Interpreting the seven trumpets of Revelation

Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

1st trumpet

By the trees are denoted the high and mighty. In the Old Testament the image had become quite an established one. The grass indicates the people, according to Isa. xl. 7, "Surely the people is grass." Trees and grass occur also in ch. ix. 4, as a designation of the high and low, princes and subjects.

2nd trumpet

In ch. xvii. 9 of this book the seven mountains are seven kingdoms. The symbolical action in ch. xviii. 21, also rests upon the symbolical signification of a mountain, and there, as in the original passage, Jer. li. 63, 64 (comp. also Dan. ii. 35), the mountain, the symbol of the mighty kingdom, is represented by the great stone, and the sea of the peoples, out of which Babylon had risen up with great power in the time of prosperity, but into which she now again sunk down, by the Euphrates. The great mountain burns with fire. The fire is the fire of wrath, the lust of war and conquest. Allusion is made to Jer. li. 25, where it is said in reference to the Chaldean empire, "Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth: I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make of thee a burnt mountain." ... The sea, in Scripture, generally and specially in the Apocalypse, is the common symbol of the world and the nations; comp. on ch. vi. 14, xiii. 1, xvii. 15. Mountain and sea are connected together, as here, in Ps. xlvi. 2, 3, "Therefore we are not afraid, though the earth be changed, and mountains shake in the heart of the sea, (though) its waters rage, foam, mountains tremble through its loftiness," comp. Ps. Ixv. 6, 7, Matt. xxi. 21. The meaning, therefore, of the symbolical representation is this: The apostate world shall be punished by war and conquest, a kingdom greedy of plunder shall be itself plundered. Bengel remarks: "Here, therefore, the invasion of the Roman empire by foreign nations, and the barbarians, as they were called, is indicated. About the year 250 the warlike Goths made an expedition into the Roman dominions, and from that time the roving incursions and inroads of such tribes never ceased, till they had, as it were, incorporated themselves with the Roman empire."

3rd trumpet

Water of rivers is an image of affluence, prosperity, and success; God causes the waters of the world's commerce and prosperity to dry up, but those of his church to flow copiously; or, Babylon shall be parched, the land of the Lord well watered. The star, burning like a torch and named Wormwood, forms here a contrast to the wood with which Moses, as a type of Jesus the Saviour, made the bitter water sweet, just as in ver. 8, 9, the great mountain burning with fire forms the contrast to the mighty life-stream of Ezekiel. For his own people God makes the bitter waters sweet, for the world he makes the sweet waters bitter. Through means of his servants, and by the manifestation of his glory, he shows to his own a healing tree, which, when put into the waters, makes them good; but in righteous judgment to the world, because they would not behold this tree, he throws a great star burning like a torch into the waters, by which they are made bitter.

4h trumpet

Before and after the subject discoursed of are the sore tribulations of war, and with these the whole group is occupied. So here we can only think of the alarming and distressing times of war. ... That a third part of the sun, moon, and stars is smitten, denotes long periods of time, during which distressing times should alternate with better ones.

5th trumpet

The locusts do not come from hell, but they proceed out of the smoke. They are a hostile devastation. ... Their faces resemble those of men, since, dreadful to behold, the fierce countenance of a man looks through the visage of the locust. In reality they were human countenances.

6th trumpet

All historizing interpreters, such, for example, as conceive the Euphrates to be mentioned from being the limits of the Roman empire, or from the dangers with which the Parthians threatened the Romans, apart from the misapprehension implied regarding the trumpets generally, is excluded by the enormous numbers in ver. 16. The subject of discourse in vers. 15, 16 is not the Romans, but men at large. The angels are to be regarded as the leaders of the great hosts, who assemble under their banners in the regions beyond the Euphrates, the seat, as it were, of God's hosts of war; as in Isa. xiii. 5, Jehovah himself marches forth at the head of his instruments of vengeance to lay waste the whole earth. ... The fundamental passage is Ps. lxviii. 17, "The chariots of God are two myriads, thousands of repetition;" q. d. thousands multiplied by thousands, a thousand times a thousand. There it is the invisibe war-chariots of Jehovah that are spoken of, which we may imagine to be drawn by hosts of angels. ... Here also, remarks Zullig, "by the perishing are to be understood those who have not the seal of God spoken of in ver. 4." And Bengel says : " In the present day there is a great corruption among unbelievers and nominal Christians, in all parts of Christendom, among high and low, and in all conditions of men; but if we could see what in former times has been taken away, we should find that the great God has continually saved out of the corrupt mass a good portion to remain for a seed. Those portions that have been extirpated have for the most part been a bad commodity. In plants one always leaves the best, the largest, and most perfect for seed, so that a good kind may be preserved. What would it come to, if God should leave men to act as they pleased, since with so much to restrain them, they are still so averse to improve? It is, therefore, necessary for the holy angels to blow with their trumpets, that men may learn to fear the Lord, and not be ever contending against him. Lord, when I reflect how thou hast executed judgment in the world, my desire is increased to give thee glory in a truly reverential and submissive spirit."

7th trumpet

The government is (now) possessed by our Lord and his anointed; he shall reign forever and ever. The time of the world's supremacy, of the oppression of the church, has at length come to a final end.--The kingdom has become. It was guaranteed to the church by the oath of the strong angel in ch. x. 6, 7, that under the trumpet of the seventh angel the mystery of God should be finished without delay, and the object of this was the dominion of the Lord and his anointed over the world. The scene cannot, from the very nature of things, belong to heaven ; and it makes nothing for this, that it is spoken of heaven. Decisive against such a view, is ch. x. 6, 7, according to which the sound of the seventh trumpet and the finishing of God's mystery, which can find its completion nowhere but on earth, for it concerns the dominion of Christ over the earth, are immediately united together. Ver. 19 also decides against it, if only it is rightly interpreted. But with perfect truth Bengel remarks on the expression: it has become, "Everything, and consequently also the kingdom of the world, is God's at all times. But in things visible and invisible, Satan and the world have set up their kings and lords against the Lord and his anointed. Such an impious rebellion is brought to an end by God, and he maintains his right.-- That royal word of the suffering Jesus, 'My kingdom is not of this world,' has been greatly abused. His kingdom is not worldly, but the kingdom of the world is holy and Christian. This province, which has been long enough in the enemy's hands, has at last been finally recovered; it is possessed by the Lord and his anointed." The kingdom of the world is the Lord's and his anointed's--the Son's, into whose hands all things have been committed by the Father, John iii. 35, and in particular all judgment, John v. 22. There is the same connection here between the Lord and his anointed, as in Acts iv. 26, in both places from Ps. ii. 2, "The kings of the earth rise up, and the princes sit in counsel against the Lord and his anointed."