The vision of the seven vials is a revelation of God's last plagues upon the ungodly, a final view of the divine providential purpose concerning the wicked, another group of seven that are set forth in a form similar to the judgments under the trumpets, but of increased severity, and that are promptly executed. They are called “another sign”, and may be regarded as another [pg 182] line of judgments of similar character to the trumpets, or as the complete fulfilment of the contents of the trumpet-judgments presented in another way, which are given for increased emphasis under figures that are analogous, and that indicate their inner connection; and, so far as the vials have any time-relation, they may be regarded as belonging to the same general period as the trumpets, i. e. the time of man's existence on the earth, especially the period of conflict, though shown by their progressive and destructive character to culminate in the closing period of human history. The vials are marked by an intensity of form and rapidity of movement, especially as they approach the end, and they are not limited like the trumpets to a part of men, but affect all the evil. They are vivid symbolic presentations of deep and terrible punishments, and are called 'the last plagues' because in them is fulfilled or completed the wrath of God upon the earth—a new and final view of the divine purpose concerning the wicked which may be looked at quite apart from any previous view.
Some preterists, who find in the seals a prophetic description of the trials of the church in the first age, regard the trumpets as a typical presentation of the fall of Jerusalem, and the vials as a portrayal of the fall of Rome.493 This opinion, it is affirmed, accords best with the general method of the Apocalyptic writings, which have for the most part a definite and local interpretation, and avoids the difficulty of an apparent repetition of similar judgments upon the same objects under the trumpets and the vials. But, upon the other hand, the prophetic outlook of John appears to the majority of devout minds to have a far wider sweep than that of other Apocalyptic writers outside the Scriptures, and to embrace a world-view that is universal, and that is not at all met by these limited historical fulfilments. Still, even if the former view were correct in its main assumption, “that does not preclude us,” as has been well said,494 “from interpreting the inspired words as referring not only to events near John's time, but also to other events of which they were the foretaste and figures. To us the meaning [in that case] is that the type of the end has been foretold and has come, but that [pg 183] the end itself which has been equally foretold [the full end] must be watched for in all seriousness.” If we have a correct view of prophecy we can readily assent to these words of wisdom which cannot be too strongly emphasized.
It should be noted in passing that the revelation of these world-judgments in the visions of the seals, the trumpets, and the vials, notwithstanding their separate character, may be seen to follow a certain line of development, showing an inner connection; and also, that the divine purpose of judgment may be considered as being in a general way partially disclosed under the seals,—for judgment is one phase of the seals though a subordinate one—as being publicly proclaimed by the trumpets, and as being fully executed in the pouring out of the vials, each series presenting a different view, complete in itself, of God's punitive inflictions for sin throughout the whole history of mankind. They are seen, also, to reflect God's long-suffering patience with the sinner, first making known his wrath in an order of providences which affect his people as well as those of the world; then in threatening and manifesting his purpose to punish evil by an order of events which affect only a part of mankind, i. e. the sinful because they are sinful, and that afford abundant opportunity for repentance; and, finally, by the swift execution of a divinely just though terrible punishment upon all the obdurately wicked that refuse to repent. This last is the great, impressive, and awe-inspiring thought of the vision of the vials.
The preparation for the vials, which is now entered upon, is a connecting link with the former vision, and a prelude to the plagues that follow. It is introduced by an inspiring view of the saints who have come victorious out of the conflict depicted in that vision, and is intended for the comfort of God's people in the midst of trials to which they cannot be indifferent, and which in affecting the world of nature and of men must in some degree also affect the righteous as well, though delivered from their destroying power. The comfort afforded in trial by the promise of deliverance, an element which has no small share in the purpose of the [pg 184] Apocalypse, is clearly brought out in this introductory passage before the vials have begun to be poured out, and is not interjected between them, as in the episodes that occur in the seals and trumpets—the episode in the vision of the vials being a warning of danger. The vision, too, is followed immediately by the comforting vision of victory beginning in the seventeenth chapter.
Seven angels appear, to whom is entrusted the execution of the seven plagues, which are called “the last” because they lead to the end of the world and to the bar of judgment;495 and the sea of glass, formerly described as “like unto crystal”, now becomes “mingled with fire”, the sign of the flushing of victory through anticipated judgment felt by all those who share in that great boundless life which exists before the throne, and whose experience is symbolized by the sea with its wide relation to the people of God in the past (cf. notes on ch. 4:6).496
The victors over the Beast and his image stand by rather than upon the sea,497 indicating their close relation to it, having harps of God prepared for tuneful melody. The figure seems to be drawn from the triumph of Israel at the Red Sea, though the significance of the sea cannot be quite the same, for in the old sense 'the sea is no more' (ch. 21:1); it has here become the symbol of the calm and fulness of life and joy in the presence of God.
The united song of all the redeemed before God, (the Adoration Chorus of Moses and the Lamb) who belong [pg 185] alike to the Old Dispensation and the New, to Moses and to Christ, represents the essential unity of faith and life under both parts of God's redemptive plan which is now about to be completed. It is an outburst of praise and adoration addressed to the Lord God, the Almighty, the King of the Ages, whose wondrous works and righteous judgments have been and are about to be made manifest before all nations. The song is the counterpart of the song of deliverance by the shore of the Red Sea, but it has a new and deeper fulness that is consonant with its theme.
The temple, the ναὸς or inner shrine of the tabernacle of the testimony (i. e. of the tabernacle of the law of God), is seen in heaven opened, and the seven angels who are clothed as priests and have charge of the plagues come out of it as the vindicators of that law. These are “arrayed with precious stone”, according to the variant reading adopted in the Revised Version, which has the weight of manuscript authority in its favor; but, as this reading differs from the Authorized Version only by a single letter in the Greek word, and only yields sense by the insertion of the word “precious”, it is best to regard it as due to a very early mistake of a copyist, and keep the old reading, “clothed in linen”, (Ezek. 9:2).498 The thought is in either case practically the same, viz. that these angels are clothed like priests, for the phrase “arrayed with precious stone”, if we adhere to that reading, recalls the breastplate of the high-priest, as the phrase “clothed in linen” evidently refers to the garments of the priesthood. There are seven angels in the vision to symbolize the universal character of the punishments, and there are given unto them by one of the four living creatures who represent all created life, seven golden vials or bowls full of the wrath of God (cf. Jer. 25:15f) to indicate the nature of their mission. “And the temple was filled with smoke”, the sign of the presence and glory and terror of the Lord; and, as at Sinai, no one could enter his presence while the judgments were being manifested.
The vials or bowls in the vision, which are apparently the same as the basons used in the temple service for receiving the sacrificial blood and the wine of the drink-offering, are made the symbolic receptacles of the judicial wrath of God against sin, called “the wine of the fierceness of his wrath” in verse nineteen, which is evidently conceived of as stored up through long periods to be suddenly and violently poured out. The golden bowls seem to indicate broad shallow vessels quite unlike our modern vials, probably of a deep saucer-like shape so that their contents could be poured out at once and suddenly.499 The name “vials” has, however, been retained in these notes, notwithstanding the change to “bowls” in the Revised Version, because of its associations and wide use in commentaries. The translation of φιάλας as “bowls” is doubtless more accurate, but the term used is relatively indifferent if the proper meaning be attached to it. They are not vials in the modern sense, but in the original sense of the word φιάλη in the Greek, which is the source of our English word “vial”, but which meant a shallow cup or bowl. The pouring out of the vials or bowls is the symbol of the execution of divine wrath upon the world. The vague description given in the vision of the nature of the inflictions which finally fall upon men as the result of the pouring out of the vials, forbids our attempting any very definite interpretation of them beyond the most general one that the world of nature and of men is made to abound with terrors which distress the evil. In this interpretation we can be absolutely confident, and the general effect seems to be the chief matter of importance. The abiding impression of the judgments of the vials, despite their obscurity, is one of deep and pervasive solemnity.
Preceding the opening of the series a great voice is heard out of the temple, i. e. from the inner shrine of the temple in heaven, apparently from God himself, though possibly from one of the Angels of the Presence, saying to the seven angels, “Go ye and pour out the [pg 187] seven bowls [or vials] of the wrath of God into the earth”; and in obedience to this command each angel empties his vial into, or upon, an appointed object. The first three vials are poured into the objects named, while the last four are poured upon them, as indicated by the prepositions είς and ἐπὶ; but, so far as can be seen, no special purpose is served by this use.
The first angel poured out his vial into the earth; and it became a noisome and grievous sore upon the men that had the mark of the Beast: the symbol of wrath poured out on the earth, and thus upon the men who are of it and belong to it, producing suffering that is bitter and intense. The form of the judgment is doubtless purposely indefinite, but the object on which it falls is made plain: the men who have attached themselves to the company of the Beast bear their punishment to the full, and it is poured out upon them by divine authority.
The second angel poured out his vial into the sea; and it became blood as of a dead man, i. e. clotted and putrefying, and it caused every living thing in the sea to die—a form of judgment that was very repulsive to the Jewish mind: the symbol of wrath poured out on the sea, one part of the fourfold division of creation noted under the trumpets, and thus upon men who are made to suffer by this means for their evil doing. As under the trumpets the first four vials are poured out upon the earth, the sea, the rivers and fountains, and the sun, a figurative form indicating their world-wide character—they affect the whole created world.
The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the fountains of the waters; and they became blood: the symbol of wrath poured out on the sources of water supply for the people, thereby punishing men retributively for the righteous blood which they had shed, and calling forth voices of approval from heaven, viz. from the angel of the waters,500 and from the altar, i. e. from [pg 188] the place where the martyrs rest (ch. 6:9). Retribution is declared to be the judicial result of divine wrath for sin; those who poured out the blood of saints and of prophets are given blood to drink as their just desert—a fearful punishment to the Eastern mind.
The fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and it was given unto it to scorch men with fire: the symbol of wrath poured out on the heavenly bodies, especially upon the sun the source of light and heat, that they may become the agent of punishment to men. And men blasphemed the name of God, who is recognized as having power over these plagues; and they repented not to give him glory, exhibiting the aspect of punishment which embitters and does not lead to repentance. It is a curious coincidence that the parts of creation which are made the subjects of judgment under the fourth vial and the fourth trumpet are described in Genesis as having been created on the fourth day.
The fifth angel poured out his vial upon the throne of the Beast; and his kingdom was darkened; and men gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven, and they repented not of their works: the symbol of wrath poured out on the throne of the Beast as the representative of Satan's power in the world, thus afflicting the worshippers of the Beast and his image. Under the fifth vial it will be seen that the plagues pass from the physical to the spiritual sphere of action, just as they did in the seals and trumpets; and they are found to be cumulative rather than successive, while, as under the preceding vial, they do not lead to repentance but to wrath and punishment. Also, throughout the vials, it is not the third part only that is affected, as under the trumpets, but the punishment falls upon the whole created world, showing the universal character of the judgments.
The sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river, the Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up,501 that the way might be made ready for the kings that come from the sunrising: the symbol of wrath poured out on the Euphrates, the center and seat of heathenism, or on the world-forces of evil, thereby opening the way for the influx of the Kings of the East to march to their ruin. The Kings of the East evidently belong to the “kings of the whole world” (v. 14), and are instruments of the Dragon and of the Beast who go up to war, not against Babylon, but against believers.502 The Euphrates was the center and stronghold of heathenism to the Jewish mind, and behind that lay the indefinite world-power which is here represented by the Kings of the East; upon these the angel poured out the vial of the retributive wrath of God.
[At this point the Episode Vb, given in verses thirteen to sixteen, occurs in the order of the vision,—a paragraph which though of limited extent has yet a clear relation to the course of the vials as an intervening vision of warning to the redeemed, and preparing the way for the approaching end.]
The seventh angel poured out his vial upon the air; and there came forth a great voice out of the temple, from the throne, saying, “It is done:503 and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunders; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since there were men upon the earth”: the symbol of wrath poured out on the air as the familiar abode of evil spirits,504 and also of the coming of the End, which is depicted by the fall of cities, especially of Babylon the great city, the type of the godless world, which is divided asunder into three parts, a symbol of completeness,—also three a symbol of the divine, perhaps implying God hath wrought it,—and is [pg 190] given to drink of the cup of the wine of the fierceness of God's wrath; by the destruction of islands and mountains, and by a plague of great hail, exceeding great, every stone of which was about the weight of a talent, i. e. from 108 to 130 pounds; “and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail”.505 The End itself is unrecorded; but with the infliction of the seven vials it is declared that “the wrath of God is spent”.506 The whole course of the vials is toward the End, which though not described, yet stands out in singular prominence as the inevitable result of the ruin wrought by sin; and here, as in the vision of the trumpets, the millennial period is not brought into view as a preceding stage. The transition to the scene of victory in the seventeenth chapter is after this immediately made by one of the vial-angels (ch. 17:1).
If we now recall the path of the seven vials, we can see how in their course they rapidly and intensively press on to the end of the ages and to the final ruin of the world, and also how they aptly prefigure the progressive punitive inflictions of God for sin. They are both world-wide in their character and relentless in their execution. They fall upon the land, and upon the sea, upon the rivers and fountains of waters, and upon the sun the source of light,—the figurative representatives of the created universe. Then, like the judgments of the seals and of the trumpets, they pass from the natural world to the sphere of the spiritual, and are seen to fall upon the far-reaching kingdom of the Beast, i. e. upon the world-powers operating under Satan's direction in open hostility to the church; afterward they fall upon the Euphrates, the old center of heathenism and seat of spiritual darkness in the far East, the typical center of the world-forces of evil; and finally under the seventh vial they lead to the end of the world, the conclusion of the centuries, and the day of complete recompense for sin. The distinction between the kingdom of the Beast, i. e. the world-powers of all time, and the forces represented by the Euphrates, the center and seat of heathenism, is not so clearly drawn under the fifth and sixth vials, as that between Satan [pg 191] with his host, and the world-forces of heathenism, under the fifth and sixth trumpets. But the kingdom of the Beast, here, as elsewhere, evidently represents the world-kingdoms in their organized form (or if taken in a narrower sense the then kingdom of Rome that foreshadowed them all), which forces are spiritually opposed to the kingdom of God; whereas the Euphrates, the center and seat of spiritual darkness in the historic past, apparently represents heathenism in the great East, which is here regarded as a far-reaching spiritual force operating against Christianity—the judgments under these vials falling upon the world-force operating in the sphere of the spiritual, and upon the world-religions opposing Christianity. And no one surely can read the record of the vials without being impressed with the unerring certainty and absolute terror of the final punishment for sin; so that even if the vision of the vials did point primarily, as most preterists insist, to the destruction of Rome and its temporal power, it surely points yet more decisively to the great era of judgment upon the powers of evil that culminates in the closing period of human history. The vision depicts God punishing the evil in a progressive course to the very end, and this end is only effectively reached in the day of final judgment.
This passage, it will be seen, is a minor digression between the sixth and seventh vials, corresponding to the episodes in the vision of the seals and of the trumpets, though not like them a vision of comfort, but a vision of danger to the church from the combined forces of evil in the world, yet not without anticipation of the glorious outcome which is given in the nineteenth chapter (v. 19-21), for these forces, we are told, are gathered together unto “the war of the great day of God, the Almighty” (v. 14), the outcome of which in the Revelation is never at any time in doubt.
At this point three unclean spirits, as it were frogs,507—three, the symbol of the spiritual, used in this [pg 192] case exceptionally of the spirits of demons,—come out of the mouths of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet (or Second Beast), representing the malign influences by which these powers of evil incite the kings of the earth to the great world-conflict against Christianity, described here under the figure of a battle of the war of the great day of God, the Almighty, taking place at Har-Magedon, i. e. either the fortified city, or the mountain of Megiddo, by the edge of the plain of Esdraelon, the great historic battle-ground of Jewish history (cf. Joel 3:2f; also Bk. of Enoch 56.5-8),508 probably referred to because of the notable victory attained there over the kings of Canaan (Jg. 5:19). In this culminating scene of conflict we have what may be regarded as a symbolic view of the entire struggle between sin and holiness which is ever going on in the world the ages through, but more particularly of its triumphant ending in the last age when the Dragon and the kings of the earth shall be completely and finally overthrown;509 but beyond this partial interpretation we cannot safely go in any trustworthy exposition of this truly impressive figure. The symbol of battle and victory, it depicts the conflict of the centuries, and points to the assured triumph that awaits the people of God in the end of the world, while it incites men to persistent faith and hope; but like many other prophetic predictions, its explicit interpretation can only be definitely given after the events themselves have been openly fulfilled.
In the midst of the episode a word of warning is given by John to the reader, as from Christ himself, declaring the importance of watching in the presence of such trial, and announcing a blessing upon him that watcheth and keepeth his garments. Then with the closing words of the episode in the sixteenth verse, the vision recurs to the seventh vial which is at once poured out.