Revelation 16:5

Notes

¹ No reference is intended to the angel which “went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water” (John John 5:4). Nor is this meant to indicate some sort of special angel: “He is undoubtedly a creature of the order of angels, and it is interesting to note that he has a title that would indicate that he had been placed in charge of the flowing waters of earth. Here we have an angel who is master of the waters.”—Donald Grey Barnhouse, Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1971), 292. We disagree—the most natural meaning is merely a reference to the angel in the previous verse who poured forth the bowl upon the water. “There is some merit in the suggestion that the ‘angel of the waters’ is simply the angel of the previous verse who poured out his bowl upon ‘the waters’ (Lenski, p. 469).”—Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977), Rev. 16:5.