Revelation 8 with inline interpretive notes

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The Seventh Seal 

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. 

[The removal of the sixth seal has allowed all that was written on the front side of the scroll to be read.  But there was still another seal to be opened.

The opening of the seventh seal allowed the scroll to be unrolled completely.  Although there was nothing written on the last section of the front side of the scroll, this seal being broken allowed the scroll to be turned over, so that it could be read on the other side and re-rolled again as it was read.

 Accordingly, there was silence in heaven for about a half hour while the scroll was being turned over and the empty section at the end of the one side and the beginning of the other side was passed over.  As soon as what was written on the backside of the scroll began to appear the visions resumed.

This silence in heaven in the midst of the revelation, while the scroll is being turned over, is like the calm in the eye of the storm.  It is representative of the absolute power and sovereignty behind the revelation, which comes from the One who is beyond, the One who is seated upon the throne, who wrote the scroll on the front side and the back and sealed it with seven seals on the top of the scroll, and who handed it to the Lamb to be opened.

This quality represented by the silence in the midst of the revelation signifies the concealment which is found in the midst of the revelation.  This concealment is first and foremost the concealment of the Lamb himself, how he could not at first be found, but was only found after a search was made for him through all the heavens and earth.

This silence in heaven for about an half an hour is not an intermission, as some would imagine.  It is itself the heart of the revelation.  It is signifying that the power of the revelation comes always, at every point, from the One who is beyond, and this is the key to understanding.  This silence is the key to hearing the seven thunders, which will remain silent to us, unless we learn the meaning of this silence, to hear and understand it.  This silence, this turning over of the scroll of revelation, teaches us that the knowledge of the revelation cannot be received or attained by human will or effort or accomplishment.  It is the test of faith, which is the source of faith.

It is this silence in heaven, for the sake of the turning over of the scroll, in order that what is written on the reverse side to be read and the scroll to be rolled up again as it is read, which signifies the concealment of the Messiah of Israel, his death in this world and resurrection in a new creation and his ascension into heaven, where he and all that he is and brings is concealed from this world for about the space of an half an hour of heavenly time.  This is the source of all concealment in the revelation of the Messiah of Israel, the concealment of the brilliance of his light, so that it does not utterly and forever blind the children of Adam.

Through this silence, this suspended breath in heaven, in the midst of the revelation of eternal life, the grace of God is made possible toward the world.  This is the secret in the revelation of God, which can be received only by faith in the Lamb which was slain for the redemption of Israel.

The secret of the divine silence will now progressively come to an end with the revelation that comes through the opening of the seventh seal and the rolling of the scroll to the beginning of all that will be read there on the other side of the scroll — which is all the remainder of our book.

Though the words and force of the Book of the Revelation of Yehoshua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ), the judgments of his coming are made known to the world, and because of the meaning of the silence, which is the secret of the concealed words of the seven thunders, within it, the revelation is actually given only to the servants of God.  What is revealed to the world serves as a warning to repent, a warning given by the servants of God, those who will serve as witnesses before God against those who in the end do not repent, though they were warned.

The six necessary measures of authority for bringing the final judgment to the earth have been given to the angels of God.  This was done with the opening of the first six seals of the scroll.  The seventh measure of authority, that to bring about the final end of judgment and revelation in the earth, by the sovereign grace of God, through mitigated judgment, has now also been given through the opening of the seventh seal of the scroll that was handed by the One who sits upon the throne to the Lamb who had been slain.

During the authority of the sixth seal, which was the authority to immediately commence with the action bringing final judgment upon the earth, the action was interrupted for the sake of sealing the minds of the servants of God with understanding.  We will see now that this act of sealing the servants of God, as formed in the perfect representation of corporate Israel redeemed by the blood of the Lamb,  had the effect of being an act of mercy toward the whole world.  For it is this that mitigated the judgment that would come by the agency of the angels endowed with the authority of judgment upon the world.

The scroll has now been fully unsealed and turned over.  We begin to see what is revealed by what is written on the reverse side.]

Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, [in the place where the seven lamps, the seven spirits of the Shechinah, and the Lamb stood], and seven trumpets [announcing the final redemption of Israel, the end of history, and calling for the repentance of the world] were given to them. 

And another angel came and stood at the altar [with all the martyrs of God and of the Lamb beneath it] with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, [lest the judgment that was now coming not have an assurance, for those who would look for it, of mercy and salvation] and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. 

Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings  flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.  

[Multiple peals of thunder are explicitly mentioned here in association with the opened seventh seal. This highlights for us, upon the conclusion of the great half hour silence in heaven, how thunderous the silence of mystery was that was associated with the opening of the sixth seal.  For at no time was any loud and thunderous sound said to be heard with the opening of the sixth seal, as it was with the opening of all other seals.  When he heard the children of Israel and all people on the earth calling for the rocks to fall upon them, it would have been all the more pronounced to Yochanan, because there was no thunder echoing and rumbling in the background, only silence.  All the visions that took place after the opening of the sixth seal, all dialogue heard during those visions, took place against a background of silence.

We can understand then that it might have seemed to Yochanan, (and so, perhaps, should seem to us who receive the revelation through him), that the accompanying silence, the absence of any thunderous sound, during the visions of the opening of the sixth seal were that much more profound because the visions showed a time of great fear upon the earth as well as a time of introduction to the greatest secrets of God.  Indeed, that silence, that lack of accompanying thunder during the opening of the sixth seal might have seemed so profound in the experience of Yochanan that it may have seemed itself to simply culminate in the complete silence in heaven for the half hour.

Now all that silence, all that mystery, begins to be broken with multiple thunderings and the rumblings of the heavenly voice following the opening of the seventh seal and the beginning of the multiple visions that will come with the reading of all that is written on the backside of the scroll.

We see also that it is out of the censer, (carried by the angel of the censer of the incense of the prayers of the holy people beneath the altar), that the multiple thunders come.  And these multiple thunders are an allusion to the seven thunders of chapter 10, as we will see.

It is when coals of the altar are added to this incense and thrown down upon the earth, that the thunderous sounds now come, with lightning and earthquakes warning of the tribulations of judgment.  All that follows, in the blowing of the seven trumpets and what follows from them, will be like coals of fire mixed with the prayers of the incense of the holy people under the altar, the vengeance of God mitigated by grace, strict justice mixed with mercy.]


The Seven Trumpets

Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them.

[All seven angels now stand in line before the throne of the One who sits upon the thrown.  As said above, this is the place of the seven spirits of the Shechinah and the place of the Lamb.  All seven angels have their horns raised to their lips and are ready to blow them, one after the other.  Therefore all these seven judgments are to be understood as together being one progressive judgment, and heard as one warning to the world.]

The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and these [hailstones of ice, fire and blood.] were thrown upon the earth.  And a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.

[Supernatural Hail comes as the first judgment because the judgment of hail in Egypt was the turning point judgment in Egypt, where the pride and will of Pharaoh began to be broken.  As we will see later, the judgment of hail is representative of all the specific judgments that result in the redemption of Israel from captivity to the nations.

This vision coming with the blowing of the first trumpet is meant to speak to the judgment found at the beginning of chapter 7, in the midst of the opening of the sixth seal, of the four angels of the four winds of the earth, holding back those winds from blowing upon land, sea or trees.   There the judgment was to be absolute, the suffocating of all life upon the earth.  Here we see that judgment has been mitigated.  it is a judgment of the selective force of fire, and it is restrained to being 1/3 of the vegetation of the earth.  It should not just be that such a great portion of the earth is burnt by fire that brings fear of judgment and repentance.  It should be that it was the will of the wrath of God to end all life on the earth, as it was in the days of Noah.  But just as then, for the sake of the Righteous One to come, the Lamb, God spared Noah and his family, so now for the sake of Israel, the family given to the Lamb, represented by the 144,000 children of the tribes of Israel in the vision, and for the sake of their testimony, God's will is modified, so that He will spare all whom He can in the earth.  It is this truth, more than all else, knowing this to be the only source of God's mercy, that should bring the fear of God and repentance to those who dwell upon the earth.]

The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. 

[Because, for the sake of the children of Israel, the whole earth is not suffocated due to the wrath of God, but His wrath is eased and only 1/3 of the earth is burnt by fire instead, this results in the sea not being affected directly by that judgment.  The sea, then, because it was sparred for the sake of Israel, and the redemption of Israel, will be the place of the beginning of the testimony of the redemption of Israel.  As the Red Sea was split for the sake of the redemption of Israel, after that the judgments in Egypt began with the turning of the Nile River to blood, so now all the seas of the world, among all nations, will be turned to blood.  Yet again, this is for the sake of the testimony of the redemption of Israel.  Therefore, due to the prayers of the holy people beneath the altar in heaven, the testimony of the redemption of Israel from among the nations shall begin with 1/3 of the seas being turned to blood.]

A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

[By this it is signified that it is not only the life that the oceans are in themselves that shall be, in this measure, turned into death, but also the life that they represent to the commerce of the nations that shall be, in this measure, turned to death.]

The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on l the springs of water. 

The name of the star is Wormwood.  A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.

[There are two levels to the reason for the wrath of God toward the world.  One is the rebellion of Adam and the corruption of all goodness in which He made Adam.  This is the reason for the Flood that He sent upon the world in the time of Noah.  The second is that even when, out of His grace for the sake of the Righteous One whom He would send, He sparred the family of Noah and called Abraham and Sarah and chose Israel, to provide a way of redemption and repentance, the world rebelled even more, despising His purpose in setting Israel apart unto Himself.  Instead, in its rebellion, the world designed and built its societies, its cities and nations and empires, in accordance with the imagination of its pride, seeking for itself to sit in the place of God.  In its war against God the world sought to claim Israel as its own.  If it could not, then it was determined to destroy Israel.  And for this reason, God's wrath was kindled at the deepest level against the world.  Nevertheless, for the sake of the Lamb who was slain for Israel, to fulfill God's purpose in Israel, and for the sake of the prayers of the faithful of Israel, God determined to overcome the rebellion of the whole world not by destroying the world but by redeeming Israel from the love of the world and from subjection to its power.  Now, therefore, when this testimony began to be given through the blowing of the first two trumpets, the blowing of the third trumpet announced that the judgment of God in the earth would take the form very explicitly of the redemption of Israel.  Just as Israel had been redeemed out of Egypt, so Israel would be redeemed out of captivity to all the nations.  Just as the redemption of Israel from Egypt had begun with judgment upon the Nile River, by turning it to blood, so the redemption of Israel from among all the nations would immediately begin with judgment upon all the earth's rivers and sources of life-giving water, by turning them to blood.  But just as it was already signified that the judgments bringing about this redemption were not to condemn the world but to save the world, so in the turning of the rivers to blood also would be mitigated by the prayers of the holy witnesses and would begin in 1/3 measure.

What is more, before in Egypt it was not revealed openly before all the world that the poisoning of the Nile and turning its life-giving waters into waters of death was done through the power of the fallen angels worshipped in Egypt being destroyed and thrown into the river.  But now, openly before all the world, it would be revealed that it would be through the defeat of the very powers that the nations relied upon that their rivers and springs would be polluted with the wormwood of death.]

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.

[The judgments leading to the redemption of Israel from Egypt began with the Nile River being turned to blood and ended and ended with absolute darkness covering the land of Egypt.  There were those in Egypt who thought that the sun must be the greatest power, the greatest god.  Instead of longing for knowledge of the God of heaven and earth, the longed for knowledge of the sun, the power that they could see with the pride of their own minds.  When absolute darkness covered the land of Egypt the proud minds of the Egyptians could see nothing and could understand nothing.  There was no pride left to them except the pride of their hearts and with it the pride in their firstborn sons.  In this way the nations today have not changed from that long past nation of Egypt.  The thoughts of the nations today long to know the stars.  Their thoughts center all things on the sun and long to harness the power of the sun, both its power on the earth and its power to stand as one among the stars.  There are fallen angels who come from the realm of the stars who flatter the vain children of the earth and feed them knowledge through the illusions of light.  For the sake of the redemption of Israel from among the nations and the salvation of the world, God will cast down the powers and principle rulers of these high places, which rule this fallen world in the day and in the night.  He will cast them down at first by measure, in order that all the world might fear Him and repent.  He will overcome the pride of their minds.  In the end, nothing will be left to them but the pride of their hearts, for they will be prepared to die in failure, as the children of Adam before them, always thinking that they die leaving the legacy of their empire, their world to their children, to their firstborn. But God will yet overcome even this pride and will redeem Israel from it.]

Then I looked, and I heard an eagle [an emblem and agent of the Shechinah] crying with a loud voice [the coming seven thunders are hinted to] as it flew directly overhead “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow!”

[A significant aspect of the mystery of the Book of the Revelation of Yehoshua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ) and of the Scroll opened by the Lamb, also, will be found in the arrangement of its composition.  This is especially true when it comes to the visions that arise with the blowing of the last three trumpets.  Unlike previous visions, the visions that come with branching visions and with amplified and nested visions.  This becomes progressively the case as we move from the fifth trumpet to the sixth and then to the seventh.  For example, the visions of the judgments of the seven bowls are all contained within the vision array that comes with the blowing of the seventh trumpet.  The three woes announced here by the angelic eagle is not meant to add to the multiplicity of visions.  It is intended to help us to see the larger design, which Yochanan saw.  It is meant to help prepare us for the severity and importance of the judgments and of the revelation that will come with the blowing of the last three trumpets.  It is also meant to help us retain the view of Yochanan who all through the time of the blowing of the seven trumpets saw all seven angels standing before the One who sits upon the throne, with their trumpets to their lips, showing that all were to be understood together as one, even the last three, where many, many visions and much revelation would occur, right up to the end of our book.]

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