Revealing Revelation - The Fourth Trumpet

There is great hope that this discussion regarding the fourth trumpet will be quite brief as these images should be familiar to anyone that has been following the discussions here.

Rev. 8:12 The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night.

These images have been discussed here at length and, as has been shown, are symbolic for leaders and peoples and nations. Most notably, the Old Testament refers several times to the demise of a king or his nation by use of the celestial bodies going dark. In fact one should note how at the crucifixion of Christ, God withdrew His light from earth and made it dark during midday as a symbolic response to the literal event of that day.

Below are just a handful of the uses of the celestial bodies going dark representing the judgment of God against a nation and it’s soon coming utter destruction.

BABYLON -
Isa 13:10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.

EDOM -
Isa 34: 4 All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall…9And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch. 10Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever.

EGYPT -
Eze 32: 7 When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens and make their stars dark; will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light. 8All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over you, and put darkness on your land, declares the Lord GOD.

ISRAEL/JUDAH
Amos 8:9 “And on that day,” declares the Lord God,” I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.

Jeremiah 4:14 O Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil, that you may be saved. How long shall your wicked thoughts lodge within you? … [23] I looked on the earth, and behold, it was without form and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light.

Jeremiah 4:28 “For this the earth shall mourn, and the heavens above be dark

Isaiah 5:30 They will growl over it on that day, like the growling of the sea. And if one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress; and the light is darkened by its clouds.

Jeremiah 13:16 Give glory to the Lord your God before he brings darkness, before your feet stumble on the twilight mountains, and while you look for light he turns it into gloom and makes it deep darkness.

Joel 2:10 The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.

The use of the term 1/3 in the verse under consideration may be in reference to the roughly one-third of the population of Jerusalem and Judea that died during the time of the siege. This nation under judgment lost a great deal in just the time of the siege as many starved to death, others were killed trying to escape and many others died of dehydration and other diseases of malnutrition.

The inclusion of the sun and moon may also reflect the inordinate number of leaders, both civil and religious, that met untimely deaths just in the years leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem. In Rome alone they saw the deaths by murder or suicide or Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho and Vitellus. Scores of Senators met their death at the hands on Nero including his two most trusted advisers.

In Judea we have recorded the deaths of Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, Herod Agrippa and nearly all of the princes in the line of the Herods. Also, the zealots were responsible for the deaths of many priest in the temple including the murder of the High Priest Ananus.

In what may be an ironic notation, but there are also witnesses at the time the described an eerie darkness over the land at the time of the great fires that destroyed the vegetation surrounding the city.

Here ends the discussion of the trumpets that deal directly with the siege of Jerusalem and lead up to the actual attack and devastation that will follow. These are known as the three woes and will be introduced in the following post.