Revelation 9 with inline interpretive notes

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When the fifth angel blew his trumpet, I saw a star that had fallen to earth from the sky. The star was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.  [This and what follows from this is the first of the three catastrophic woes.]

[The translation "bottomless pit" when translated back through Greek to Hebrew refers to Sheol. While Sheol is a Hebrew term that refers to every aspect of the state of death in This World, before The World To Come, here in this context of the Revelation the key to Sheol, or the bottomless pit, that is given is the key to that aspect of the state of death in which evil and fallen spirits are contained during the time of this world.  Here we will see that certain evil spirits having qualities like those of locusts are loosed upon the earth for a given time.

The star that is seen is an angel of a star. This angel that is given the key to the bottomless pit is not one of the holy angels of the revelation, those carrying out the merciful judgments of God, but is itself a fallen angel.  This angel had already fallen to the earth when the vision coming from the blowing of the fifth trumpet begins.  The vision begins with this fallen angel being given the key to the bottomless pit.

This is the first time when it is made known that the letting loose of fallen angels upon the earth is an element of the final judgment upon the world.  From the beginning of history, right up to this time of the final judgment in the world, which is the time of the end of history, the world had knowingly or unknowingly worshipped and served fallen angels.  The world had been greatly deluded about the nature of these powers.  Never did they fully believe that they were fallen powers.  In later times, many peoples came to believe that these powers were actually powers of their own minds.

Now, in the process of the revelation of the Messiah of Israel, it is the judgment of God Almighty that the world should see the true nature of the fallen angels. The fallen angels from the sky do not love the human beings.  Rather, like the demons that are created from below, they seek to torment them and would kill all humans if they were allowed.  In this way, God will bring the world to face the truth that the powers and abilities of these fallen angels and demons that humans covet and sometimes have gained through science or sorcery are not good powers at all, but being powers stolen from being under the authority of God have become evil powers, capable only of producing evil.]

It opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and smoke came out of the shaft like the smoke from a large furnace. The sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.

[It is necessary to understand clearly how the authority of the opened seals was granted progressively and in a cumulative manner.  As each seal of the scroll of authority for the judgments of Israel's redemption and her Messiah's revelation were removed, the authority granted under each seal remained in force as the next seal was opened.

As we now see the judgments being enacted, we need to see how each one requires the various forms of authority granted through the opening of the different seals.  Here, the smoke from the shaft into Sheol could not have been allowed to rise except for the authority of the opening of the fourth seal, the seal over the authority of Death itself, to bring the supernatural powers of Death and Sheol upon the earth.

There are powers of evil in the sky and there are powers of evil on the earth and beneath the earth.  When the evil among the rulers of the nations rises they call evil good and good evil.   This is the very source of their magic, their sorcery. Therefore just as God brought plagues through miracles upon the Egyptians that measure for measure overpowered the magic of the Egyptian sorcerers, so He now in the end of time turns the evil of the fallen angels in the sky and the demonic evil in the underworld against the evil of the rulers of the earth and their followers, that evil might be known as evil and good as good.]

Locusts came out of the smoke onto the earth, and they were given power like that of earthly scorpions.

[In Egypt the locusts were natural but the spirit by which they gathered and came upon Egypt was not natural.  Then in the beginning of Israel's redemption, as now at the end of Israel's redemption, locusts gather to devour the power of those who held Israel captive.  Both now and before they gather at the command of God but in a spirit of demonic force.

Before in Egypt, the all consuming hunger of the locusts was unleashed to create the image of the utter devastation caused by the evil of rebellion against God.  Now that image of consuming hunger has become the thing itself.  It is not just hunger but supernatural demonic hunger to destroy and cause devastation in the earth, to torture and kill with ferocity.  Its poison is like the scorpion striking with its tail and its target which it strikes is the human conscience.]

They were told not to harm the grass on the earth, any green plant, or any tree. They could harm only the people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

They were not allowed to kill them, but were only allowed to torture them for five months. Their torture was like the pain of a scorpion when it stings someone.

[The natural locusts in Egypt, though they came in supernatural swarms, came only to harm the crops of Egypt.  Now the locusts that come are supernatural locusts of hunger to destroy and consume all life.  But they are harnessed and restrained from consuming all life for the sake of the children of the tribes of Israel and those who are united with them in one faith, sealed in their foreheads with the seal of God, (in accordance with the authority granted in the opening of the sixth seal).

Though these demons released from the bottomless pit are spirits of devouring locusts, they are controlled by the power of this very revelation of Yehoshua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ) from devouring the life force of either crops or trees or any wild vegetation.  They are not even allowed to utterly devour and consume the souls of the human beings, who are their true prey upon the earth.
They are only allowed to demonize and afflict their bodies and souls with supernatural pain.  It is in the measure of 1/3, the measure of warning.  Not 1/2 of the year, that is, for 6 months, not 1/4, that is for 3 months, not precisely for 1/3, that is for 4 months, but for 1/3 extended toward but cut short of 1/2, that is for 5 months.

And this period of time only, in order to declare to those who fear that it is the power of the demons in control that it is not them but the Almighty One who sits upon the throne in heaven and the Lamb who stands before Him, who unleashes them and leashes them, to warn the inhabitants of the earth that they will receive measure for measure for their evil deeds.  And more, this judgment, like all the judgments, will be shown to the nations to be a measured judgment for the sake of the children of the tribes of Israel, that the world might know that it is for their sakes that God shows mercy to Humankind.

How shall those tormented by the demonic locusts know that it is the One who sits upon the throne in heaven and the Lamb who stands before him who is the one who unleashes and who leashes the demonic locusts?  The nations shall know because they will see that the locusts cannot harm the children of the tribes of Israel nor those who stand in the faith of Israel with them, who are sealed in their foreheads with the seal of God.  Yet all others are struck as with a scorpion's tale in their minds and are tormented, being unable to know right from wrong on any level, being unable to discern what is true, being unable to keep from following liars and idolizing them, being unable to escape the torments of addiction to immorality.]

In those days people will seek death, but never find it. They will long to die, but death will escape them.

[Again, as said above, this comes through the authority of the opening of the sixth seal, (Rev. 6:16).  First and foremost this applies to Israel for the final purging of Israel.  This is that final purging of Israel of those in Israel who are fallen away from God and His covenant, His Messianic Torah claim upon them, (as spoken of in Luke 23:30 Hos. 10:8).

Yet, because God already provided redemption for corporate Israel in heavenly places by the death and resurrection of the Lamb, Yehoshua HaMashiach, in the time of the Edomite rule over Jerusalem, through this purging all Israel will be saved.  All the children of Israel, together with all members of all families of the earth who will stand with them in faith will, in the end, be found sealed in their foreheads with the seal of God.   And because of this salvation of Israel which now is and which is to come, God now commands all people everywhere to repent and believe the Good News of Israel and Her Messiah, (see Acts 17), and accordingly this prophecy of the last judgement is extended to all peoples and nations,  (Isa. 2:19).

What is the true meaning of this prophecy?  It is that at that time of the last judgment of history people will rather face in shame the Angel of Death in person, face to face, than to face in shame the Lamb of God in person, face to face.  But they will not escape their role in humanity, they will not escape the great tribulation, the great correction of the human race upon the earth, in this way.  They will not be able to escape into the arms of Death.]

The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were victor's crowns that looked like gold, and their faces were like human faces.

[While these entities are called locusts because they serve in the role of locusts and because they have as their core characteristics the characteristics of locusts. There spirit is arrogance, greed and the devouring hunger of Sheol.  And now their arrogance is filled with triumph because they have escaped the confinement of Sheol and they feel their spirit has free reign upon the earth.  But unlike true locusts they are not natural.  They are aliens, demonic beings, created in the underworld for no other purpose than this judgment at the end of human history.  And when God's purpose in the judgment is accomplished they will be gone.]

They had hair like women's hair and teeth like lions' teeth.

[Were their physical attributes purely metaphorical expressions describing psychological states the metaphors would be representative of spiritual forces even more terrifying than the physical entities. But these are truly evil spirits.  Are these descriptions of entities that are demonic and technological mixes that will be seen in the near future?  Certainly, if Yochanan had set about to describe a vision of some of the flying war machines of today those descriptions might have seemed to have similar properties of appearance as these entities.  However, unlike the angelic horses and riders of the next trumpet vision, it seems that these demonic entities afflict their victims without using any physical medium other than the minds of their victims themselves.

In the last analysis it can be seen that these entities, and those to come after these, are not themselves simply futuristic machines, even animate machines.  Even though they may or may not be visible to human sight, these are demonic entities that are able to affect not only the body of their prey but also their spirit, their soul, their mind.  While these spirits are indeed like tech armoured warrior-like, cyborg-like demons, they are in fact only demons.

What is most revealing is that they also resemble women.   Just as fallen angels from the beginning coveted the qualities of human women,  so here they have imitated human women and have turned those imitated qualities to evil use.  Their is an evil seductiveness to these locusts.  They gain entry and access for their poison through the forehead, through the eyes, through the mind, of those who are not sealed by the seal of God.  They are invited through an open door, opened with fascination to a human face and the hair of a woman and to golden crowns and to a mouth having lion's teeth into the mind. There they dominate and bring torment for five months with a sting of poison like that of a scorpion's tale.]

They had breastplates like iron, and the noise of their wings was like the roar of chariots with many horses rushing into battle.

[A resistance will be found in those whose minds the locusts seduce and torment, at least in some.  But the locusts will be built with a defense against this resistance, and they will come in giant swarms.]

They had tails and stingers like scorpions, and they had the power to hurt people with their tails for five months.

[Once again it is repeated that this judgment is a measured judgment.  Even the form of poison is intended not to be a fatal form of poison.  Although it is a form of poison that could be fatal,  it is decreed by God in the Revelation of Israel's Redeemer, that it not be fatal, or that its power last for too long.]

They had the angel of the bottomless pit ruling over them as king. In Hebrew he is called Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.

These locusts demons had golden crowns of victory on their heads because their god is the god of this world, and though he has free reign upon the earth his time is short.  Therefore the wrath of his arrogance is great.  The revelation is first in the Hebrew language for the children of Israel, but as I began explaining above is also extended to the nations, and is therefore also in the Greek. Here the greatest fallen angel, the present god of this world, manifests himself as Abaddon, the ruler of death itself, though he is only the con artist who deceived the world into serving sin and to becoming enslaved to sin and the realm of death; in the end he will be proven to not be the true ruler over death at all, although he is the god of all unholy destruction.]

The first catastrophic woe is over. After these things there are still two more catastrophic woes to come.

[By this narrative in the revelation we continue to keep track of the place where we are in the vision of the blowing of the seven trumpets.  We have now seen the vision coming with the blowing of the fifth trumpet.  Next we will see the visions coming with the blowing of the sixth trumpet.  This will take us into and through chapter 10, where we will come to the seven thunders.  It will then take us half way through chapter 11, where we will learn of the two witnesses.  After this (the second woe), we will come to the blowing of the seventh trumpet (which is the the third and final woe).  The visions coming with the blowing of the seventh trumpet will include all remaining judgments of the revelation, including the seven bowel judgments, the defeat of the Beast, the destruction of Mystery Babylon, the appearing of the Mashiach of Israel and his wedding and his millennial reign upon the earth.]

When the sixth angel blew his trumpet, I heard a voice from the four horns of the gold altar in front of God.

[The voice is coming directly from the authority of the prayers of the martyrs.]

It told the sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Release the four angels who are held at the great Euphrates River."

[These are from the four quadrants of the empire of Alexander the Great.  Had they not been imprisoned at the Euphrates River at that time the world would have completely united under the Hellenistic empire.  At this time of the end of history they will be released in order that there will soon be one world government united against the God who chose Israel and Jerusalem.  For this is the purpose of God in order that He might reveal the will of the children of Adam and put an end to their rebellion.]

So the four angels who were ready for that hour, day, month, and year were released to kill one-third of humanity.

[These four powers over the four military principalities of the earth which were removed from their place by God's decree for Jerusalem's sake.  They were to be imprisoned only until atonement had been provided for Jerusalem's unfaithfulness and until she was ready to be brought to repentance.  Then, when she was prepared to stand with her Redeemer against the world these angels would be released.

Therefore it was  at this well planned hour that these angels were being released back to rule from their heights over the nations. When the four principle angels are released the armies of angels that serve them are released with them.]

The number of cavalry troops was 200,000,000. I heard how many there were.

[While this number may also represent in a symbolic manner the number of human soldiers who will be animated by these angelic forces, its direct reference is to the number of angelic forces themselves, as we will see.  That Yochanan hears the number but we are not told how means that it has a certain symbolic meaning in reference to what is concealed from the world but will be revealed through those who are sealed in their foreheads by the seal of God.]

This was how I saw the horses in my vision: The riders wore breastplates that had the colour of fire, sapphire, and sulphur. The heads of the horses were like lions' heads, and fire, smoke, and sulphur came out of their mouths.

[These horses are spirits, just as the demons from the bottomless pit of Sheol were spirits, just as the angels, the military forces that ride these horses are spirits. But these horses are a species of angels who come to animate the armies of the nations to build a world empire by their military might. Because this involves a kind of reproduction on the kingdom of Alexander it means the final resolution of the wars between the king of the north and the king of the south that have been going on all through the centuries.

These descriptions show that these angelic horses are not just military spirits but that they are, as it were, military industrial spirits, able to inspire military intelligence and technology, as well as to animate military force.  Just as these spirits appear as natural horses in supernatural form with supernatural abilities, so the will inspire industry and technology that rises to a virtually supernatural level in the human armies that they animate.]

By these three plagues—the fire, the smoke, and the sulphur that came out of their mouths—one-third of humanity was killed.

[We see a scenario represented in which it is almost as if military vehicles are each equipped with weapons producing nuclear firepower with nuclear radiation.   These visions of the Revelation of Yehoshua HaMashiach were to be accessible not only to us at the end of time but also to those who lived at the time it was received.  Although at that time it was already known where gunpowder was to come from, gunpowder was not yet itself invented as such.  On one level, therefore, the vision reveals the overwhelmingly frightful reality that we already see everyday in our own age, that sulphur based fire and smoke should contain projectiles of death coming out of the mouths of all military vehicles.  But a hint is given in the description of the angelic military horses that, with their riders, represent and animate these earthly forces.

The description informs us that each of the three elements are to be understood as plagues.  While this can be read as saying that it is the three elements working together that have the power to kill 1/3 of the earth's population, the hint is that these elements in the end will represent a form of destructive power where each of these elements acting also individually have the power to kill.  We see this now in the case of nuclear power.  The sulphur, that is to say the chemical element, the exploding radioactive material, as well as the fire, the blast-wave, and the smoke, the radiation, all separately have the power to kill.  From this vision of the military technology of these horses, then, one could envision anti-God angelically inspired human-made drone military vehicles each equipped with small nuclear warhead mounted rocket launchers at their mouth.

But again, the word of God puts a limit on the amount of destruction these armies can do to Humanity. It is the same measure.  1/3 of the human race will be destroyed in the wars that lay the foundation for creating one world government in opposition to the government In the heavens of the One who sits upon the throne and against the Lamb, and on the earth in opposition to a Torah governed Israel and therefore in opposition to the Jewish city of Jerusalem.]

For the power of these horses is in their mouths and their tails. Their tails have heads like snakes, which they use to inflict pain.

[The opposition to God of these four angels and their armies that is here being allowed is itself the judgment that comes with the blowing of this trumpet.  Before now this level of opposition to God was not allowed.  At this point, at this appointed day and hour and year, it will be allowed.  Not only are 1/3 of all people killed but this warfare, which appears to be taking place throughout the world, is actually directed mostly at the Jews and those who stand with them in one faith. These are the martyrs the victims of the four heads of these horses and their riders.

Together with God's martyrs there are multitudes more of the citizens of the earth who are killed at this time.   But there are many more people who are wounded and afflicted with pain. These are the victims of the serpent tails. Primarily, the serpent tails are the agents of the military propaganda and ideology of these armies. They do not kill outright, but like the serpent in the garden, target the soul and seek to destroy it from within.  This is to say the one world government is, here, still restrained and not completed.  It is still coming to power.]

The rest of the people who survived these plagues did not repent from their evil actions or stop worshiping demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see, hear, or walk.

[It is still primarily the Jewish people as a whole who God is judging, in order to bring them to repentance.  But it is also, with them, all the people of every family and nation, (see Acts 17).]

They did not repent from their murders, their witchcraft, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.

[There is virtually a complete correspondence to the seven Noahide Laws listed here.  1). Idolatry (see the verse above).  2).  Murder.  3). Witchcraft is listed in the place of blasphemy.  The basis of sorcery is calling good evil and evil good.  The application of this for the sake of power is in using the name of God blasphemously to accomplish one's own will.  4). Immorality.  5). Theft.

This is exactly the list of sins prohibited by the Seven Noahide Laws based on Talmudic exegesis. The Talmudic exegesis, (which was only written down many years after this revelation was given), is of each of the words of the universal commandment given to Adam in the Garden of Eden by Hashem God, to eat freely of all the fruit of the trees that God provided for them, (Genesis 2:16).

The exception, the one prohibition left of this list here, is the prohibition not to eat of the limb torn from an animal, which was made explicit at the time of Noah.  This sin would involve the eating of blood.  It would also imply the sin of any form of cruelty to animals in the procurement of food.  That the Revelation is here saying that the citizens of the world also did not repent of this sin can be gathered from the fact that this list is a reference to the complete list of the Noahide laws.  The apostles expected repentance in regard to the list of sins above on the part of any gentiles who desired to attach themselves to the community of Israel in the name of Yehoshua HaMashiach, referring to the list comprehensively by naming the sin of immorality.  In the case of these believers they also added the prohibition of eating blood, (see Acts 15).

In regard to the other Noahide law that is not listed here, to create courts of justice, it is the message of the whole Book of the Revelation of Yehoshua HaMashiach, (Jesus Christ), that the nations will never create courts of true justice on their own but will do so only when Mashiach rules over them for one thousand years.

This verdict being stated here marks the end of this chapter of judgment.   This is so even though there is one more trumpet to be sounded.  Nevertheless, this verdict being given here is telling us that everything that could be done to warn the world to repent before judgment upon the earth comes in full has been done.  Judgment must now come in full measure.   Since until now the judgment has been mitigated for the sake of the children of Israel, and since the full measure of judgment will come in accordance with the word of their testimony, the revelation will now come to show a vision in which is concealed and revealed the power of the testimony of those sealed with the seal of God in their foreheads.  This vision comes with seven thunders in chapter 10.

Revelation 10  >