Sermon Tone Analysis

summary

Revelation 9 reveals John’s vision of the fifth and six trumpet judgments.

Several interpretive issues are immediately apparent.

What is the nature of the angel with the key to the bottomless pit (Rev 9:1)?

Is this angel the same or different than that in Rev 9:11 or Abbadon/Apollyon?

Who or what is being released from the bottomless pit (Rev 9:3-11)?

These questions take the reader into the wider question of whether Revelation’s apocalyptic descriptions should be read in terms of modern analogies.

In this episode we discern how the release of evil supernatural beings from the bottomless pit has clear connections to how Second Temple Jewish texts and 2 Peter describe the imprisoned Watchers, the sons of God of Genesis 6:1-4 infamy, and how the odd descriptions of those beings in insect and animal form have clear, abundant antecedents in the Old Testament.

Introduction

We ‘re not divvying up anything.

This is Revelation 9. Revelation 9 prior to today, but we’re going to, as the series dictates, go through the whole chapter and look at Old Testament backdrops and antecedents and points of origin for what we read in Revelation 9.

So I’m going to cut it in half.

The whole chapter goes through Trumpets 5 and 6.

And it’s kind of neatly divisible.

The first 12 verses really deal with Trumpet 5.

So let’s just jump in there.

And then when we hit verse 13, we’ll be on Trumpet 6.

So I’m just going to read through these 12 verses here in the ESV so we have it in our heads:

So this is Trumpet 5.

And again, we’re not commenting on End Times systems and goofy interpretations.

Let me just make one little comment about that.

These are not tanks and missiles and things like that, because they were there to “torment” or “harm” the people on the earth.

And here’s what we get in verse 5:

I would suggest to you that if this is a tank or a missile, people are going to die.

So right away the literal interpretation, even without getting into the Old Testament imagery, is sort of ridiculous.

And again, I don't think that’s going to surprise anyone.

What might surprise people is how deeply this imagery is embedded in or can be drawn from the Old Testament.

So that’s what we’re going to get into.

a star fallen from heaven to earth

Now we’re going to start in the first verse here.

You know, “a star fallen from heaven to earth” at the beginning of the fifth trumpet.

Now there are two approaches to identifying this fallen star.

And I think this is worth getting into.

We’re going to traverse into Second Temple literature here.

And some of this is going to be a little bit familiar from some things we’ve had before, up until Revelation 9, about falling stars and this sort of imagery.

But I want to zero in on a couple of things here very specifically.

So there are two approaches to answering the question, “Well, who or what is this?”

The context at least makes obvious that this is a supernatural being.

That much nobody really argues about.

The points of controversy, though, are as follows.

There are three of them:

1.

Is this being is a good angel in God’s service (a supernatural being loyal to God) or a fallen (evil) celestial being, perhaps even Satan himself?

So that’s the first question.

2. Is this fallen star with “the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit” the same as the angel of Revelation 20:1, which says, “I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain?”

3.

If one opts for the fallen star being evil, is that fallen star the same being as Abaddon in Revelation 9:11 (ten verses later)?

So those are the three fundamental questions you get from the very first verse.

First Approach

Now I’m going to go through a couple of approaches here to this.

In terms of a first approach, Aune in his commentary takes the view that the fallen star of Revelation 9:1 is an angel but is not the angel of 9:11.

So the celestial being of verse 1 is not Abaddon of verse 11.

That he is an angel, Aune argues, is based on the parallel passage Rev 20:1.

Okay?

So he says, if you look at Revelation 20:1, it’s so similar to 9:1.

And it’s pretty obvious that this is a supernatural being and an angel.

He further argues that the angel mentioned in 9:11 renames Abaddon (in other words, he is Abaddon).

So the angel mentioned in 9:11 is Abaddon.

The angel mentioned in 9:11 is not this first angel of Revelation 9:1.

So that’s Aune’s view.

And he writes this:

John does not say that he actually saw the star fall; he says only that he saw the star after it had fallen.

In 9:1b–2a it becomes obvious that the “star” is a supernatural being, i.e., an angel.

In early Jewish literature, stars can represent angelic beings [ this is obvious] (Judg 5:20; Job 38:7; Dan 8:10)... Falling stars often represent evil angelic beings or demons [ and he has a slew of quotes here] (1 Enoch 86:3; 88:1; 90:24; T. Sol.

20.14–17; Jude 13), or even [ could be] Satan (1 Enoch 86:1; Apoc.

El. 4:11; Luke 10:18 [ that’s the “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven]; Rev 12:9) [ again, this “falling” language is his point].

Here the fallen star should be understood as an angelic messenger (see 20:1) and not be identified with the angel of the abyss named Abaddon or Apollyon in 9:11...

This angel is named only here in Revelation, and elsewhere in the OT and early Jewish literature is mentioned only in 4Q280 10 ii 7

Let me just break in here.

He’s saying that we only get the name Abaddon… The angel of 9:11 is named only here and in some early Jewish literature, specifically 4Q280, which is a Dead Sea Scroll.

It actually references the “Angel of the Pit, and Spirit of Abaddon.”

Back to Aune:

While in 4Q280 and related texts these two titles are alternate ways of describing Belial [ who would be the Satan figure in the Dead Sea Scrolls], in Revelation it is not at all clear that the angel of the abyss is a designation for Satan, for he is carefully named elsewhere with a selection of aliases in two different contexts ([Revelation] 12:9; 20:2), and neither Abaddon nor the angel of the abyss is mentioned again.

The fact that ἄγγελον [aggelōn] is articular here [ it has the definite article], however, suggests that the author expected the readers to be familiar with this figure [ this angel], i.e., that the angel of the abyss is none other than Satan-Belial [ he’s saying that’s possible]... Abaddon is a Hebrew term for the kingdom of the dead (Prov 15:11; Job 26:6; 28:22; 31:12; Ps 88:12) [ these passages reference this term Abaddon with the realm of the dead], used as a poetic parallel to Sheol (Job 26:6; Prov 15:11; 27:20; 1QH 3:16–19 [ a Dead Sea Scroll]), death (Job 28:22), the grave (Ps 88:11 [ in the Masoretic Text it’s verse 12]), and the abyss (4Q504 = 4QDibHama 7:8).

So he’s saying, Abaddon could be Satan.

We don’t know.

But he’s saying that Abaddon (the angel there, the angel who is called Abaddon) is different than the one in 9:1.

Now the key sentence in all that to parse (in Aune’s thinking) is “here the fallen star should be understood as an angelic messenger” based on Revelation 20:1, “and not be identified with the angel of the abyss named Abaddon…” Now I take this as indicating Aune sees a good angel in both Revelation 9:1 and 20:1.

Others who are commenting on Aune’s work will argue that Aune still thinks the angel of Revelation 9:1 is evil, even though it’s not Abaddon.

And they draw that conclusion based on Aune’s comments about “falling star” language being used of evil angels.

I don't think Aune actually says that.

And I don’t read him that way.

Now here’s why it matters.

The advantage interpretively of having a good angel in both Revelation 9:1 and Revelation 20:1 is consistency.

There is no indication that the angel of Revelation 20:1 who holds the key to the Abyss is evil.

There’s no indication he’s evil.

And after all, he’s going to bind Satan.

That’s his mission in Revelation 20:1.

So if the angel of Revelation 9:1 was evil, while the one in 20:1 is good, what you’d have is you’d have two different angels with the keys to the Abyss.

And that seems to make little sense to me.

We’ll return to that thought in a moment.

But in my reading of Aune here, we have a good angel in both 9:1 and 20:1, that angel being the same entity (it’s the same angel)… Again, in this approach, this is how you could understand it—the same angel in 9:1 and 20:1.

In fact, they’re not only both good, it’s the same one.

But he has two different missions.

In Revelation 9:1 the angel’s mission is one of release (the release of forces under the command of Abaddon, a different figure mentioned in 9:11).

And in Revelation 20:1, the same angel has the mission of coming back to the Abyss again, and this time he binds Satan.

Alright?

So as far as an identification more specifically of this angel (the one in 9:1 and the one also in 20:1, the one who has the key to the Abyss, to the pit), the best candidate is Uriel, who is the archangel who, in 1 Enoch, was actually the chief “over Tartarus.”

Again Tartarus is a reference to the Abyss where the Watchers are held.

And you get that from 1 Enoch 19:1; 20:1.

Now another option, which is weaker in my view, is this angel could be Saraqael, which is another angel in 1 Enoch who was “over … the spirits, who sin in the spirit.”

I just don’t think that’s as good of a candidate.