But the assemblage of the events in the Revelation differs from any other in the Bible. It is more systematically arranged than in the series foretold by our Lord in Matthew xxiv. It differs from the account of the Egyptian plagues of Exodus in omissions, the introduction of new details, and in the fact that the plagues occur in a different order. The hail, for instance, which is the seventh Egyptian plague, is the first of the plagues in the Revelation. All this may be explained by the fact that the plagues of Egypt were confined to that country and were adapted to its local climatic conditions, while the plagues of the Revelation have for their field the world itself, and were intentionally diversified in being fitted to this larger sphere.
That a close connection exists between man and his dwelling place, the earth, is a truth in which both science and the Scriptures cordially concur; the dispute, if any, between them is not as to the fact, but its cause. The doctrine of evolution, which receives such wide acceptance, rests upon this connection as a fundamental axiom; and the Scriptures confirm the fact in the accounts of the creation and the fall. The difference between science and the Scriptures is, that what evolution attributes to the operation of natural law the Bible explains by the working of a moral power. As for man’s sake the ground was cursed and all nature made to suffer by reason of his rebellion, so do they bear constant witness to his advance or degeneration in righteousness. As purity is in general promotive of prosperity, so does sin produce disaster. “As the moral life of the soul expresses itself in the physical life of the body for the latter’s health or corruption, so the conduct of the human race affects the physical life of the universe to its farthest limit in space. The Old Testament is not contented with a general statement of this great principle, but pursues it to all sorts of particular and private applications. The curses of the Lord fell, not only on the sinner, but on his dwelling, his property, and even on the bit of ground he occupied. The doctrine of the Old Testament is that man’s sin has rendered necessary the destruction of his material circumstances, and that the divine judgment includes a broken and rifled universe.”[¹]
[¹] Isaiah, vol. i. chap. xxxviii, pp. 419, ff., in the Expositor’s Bible, New York, A. C. Armstrong & Co.
And these calamities, whether brought about directly by the divine Governor, or through the operation of general laws, which is but another mode of his action, are so many trumpet calls from God warning men to retrace their erring steps and submit to his kingdom. “It was plague and fire,” Leigh Hunt says, “that first taught the Londoners to build their city better.” And the divine Being may make use of like means to forward his moral government.
1. Natural Providences.—In the first trumpet scene the blow falls upon the earth itself. Its productive resources were severely diminished through the destructive agencies of nature, intensified, it may be, by the horrors of war. The hail and the fire were mingled with blood. And, since food is essential to life, “the king himself being served by the field,” such a disaster must sorely oppress mankind. The apostle had himself witnessed at least one widely-extended famine, and had noted how the exhibition of Christian benevolence had been made the means of promoting the kingdom of Christ (Acts xi, 28–30).
The second trumpet scene deals with disasters affecting “the sea,” the great highway of commerce, and disturbing the exchanges of the products of labor among men. More than once in the history of the world social revolutions have been the plowshare turning up the soil, that seeds of religious reformation might the better grow.
In the third trumpet scene it is the sources of water supply that are affected. A star, falling from heaven, turns them to wormwood, which in the Old Testament is used as a symbol of bitterness and poisoning. It is in the contamination of these sources that epidemics and pestilences usually find their commencement, and a merciful Providence generally spares them until other and milder warnings have been tried.
In the fourth trumpet scene the heavenly bodies are involved, carrying out the idea, so frequently expressed in the Bible, of the sympathy which the whole creation seems to feel with the great events transacted on earth. The universe is so bound together that whatever touches one part of the great Governor’s empire ultimately affects every other (Exodus x, 21–24; Isaiah xiii, 9–11; Joel ii, 31; Matthew xxiv, 29; xxvii, 45). Yet the images in this scene may be figurative emblems of the ruling powers of earthly kingdoms, and the vision may be interpreted as synonymous with the predictions of Haggai ii, 6–9, and Hebrews xii, 26–29, in which the shaking of heaven and earth is made to precede the coming of the kingdom of Christ.
The fifth trumpet scene is undoubtedly the most difficult of all to interpret and requires more elaborate treatment. In striving to explain its obscurities the only safe and satisfactory method is to search for what may be regarded as certain and plain in the vision, and from this as a starting point to essay the more difficult.
Two things seem to stand out prominently and comparatively clearly in the scene. Assuming the star which fell from heaven, to whom was given the key of the bottomless pit, and who is closely connected with the angel of the pit named Abaddon or Apollyon—that is, destroyer—to be a representation of Satan, then for the first time this archenemy of God and man is introduced personally upon the stage. In whatever the fifth trumpet signifies he directly or indirectly has a preëminent share. Then, again, the mention of locusts points us to the prophecy of Joel, where the destructive ravages of this scourge are such a conspicuous figure. If we can reach a satisfactory solution of Joel’s prophecy we may reasonably expect an understanding of this prophecy of the Revelation.