First Woe: Fallen Star
"Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit." (Revelation 9:1,2 - New King James Version)
Chapter nine is one of the most difficult passages in Revelation to understand. The Apostle John may even have had trouble comprehending what he saw. In this chapter, he uses the words as and like twelve times, attempting to describe what he saw using familiar images.
The first puzzle in this passage is the identity of the star mentioned in verse one. The language seems to indicate not a physical heavenly body such as a star, comet or meteor, but to an intelligent being. Although, I think we should not rule out the possibility of it being a meteor.
In the original the word for fall is in the past tense. This is a star that had fallen to the earth, John does not say that he say the star fall. He says that he saw a fallen star. Angels in the Bible are sometimes called stars. Jesus said that he saw Lucifer fall to the earth. So if this star is in individual, Satan is a likely candidate.
To the star is given the key to the bottomless pit. The bottomless pit is literally, the shaft of the abyss. This is the center of the earth. The earth has no bottom; if we could travel to the center of the earth, our sense of weight would slowly decrease as we approached the middle until we reached a point where gravity would be pulling equally in all directions and there would be no up or down, no top or bottom. So the earth is bottomless!
The opening of the bottomless pit or shaft of the abyss, should be related to the context of the ecological disasters of the first four trumpets. The shaft of the abyss is a volcano. The smoke is the result of a tremendous eruption.
If this star is not Satan but an actual meteor, than the crashing of this large meteor into the earth will set off this volcanic eruption.
Chapter nine is one of the most difficult passages in Revelation to understand. The Apostle John may even have had trouble comprehending what he saw. In this chapter, he uses the words as and like twelve times, attempting to describe what he saw using familiar images.
The first puzzle in this passage is the identity of the star mentioned in verse one. The language seems to indicate not a physical heavenly body such as a star, comet or meteor, but to an intelligent being. Although, I think we should not rule out the possibility of it being a meteor.
In the original the word for fall is in the past tense. This is a star that had fallen to the earth, John does not say that he say the star fall. He says that he saw a fallen star. Angels in the Bible are sometimes called stars. Jesus said that he saw Lucifer fall to the earth. So if this star is in individual, Satan is a likely candidate.
To the star is given the key to the bottomless pit. The bottomless pit is literally, the shaft of the abyss. This is the center of the earth. The earth has no bottom; if we could travel to the center of the earth, our sense of weight would slowly decrease as we approached the middle until we reached a point where gravity would be pulling equally in all directions and there would be no up or down, no top or bottom. So the earth is bottomless!
The opening of the bottomless pit or shaft of the abyss, should be related to the context of the ecological disasters of the first four trumpets. The shaft of the abyss is a volcano. The smoke is the result of a tremendous eruption.
If this star is not Satan but an actual meteor, than the crashing of this large meteor into the earth will set off this volcanic eruption.
posted by David Frank Wilson | 6:15 AM
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