Revelation 16:4

16:1-7 We are to pray that the will of God may be done on earth as it is done in heaven. Here is a succession of terrible judgments of Providence; and there seems to be an allusion to several of the plagues of Egypt. The sins were alike, and so were the punishments. The vials refer to the seven trumpets, which represented the rise of antichrist; and the fall of the enemies of the church shall bear some resemblance to their rise. All things throughout their earth, their air, their sea, their rivers, their cities, all are condemned to ruin, all accursed for the wickedness of that people. No wonder that angels, who witness or execute the Divine vengeance on the obstinate haters of God, of Christ, and of holiness, praise his justice and truth; and adore his awful judgments, when he brings upon cruel persecutors the tortures they made his saints and prophets suffer.

{5} And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood. (5) The story of the third angel striking the rivers, in this verse, who proclaiming the justice of God, commends the same by a grave comparison of the sins of men, with the punishment of God: which is common to this place, and that which went before. Wherefore also this praising is attributed to the angel of the waters, a name common to the second and third angels, according as both of them are said to be sent against the waters, though the one of the sea, the other of the rivers, in Re 16:5,6.

Revelation 16:4-7 . And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers a fountains of waters, &c. — Or those territories of the Papacy which were as necessary to it as rivers and fountains are to a country: the kind of plague under this vial being the same as that of the former. For, as the former destroyed the living creatures, or living souls, that were in or upon the sea, namely, the Spaniards, the great mariners of the world at that time, as to their maritime power, who after the year 1588 lost their former sovereignty of the seas, it being transferred to the English and Dutch; so this latter plague makes it difficult for the Popish party to subsist and maintain their ground, even in the inland countries, particularly in the several dominions of Germany and the neighbouring countries. For in the year 1617, Ferdinand being forced upon the Bohemians by the Emperor Matthias, and crowned king, the foundation of new quarrels was thus laid. For, a little while after, another most bloody religious war ensued, which shook all the empire, and excited the terror of all Europe. And, though the Protestants lost Bohemia, the Palatinate in part, and were driven out of Moravia, Austria, and Silesia, at this time, and were not only persecuted in many places, but were in danger of being extirpated and rooted out universally; yet the tide turned all on a sudden.

For after the emperor had ruled Germany with a veteran army for a considerable time, Gustavus Adolphus entered it in the year 1630, and conquered everywhere. And though he was killed about two years afterward, yet his army continued to be victorious; until at length all things were settled at the peace of Munster, A.D. 1648; with which therefore the period of this vial, consisting of thirty- one years, must be supposed to end. Now, as this began with persecutions against, and cruelties upon the Protestants; so at length the angel of the waters is heard to give thanks to God for causing the enemies of his people at last to drink of their own blood. To which song of praise another angel says, Amen: all which seems to denote the joy of the Protestant states and churches on the success of the Swedish arms against the emperor.

Mr. Mede and Dr. More both agree in interpreting this of the Jesuits and other popish emissaries, and the laws made for the execution of them in England in the time of Queen Elizabeth, not excluding those civil powers which are the upholders and maintainers of antichrist, as the Spaniard, who also within these last hundred years hath had blood enough given him to drink, both in 1588, and in the Low Countries. It seemeth a little hard to interpret a prophecy relating to the whole church, by what is done in so small a part of it. We know in what credit these emissaries are at this day, both in the empire, and in Spain, and in France, and Venice, from whence they sometime were expelled. We have, indeed, laws against them in England, but principally relating to those of them who, being native subjects of England, have apostatized. So as I had rather think this vial is not yet poured out, or that interpreters mistake the meaning of these rivers and fountains, than agree with them in that interpretation of this prophecy. I am much disposed to believe that we are not further than the pouring out of the second vial. God, indeed, hath made the Romish clergy contemptible enough, and hath vexed and enraged them sufficiently. He hath also made their scenical religion as contemptible to, and justly abhorred by, a great part of the Christian world; but how far he hath proceeded further to the ruin of antichrist, I do not understand.

Revelation 16:4-7 . No more drinking water. The justice of this particular plague is acknowledged by ( Revelation 16:5-6 ) the angel of the element in question and by (7) the altar (personified here, in line of Revelation 6:9-10 , and Revelation 8:3 , or of Revelation 14:18 ), which echoes the angel’s cry.

(4) And the third angel . . . —The third vial resembles the second in its effects. As it is poured out on the rivers and springs of waters, they become blood. It is not only the great sea which becomes blood, but all the merry streams and babbling brooks which carry their tribute of water seawards also turn corrupt. And this plague is acknowledged by heavenly voices as a just retribution ( Revelation 16:5-7 ). The streams and rivers feed the sea; they are the powers and influences which go to the making up of the great popular sentiment; these are smitten by the same corruption. Men cannot worship worldliness or earthliness without degrading even those who contribute to their instruction, their recreations, and their joys, to the same level. When the public taste grows corrupt, the literature will, for example, become so in a more or less degree; the up-flowing tide will colour the down-coming stream. “The morality of a nation’s art,” writes a modern critic. “always rises to the level of morality in a nation’s manners. Morality takes care of itself, and always revenges any outrage which art may put upon its laws by either lowering the art that so offends, or extinguishing it” (Dallas, Gay Science, Vol. II., 16). It is true in even a wider sense. The loftier powers of imagination, the range of poetical elevation, are cramped and killed in a base, world-worshipping age.

Verse 4. - And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood . Omit "angel" (see on ver. 3). "Into the rivers," etc., as in the previous cases. The singular ἐγένετο , probably on account of the neuter ψ῞δατα being understood. The idea of the second vial is carried on here (cf. on ver. 3). Note the corresponding judgment of the third trumpet. In addition to the interpretation of the second vial given above, it is probable that the blood signifies the slaughter and death which is part of God's vengeance on the wicked (cf. ver. 6). The divisions adopted in the first four vials correspond to those in Revelation 14 , which designate the whole of God's created world, "heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." Revelation 16:4