Revelation 16:1

The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine, and the last of the grist is now to go through. The machinery of judgment has been set in motion, and the Creator Himself has said that it shall not be arrested until the last plagues of His wrath are finished.⁴

These seven Vials and their effects we take to be literal; . . . They belong to no figures of speech. The language is clear and precise. There is nothing beyond our faith, though there may be beyond our reason. True, they are supernatural, but not unnatural. In the plagues of Egypt, which all take to be literal, we have many judgments exactly similar. Indeed, six out of the seven Vials are just the same as the plagues of Egypt, and God has again and again declared that their final judgments should be like, yea, should be worse than those (Ex. Ex. 34:10). . . . In the face of this, is it not strange that these Vials should ever be taken to mean: The first, the French Revolution; and the “sores” its infidelity, etc. The second, the naval wars of the French Revolution; The third, Napoleon’s campaign in Italy; The fourth, Napoleon’s military tyranny, etc., etc.? It is a waste of precious time and space even to chronicle such interpretations.⁵

So far as the naval battles of the French Revolution affected the sea [at the pouring of the second bowl], they killed nothing of the living things therein, but fattened them, and scarcely stained a single wave; so far were they from turning all the ocean’s waters into bloody clots.⁶

Notes

¹ Merrill F. Unger, Unger’s Commentary on the Old Testament (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2002), Ps. 78:2-3.

² “This verse continues by saying the Lord has ‘decreed’ the following: (1) the atrocities will not go on forever (cf. Luke Luke 21:24) but will have an end, and (2) ‘the desolating one’ (שֹׁמֵם [šōmēm] , a Qal active participle alluding to the antichrist) will be judged. ‘The desolating one’ or ‘one who makes desolate’ is preferred to ‘make [something] desolate’ because שֹׁמֵם [šōmēm] is intransitive.”—Charles H. Ray, “A Study of Daniel 9:24-17, Part IV,” in The Conservative Theological Journal, vol. 6 no. 18 (Fort Worth, TX: Tyndale Theological Seminary, August 2002), 212. Thus: “even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate” (NASB95).

³ “The choice of ‘is poured out’ (תִּתַּך׃ [tittak] , a Qal imperfect) as the verb reminds the reader of ‘flood’ in v. 26. It can be used figuratively (Job Job 10:10) or literally (Ex. Ex. 9:33). Students of prophecy also look to Revelation Rev. 16:1+ where bowls of God’s wrath are poured out during the end times.”—Ray, “A Study of Daniel 9:24-17, Part IV,” 212.

⁴ Donald Grey Barnhouse, Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1971), 288.

⁵ E. W. Bullinger, Commentary On Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1984, 1935), Rev. 16:1.

⁶ J. A. Seiss, The Apocalypse: Lectures on the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1966), 871.