that repentance is near. It is coming, or else God is a liar and His word is not true. The prophet’s message must be preached again today.”49
Judgments have already come to seize our attention; but surely greater judgments lie in store. Those who study both Scripture and the moral state of secular society can hardly think otherwise, though in our day, as in Jeremiah’s, there will surely remain false prophets of peace merely telling people what they wish to hear (Jer. 6:14; 8:11; 14:13; 23:17; see Ezek. 13:16; Mic. 3:5; 2 Tim. 4:3–4).
Original Meaning
Punishment by Plagues (8:7–12)
IN 8:7–12, JOHN reports the first four trumpets, a group set off to correspond numerically with the first four seals (6:1–8), to be followed by still more dramatic plagues (8:13). These plagues resemble those in Exodus: God sent hail mixed with fire both in Egypt and in Revelation (Ex. 9:23–24; Rev. 8:7); he turned Egypt’s water supply to blood (Ex. 7:20–21), so God turns much of the world’s water into blood (Rev. 8:8–9) and otherwise makes it undrinkable (8:10–11); he sent the plague of darkness on Egypt of old (Ex. 10:22) and on the world in Revelation (8:12). The righteous, however, are protected (7:1–8), just as Israel was (Ex. 8:22; 9:26); in the end both are preserved by the blood of the paschal Lamb (Ex. 12:13; Rev. 5:5–6).
John’s audience will readily recognize the allusion to the biblical plague of hail in 8:7, but the theme of judgment would not have been lost even on their pagan contemporaries. Dangerous hail or hail mixed with other things appeared as a prodigy, a warning of divine judgment in the ancient Mediterranean world.19 Jewish sources also recognized both hail and the raining of fire (probably lightning) as God’s judgments on the world, especially in the end time.20 The destruction of one-third of the trees (8:7) means shortages of fruit, including essential staples like olives, figs, and presumably grapes for wine (if vines are included as trees, as in Columella, Trees 11.1–2). The destruction of all the green grass means the impending death of sheep, goats, and cattle—hence the end of the world’s supply of meat, milk and cheese.21
The blood and fire in the hail may portend the following plagues of bloody water (8:8) and the fiery stars or mountains falling into the seas (8:8–10). The transformation of water into blood (8:8) recalls the first judgment on Egypt for refusing to release God’s people from captivity (Ex. 7:17). Although only one-third of the sea is affected here, allowing human life to continue on earth, the plague is severe. Egypt, which was totally dependent on the Nile not only for drinking water but also both for fish and irrigation for its fertile soil, was economically devastated even by the first plague (7:18); Rome, which profited from its sea trade with other peoples, would suffer likewise (cf. Rev. 13:1; 17:1; 18:17–18).22 Most people ate more fish than meat, so this plague might prove more devastating to the food supply than its predecessor (8:7). Even had anyone missed the allusion to the first plague in Egypt, everyone would recognize the turning of any water to blood as a sign of divine displeasure.23 Such a plague could come either directly in response to the saints’ cries for vindication (8:4–5), as here, or in response to prophetic announcements (11:6).
The mountain’s burning with fire (8:8) may recall Sinai and God’s law (Ex. 24:17; Deut. 4:11; 5:23; 9:15; Heb. 12:18), but may also simply be another apocalyptic symbol of judgment. Heavenly stars (often symbolizing angels; cf. Rev. 9:1; 12:4) can appear like burning mountains (1 En. 18:13; 21:3), and a burning star falls into the sea in Sibylline Oracles 5.158–61 and burns not only the sea but Babylon and Italy, as judgment for the suffering of righteous Jews. Both the Sibylline Oracles and Revelation may depend on the less obvious image in Jer. 51:25, 42.24
The third plague (8:10–11) resembles the turning of water into blood in 8:8–9 in that it also addresses the destruction of the water supply on which humanity depends. Thus it recalls the plagues, but adds to them an allusion to the bitter, polluted waters of Marah, which God had purified (Ex. 15:23); now pure water becomes poisoned. All ancients recognize this as a terrible divine judgment (Jer. 8:14).25 “Wormwood” was known for its bitterness (Prov. 5:4; Lam. 3:15, 19) and sometimes was thought to be poisonous (Deut. 29:18; Jer. 9:15; 23:15); it also appears as a metaphor for sin (Deut. 29:18; Amos 5:7; 6:12).26
The smiting of the celestial lights (8:12) may refer to shortening of the times as in some other end-time predictions (2 Bar. 20:1), but more likely focuses on the darkness itself.27 The darkness surely recalls the penultimate plague on Egypt (Ex. 10:21–22; cf. Wisd. Sol. 17), probably representing judgment against Egypt’s highly esteemed sun god (Ex. 12:12).28 Pagans also feared darkness over the land, which represented a catastrophic judgment.29 This sort of judgment (also Rev. 9:2) foreshadows the ultimate smiting of sun and moon (6:12–13) and their absence in the new world (21:23).
The narrative sets the three remaining plagues off from the first four as particularly traumatic; they receive the title “woes” (8:13). John’s Jewish-Christian audience would understand the harsh nature of these judgments readily; they were probably familiar with a similar use of “woe” found in early Jewish texts like 1 Enoch.30 Overhearing a message not specifically directed toward the hearer is also a standard rhetorical device in prophetic and apocalyptic literature (Dan. 8:13, 16; Zech. 6:7; 1 En. 67:12), though it was often for the hearer’s benefit (Dan. 8:14, 17; Zech. 6:8).
The significance of “an eagle” declaring this message is more difficult. Perhaps it simply stands for a heavenly creature (4:7; 12:14; Apoc. Moses 33:2), but this leaves unexplained why an eagle is chosen here rather than another creature (cf. Mark 1:10). Eagles were used to carry messages, like some other birds (2 Bar. 77:19; 4 Bar. 6:15–16; 7:4, 6), but they were not known for literally speaking the words (as here)! It could also represent simply a heavenly throne angel (Rev. 4:7).
Undoubtedly the eagle functions as a symbol of judgment, but the specific association remains elusive. The primary emblem of a Roman legion was a silver or gold eagle (aquila) carried on a pole; thus, perhaps the image is one of Rome’s legions judged by legions superior to them (9:7–10, 14–17).31 Because eagles were predators, believed to carry off even a live lamb to feed their young (Babrius, 137.1–2), an eagle could stand for judgment (Deut. 28:49; Jer. 48:40; Hos. 8:1); certainly they so function in depictions of birds (probably vultures) that devour carcasses of the slain (Matt. 24:28; Luke 17:37; cf. Ezek. 39:17; Hab. 1:8; Rev. 19:17–18).
But while its message is judgment, this eagle is the messenger, not necessarily a symbol of its content (cf. 19:17). Thus, the symbolic interpretation is plausible, but uncertain. Yet Greeks viewed eagles as omens (whether of good or evil) from Zeus, and Romans, who sought to predict the future by the flight of birds, may especially see a symbol of a divine messenger here.32 In any case the eagle ascends to “midair,” to the sun’s zenith, “so that the entire world may hear his cry.”33
Bridging Contexts
GOD’S ACTS IN THE PAST. By reusing the plagues of Exodus (and God’s protection of his own people there) Revelation alludes to God’s acts in the past, reminding us that his work in history is our firmest assurance for the future. (It is no wonder, then, that theological liberalism, shaped as it was by Enlightenment antisupernaturalism, has been inspired to doubt the historicity of anything supernatural in Scripture. But it is difficult to deny some historical miracles that Revelation itself predicts, such as the fall of the Roman empire, in contrast to the perseverance of Christianity and the Jewish people.)34 If God judged the oppressors of our spiritual predecessors, he will also overturn in due time the powers that seek to crush his people now.
The point of alluding to the plagues in Exodus is probably not that all water will literally turn to blood again, but to indicate that God is sovereign over these natural elements and sends judgments on such matters throughout history. (Today we might terrify some Westerners analogously by talking about a pervasively destructive computer virus.) Even if one applies these judgments literally and only to a future tribulation, the application principle for today is the same: God seeks people’s attention through judgment. Hail (8:7–8) shows us that God can use atmospheric weather conditions for judgments. We may think not only of hail, but of floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes.35 Likewise, we can find judgments against water (8:8–11) in the pollution of water and the shrinking supply of drinkable water for some cities and regions.36
Darkness (8:12) makes work more difficult, but also speaks to those terrified by forces of nature. The eagle indicates that matters will grow much worse. Our secular contemporaries prefer to explain such events by purely naturalistic causes; but while God works through natural forces, as also in the plagues of Exodus, he has his ways of getting our attention through them.37 When confronted with destructive judgments from which their reductionistic naturalism offers no protection, some secularists prove open-minded enough to become more religious!38
Contemporary Significance
SILENCE BEFORE GOD. That the world will one day be silenced before God (8:1) offers encouragement to those of us who hear its people loudly now. The arrogance of the political, academic, and other elites who ridicule or ignore God will be silenced. The text also has a word for those who declare, “When I get to heaven, I will tell God a thing or two,” a line I have heard more than once from those determined to blame God for the world’s injustices while trivializing the effects of human sin. Because of God’s mercy their tongues can spew invective now, but on the day of his justice they will be silenced along with all other perpetrators of injustice.
Prayer that shapes history. God is sovereign, but in his sovereign plan he has chosen to make the prayers of his people part of the exercise of his will. As Beasley-Murray puts it, it appears “that God has willed that the prayers of his people should be part of the process by which the kingdom comes.”39 Or as Eugene Peterson notes:
While conflicts raged between good and evil, prayers went up from devout bands of first century Christians all over the Roman empire. Massive engines of persecution and scorn were ranged against them. They had neither weapons nor votes. They had little money and no prestige.40
But they did have prayer. That prayer had the power to shape the course of human history! One may compare Daniel, whose prayer becomes the battleground for angelic powers greater than the earthly rulers affected by them (Dan. 10:13; 10:20–11:1); while the leaders of empires rise and fall as little more than pawns in the hands of a sovereign God (11:2–12:3), Daniel himself is greeted as one highly esteemed by God himself (10:11).41 We often fail to see the effects of our seemingly insignificant lives; in Hannah’s day, who would have thought that the future of Israel lay in her humble prayer rather than in the spiritual legacy of Israel’s high priest Eli (1 Sam. 1:10–20)? Details for which we pray are sometimes answered “No,” but in the big picture, the entire course of human history, God’s plan is secure and is advanced in his sovereign will through the prayers of his people.
We should therefore encourage fellow believers to continue banding together for strategic prayer on matters of long-range concern for God’s kingdom. Many Christians now band together on Fridays, the Muslim prayer day, to pray for outreach to the Islamic world, what has appeared the most impenetrable fortress against the gospel in our day; and reports abound of Muslims in “closed countries” being converted even through dreams and visions.42 One of the most useful prayer tools, which should be acquired and used by as many Christians as possible, is Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World.43 Though it is difficult to keep such works up-to-date and accurate on every detail for all nations, they provide one of our most strategic tools for relevant prayer for the nations.
God’s wrath and judgment. That judgment comes in response to prayer may not seem high on our priority list of prayer requests. But for suffering, persecuted people, judgment on the world that represses them is a sign of hope, a signal that God will not wait only until the Second Coming to begin vindicating them. God will consummate history on that Day; but he is Lord of history even now.44
God’s wrath has important moral implications. While people suffer in much of the world, others frequently profit from their sufferings through political or religious repression. Yet as much as relativistic Western culture has forgotten it, God is a God of justice, who does acknowledge that one side can be right and another wrong in a situation. He is a God of wrath, who provides us the necessary “moral clarity” to take sides when clear examples of oppression are taking place.45 H. Richard Niebuhr rightly challenged the liberal social gospel movement of watering down the offense of the cross: “A God without wrath brought me without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without the cross.” Yet while we evangelicals denounce such old-school liberalism, is our silence about impending judgment against sinful nations not a form of ignoring God’s wrath? And “once we have given up wrath, can sin, judgment, or the Cross be far behind?”46
Despite the protests of some marginal popular teachers like Charles Capps, the text also reminds us that God controls the events of nature (e.g., Ps. 65:6–12; 89:8–13; 93:3–4; 104:2–8; 107:23–30; 135:6–7; 147:15–18; 148:8) and often uses them as judgments (e.g., Isa. 5:10, 13; Amos 4:6–13; Hag. 2:16–19). In contrast to our modern worldview, natural catastrophes are not simply random events, nor is our ability to predict many of them the same as ability to harness and control them.
Too often we have viewed disasters as happening only in other parts of the world—floods in Bangladesh, an earthquake in Japan or Mexico, famine in East Africa—or at least in other parts of the country. Thus Midwesterners fear California earthquakes, Californians marvel that anyone would live in the Midwest’s tornado alley, rural people recognize that cities provide more vulnerable targets for missiles or terrorists, and so forth.47 But our assumptions are common to the ways we humans try to pacify our anxieties with dubious assurances (1 Sam. 23:7; 2 Sam. 18:25–27). The West’s relative prosperity at the moment of this writing does not guarantee God’s blessing; Babylon exercised far more military and economic power than Judah, yet Babylon’s empire has been no more than memories for over two millennia.
The history of parts of the West as mission-sending nations probably provided much of the divine favor under which we now live, but far more born-again Christians now live in the developing nations of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Meanwhile, the secular revolt against God and its accompanying moral apostasy are certainly inviting judgment. American Christians dare not now reecho Abraham Lincoln’s claim that its nation’s people are “the almost chosen people.”48 The tokens of Christian commitment that remain in the public square are surely no greater than Judah’s temple, but contrary to the assurances of Jeremiah’s contemporaries, even God’s house could not stay his wrath against a disobedient people (Jer. 7:4–15).
Indeed, the vestiges of Christian heritage and the remnant of Christian proclamation in our own day make us, like the biblical prophets’ contemporaries, all the more accountable (e.g., Amos 3:2). Thus, as evangelical Old Testament scholar Walter Kaiser, now president at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, put it a couple decades ago: “North American society is headed for destruction and judgment. And we had better believe it’s coming, because there is no sign that repentance is near. It is coming, or else God is a liar and His word is not true. The prophet’s message must be preached again today.”49
Judgments have already come to seize our attention; but surely greater judgments lie in store. Those who study both Scripture and the moral state of secular society can hardly think otherwise, though in our day, as in Jeremiah’s, there will surely remain false prophets of peace merely telling people what they wish to hear (Jer. 6:14; 8:11; 14:13; 23:17; see Ezek. 13:16; Mic. 3:5; 2 Tim. 4:3–4).