Revelation; the Second Woe

I want to offer some thoughts on Revelation ch9 vv13-19

This passage is about the sixth of the "seven trumpets".
It also counts as the "second woe", because, at the end of the previous chapter, the dwellers on the earth were told to expect woe from the next three trumpets.

So I'm going to be asking the question; what is the second woe?

When the sixth trumpet is sounded, something is released, but the exact nature of that "something" is not easy to pin down.

They are cavalry

At least the text calls them cavalry, and describes them as riding horses.
The first army in this chapter, the army of locusts, were clearly based on a topical model.
The army in this case, too, are probably based on a topical model, though few people in the modern world have heard of the Parthians.
They were a people ruling the territories eastward of the Roman Empire, and some of the details in this description would have been true about one of their armies.
The Parthians, if they invaded, would have been coming from the Euphrates.
They would have been wearing armour and fighting on horseback, a style of warfare learned from the nomads on the steppes.
And their horses did have a metaphorical "sting in the tail".The most famous tactical skill of the Parthian cavalry was their ability to despatch arrows backwards while riding away from an enemy.
At the battle of Carrhae, the Parthians overwhelmed a force of seven Roman legions and killed the Roman leader Crassus, one of the allies of Julius Caesar. They then attempted to invade Syria, but were beaten off.
So the thought of another Parthian invasion would have been a source of terror.

They are not ordinary cavalry

But the description has got additional details, bizarre details, which would not be found in an ordinary Parthian army.

The horses have lions' heads, with fire and smoke and sulphur coming out of their mouths.
Their tails are in the form of serpents, with biting heads of their own.
And the size of the army has been magnified, to a much greater size than human armies could muster.

So the image starts with a topical model (a Parthian army) which would have been a source of terror in its own right.
The emotion is then magnified. Further details are thrown into the vision to ramp up the intensity of the terror by several degrees.

So far, the Second Woe is following the pattern of the First Woe.

They come from "outside"

They come from the Euphrates, and presumably from the other side of the Euphrates.
At the time when John was writing, the upper Euphrates was the boundary between the Roman province of Syria and the Parthian territory around Edessa.
So, from the viewpoint of Roman citizens, the other side of the Euphrates was the region "outside" the civilised world, the Graeco-Roman world.
It would belong to the world of the barbarians, not the world of ordered society.

They come from God

The army is released by a command which comes direct from God's altar.
This means that the cavalry has been released on God's authority.
(It's the reverse of the instruction given in ch7 v1, when the angels were ordered to hold back the four destructive "winds of the earth")

The fact that the action has been planned shows that it comes from God.
The force has been held in reserve for a specific pre-planned moment-
"The hour, the day, the month, and the year".
[Americans may like to make note of the logical sequence of this statement- starting from the smallest unit of time and working upwards. Here is the Biblical endorsement of the "day/month/year" dating convention, as used by God himself)

The sheer size of the army confirms that it comes from God.
That number of "twice ten thousand times ten thousand" is an echo of the host which accompanied the Lord when he "came from Sinai into the holy place". That force was "twice ten thousand, thousands upon thousands"- Psalm 68 v17
Similarly, when the Ancient of Days took his seat in Daniel's vision, "a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him"- Daniel ch7 v10
Only "the Lord of hosts" can muster armies of that order of magnitude.

The implication is that these cavalry, too, are acting as God's army and serving his purpose.

So the Second Woe is continuing to follow the pattern of the First Woe.
It's becoming evident that these two armies are a pair.
A literary analysis of these chapters makes that clear;

A1; The first trumpet sounds, v1
A2; The army of locusts is released, v2
A3; "The first woe has passed...", v12
B1; The second trumpet sounds, v13
B2; The army of cavalry is released, v14
[Insertion of ch10 and most of ch11]
B3; "The second woe has passed...", ch11 v14

Two points become clear in that analysis.
We can see, from the way the pattern repeats, that the "second woe" statement really belongs to the cavalry (just as I've been assuming from the beginning of this discussion).
But the postponement of that final statement has the effect of including the "inserted" chapters in the description of the Second Woe. We must assume there's a reason for that, which I'll return to in a moment.

They bring destruction

We're told that this army will be killing one third of mankind.
This needs to be understood in the context of the other trumpets, which I was discussing on these two occasions;
Battered planet
The First Woe

My interpretation of the first four trumpets was that they were describing a major catastrophe, whether natural or man-made. There seemed to be an impact on the planet at large, setting in motion the spoiling of the land, the sea, and the atmosphere.
Looking ahead to the "seven bowls", they seemed to be describing the culmination of the same process.
In which case, it looked like the kind of process which would ultimately render the earth almost uninhabitable.

My interpretation of the fifth trumpet was that it was describing the beginning of the human reaction to this catastrophe. It was describing a human race falling into a state of intense despair, which would have been a very natural consequence of the events in the previous chapter.

I now suggest that the sixth trumpet is describing the social impact of the fifth trumpet. It's about the effect of despair on the bonds of human society.

The army of this vision comes from the Euphrates.
But I think we can understand that best by remembering what that river meant to the people of John's time.
It would have been the perceived boundary between the world of social order (as represented by the Roman Empire) and the barbarian world "outside" (as represented by the Parthians).
So we might see in this cavalry a representation of all those forces which come from "outside" the social order, and which would have the effect of undermining it.
These have never been completely absent from human life (they're at work in France, even as I write).
But they would undoubtedly be released in full force in the kind of emergency which these chapters appear to be describing.
The predominance of despair would undermine the motivation to keep things going.
It would be a case of
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world" (W.B. Yeats)

I would therefore understand this army as the collective symbol of all those forces which would have the effect of bringing human society crashing down into anarchy, and which would thus bring about the death of "one third of mankind".

To me, then, these "trumpets" look like a natural sequence;
The collapse of the physical environment of the human race, under the (undetermined) catastrophe.
Followed by, as a natural consequence, the collapse of the psychological environment of the human race, as humanity fell into despair.
Followed by, as a natural consequence, the collapse of the social environment of the human race, as humanity fell into anarchy.

We need to find a place in this for the previously mentioned "inserted" chapters.
Ch10, which I'll consider another time, explains the meaning of what's happening.
Ch11 is about the conflict between the Beast and the church, and the death of the Witnesses.
So the implication is that these events are, in a sense, among the symptoms of the social breakdown.
A panic-stricken world is finding some reason to direct hostility against the Christian community.
There are clues to one possible reason within these chapters.
On the one hand, the star "wormwood" has the effect of making the waters bitter, and the third of the later "bowls" turns then into blood.
But in ch11 v6, the power to turn the waters into blood, as Moses did, is attributed to the Witnesses.
So the Witnesses would be proclaiming, as part of their call to repentance, that God was sending these things because of the sins of the world.
But the popular logic would be; "They're admitting it; the Christians and their God are responsible for all our troubles".
That would help to create the frame of mind in which the world at large would be ready to "rejoice over" the deaths of the Witnesses.

They bring a call to repentance

I've observed that the army of "cavalry" follows the pattern of the army of "locusts".
The army of locusts was clearly modelled on the invading locusts of Joel, and the function of those locusts was that they were a call to repentance;
"Yet even now (says the Lord) return to me with all your heart, with fasting and with weeping and with mourning"- Joel ch2 v12.
But what we see in Joel is a pair of invading armies, coming in succession.
And what we see in this chapter is a pair of invading armies, the locusts and the cavalry, coming in succession.
The implication is that these combined armies have the combined function of the two armies in Joel, the call to repentance.

However, the implied opportunity for repentance is not taken in this chapter;
"The rest of mankind...did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshipping demons...nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their immorality or their thefts"- vv20-21.

So if the function of the second Woe is to be a call to repentance, it appears to be a call which a few do not need, and most do not heed.

While God is in charge and gives command to allow them to be released, they are still ungodly.

Another way to understand it, it's the same as when Jesus said to Pilates, 'you only have power because my Father gave you it'

and also, 'he put it in their hearts to give their kingdom to the beast in order to fulfill his will'

The head of a lion is a symbol for a Jewish high priest, authority figure and the tail with serpent head is the false prophet.

Isaiah 9:15
The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.

In another thread, I had a theory about the army that was prepared for the hour, day, month, year. I believe it is pointing to the occult world, those who prepare for certain hours, days, months and years. Example, 9/11, 11:11, 10/10/10, etc. I have no idea when tptb started keeping dates though but it would be interesting to find out.

It is hard to pin any one group, faction, sect, down because there are too many variables and too many involved but in general, I would have to say that the second woe were the Zionists.

Originally posted by iamnot
While God is in charge and gives command to allow them to be released, they are still ungodly.

Another way to understand it, it's the same as when Jesus said to Pilates, 'you only have power because my Father gave you it'

and also, 'he put it in their hearts to give their kingdom to the beast in order to fulfill his will'

yes, and the same ambiguity exists in the case of the locusts, of course, who are commanded by Abaddon, the destroyer, but also "released", on God's instructions, in exactly the same way. As "the First Woe" was pointing out.
Thank you for those comments.

A panic-stricken world is finding some reason to direct hostility against the Christian community.

There's a precedent for this in Roman history. It's described in a well-known complaint by Tertullian which I had intended to quote, so I'll do it now;

"...you insist on our being the causes of every public calamity or injury. If the Tiber has overflowed its banks, if the Nile has remained in its bed, if the sky has been still, or the earth been in commotion, if death has made its devastations, or famine its afflictions, your cry immediately is 'This is the fault of the Christians'...I suppose that it is as despisers of your gods that we call down on us these strokes of theirs...it is now and then very vainly said, you incur the chastisement of your gods because you are too slack in our extirpation". He also points out that if this is the real reason for the anger of the gods, then the gods are behaving unjustly, because these disasters injure the people who worship them just as much as they injure the Christians themselves. (Tertullian, "Ad nationes", ch9)

It would be possible to imagine some New Age version of "those Christians are neglecting the true gods, who are showing their anger".

Woe to the paranoid superstitious commoners whom know no better than to embrace superstitions of fiction as if they are nonfiction.

Enlightenment shall never reach you. Illuminated you shall never be...

Woe to you. Fear shall instill your being until your very last breath; never to see your imaginary super human man-god to which you assume is real and "coming" at a given moment.

Woe to you; for your lack of study you are rewarded with fear and false hopes.

The reward of fear is well earned to you of lazy mind.

Originally posted by DarkRedSoda

Woe to you; for your lack of study you are rewarded with fear and false hopes.

Not at the same time, because people who are living in hope are, by definition, not going to be living in fear.
One or the other, but not both simultaneously.
That s why one of my threads had the title
Fear Not

Originally posted by DISRAELI

A panic-stricken world is finding some reason to direct hostility against the Christian community.

There's a precedent for this in Roman history. It's described in a well-known complaint by Tertullian which I had intended to quote, so I'll do it now;

"...you insist on our being the causes of every public calamity or injury. If the Tiber has overflowed its banks, if the Nile has remained in its bed, if the sky has been still, or the earth been in commotion, if death has made its devastations, or famine its afflictions, your cry immediately is 'This is the fault of the Christians'...I suppose that it is as despisers of your gods that we call down on us these strokes of theirs...it is now and then very vainly said, you incur the chastisement of your gods because you are too slack in our extirpation". He also points out that if this is the real reason for the anger of the gods, then the gods are behaving unjustly, because these disasters injure the people who worship them just as much as they injure the Christians themselves. (Tertullian, "Ad nationes", ch9)

It would be possible to imagine some New Age version of "those Christians are neglecting the true gods, who are showing their anger".

edit on 24-10-2010 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)

Thanks for another great thread! I always come out with some new perspectives when I read them.

About why they would persecute Christians is a vexing question for me. IMO, the new order post cataclysm, will outwardly be Christian (anti- in place of - Christ Christianity), so who are they persecuting? Christians that won't take the mark of the Beast? That seems a strange scenario, but the one that appears to be forming.

From my working framework of understanding, (which is not Bibically very scholarly, but I try - and I have to say, whenever I read your threads, it's like reading a Bibilical understanding of my secular view of upcoming politcal machinations) 2012 is the man-made disaster, the 4 horsemen event. 12-21-12 is the great deception with Project Blue Beam. This post catalysm period would be 12-21-12 through 5-19-13 www.urbandictionary.com... I haven't read your interpretation of what kicks off the the 7 year tribulation (or if you even believe in that), but as I understand it, the "covenant of the many" would mean "global governance" which started, by the elites own estimation, on 11-19-09 when Van Rompuy was elected EU president and he stated in the speech that night that 2009 would go down in history as the first year of global governance (implying that his election kicked off global governance.) I find it too much of a coincidence that an urban legend of "5-19-13 expect us" comes exactly 3.5 years after 11-19-09.

Anyway, I'm dying to hear your opinions on the matter! Oh, here's my thread that goes into more detail with things. www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by jcrash
About why they would persecute Christians is a vexing question for me. IMO, the new order post cataclysm, will outwardly be Christian (anti- in place of - Christ Christianity), so who are they persecuting? Christians that won't take the mark of the Beast? That seems a strange scenario, but the one that appears to be forming.

Thank you for that contribution.
As far as official persecution is concerned, I've gone along with the traditional view that the Beast would eventually claim to be the returned Christ (whatever else he was claiming about himself); the "visible" churches might be forced to go along with that. The victims of persecution would be those who stood out.
I'm feeling my way towards thoughts on the reasons for popular hostilty, which I'm expecting to bring forward when I talk about the "drunk with the blood of the saints" comment in ch17.
A couple of comments in advance. One thought is that the world in the aftermath of a great catastrophe is lkely to revert to less rational thinking (I was hinting at this when I used the word "panic-stricken") and other factors might make the world less rational anyway.
Also the world could be developing some communal, all-embracing religion (eg based around the personification of "Gaia") in which Christians would refuse to participate. This could be the kind of thing which could recreate the "gods are angry with the Christians" frame of mind.

From my working framework of understanding, (which is not Bibically very scholarly, but I try - and I have to say, whenever I read your threads, it's like reading a Bibilical understanding of my secular view of upcoming politcal machinations) 2012 is the man-made disaster, the 4 horsemen event. 12-21-12 is the great deception with Project Blue Beam. This post catalysm period would be 12-21-12 through 5-19-13

You may want to compare your projection with this outline;
A time, times, and half a time
That's where I spell out my view of the chronological framework of Revelation.
My version of the sequence goes;
4 Horsemen
Rise of Beast
Trumpets
In my outline, the end of the "4 Horsemen" episode begins a period of comparative peace which is also the beginning of the "7 year" period (though I'm reluctant to treat it as a literal 7).
Any time of "tribulation" really begins half-way through, when the Beast declares war on God (presumably via his version of the Abomination) and God conversely declares war on the Beast (which is the function of the 7 trumpets)

Thank you for the linked thread. I'll have a look at it.

reply to post by DISRAELI

Further to the question of the terror that would have been aroused by the sight of a Parthian army, this point is made in Toynbee;
"It was the Parni [the founders of the Parthian empire] who made it technically possible to complete a process which the Assyrians appear first to have set in motion. On the pastures of Media they bred a horse of such size, strength, and elegance that he could bear the weight of a complete suit of armour for himself as well as for his rider"- Arnold Toynbee, "Study of History", vol4 p440 (footnote 4 from previous page).
One fully armoured horse-rider combination would have looked formidable. As for a large number of them...

I don't want to derail your thread here, but I have to ask, is it possible that the great deception, Project Blue Beam on 12-21-12 is the cause of the first woe? In your first woe thread you put forth that it lasts five months and that it is characterized as despair. It seems plausible that the great deception is the event that sparks this despair. And also, I've seen that you put a Biblical month at 30 days, so 5 months would be 150 days.

12-21-12 is 150 days from May 19, 2013. That seems a bit of a coincidence, eh? Here's a time and date calculator page showing 150 days. www.timeanddate.com...

So, I am extremely curious, could you tell me where you would place the first woe into your timeline of events?

Thanks for your response to my previous question. I'm very curious to read your "drunk with the blood of the saints" comments.

reply to post by jcrash

Ah, well, my version of the Revelation timescale runs slower than everybody else's.
You see, I still don't think that we've even seen "the 4 Horsemen" yet.
My reasons for thinking so;
4 Horsemen- why?
4 Horsemen- how?
This means, on my time-scale, that we haven't even seen the rise of the Beast. The ruling power of the world is not yet persecuting the church, which is one of the main characteristics..
That means that it would be much, much, too early to start looking for events around the destruction of the Beast, which is what the 7 trumpets are for.

If you can foresee trouble for the world in the near future, what's wrong with identifying that trouble with the 4 Horsemen? A combination of war, plague, and famine, affecting a quarter of the world?

I agree with you that the near future events are the 4 horsemen. I really dug your observation that the beast's mortal head wound that healed could be the global government coming back online after a period of dislocation/ disjunction caused by the 4 horsemen events. This time period of coming back to power in 12-21-12 through 5-19-13 would then correspond to the first woe also. Just thinking out loud.

reply to post by jcrash

Thoughts seem to be converging in an interesting way.
But my first reaction to that timetable is that it doesn't seem to allow much time for the "recovery" period. My instincts as a student of history tell me that the recovery from a really big collapse and the development from that into global government would take longer. It isn't easy for things to move quite that fast.
If the end of 2012 is to be identified as the start-point, it is the start-point of what is supposed to be a 7 year period. Even if that isn't literal, I think it would be the minimum time needed. And I associate the Woes with the second half of that period. The idea is; first half = rise, growth, comparative peace ("silence in heaven"); middle of period, breakdown of relations; THEN the all-out war in both directions, of which the Woes would be part.
So if something starts in Dec 2012, it would fit in best as part of that "recovery" period. Provided that the "collapse" had happened first. (And there's not much time for that, either)

Ok, I just looked up the end time sequence (I thought it would be more complicated than it appears). www.ucg.org... I hope this will let me converse with you more intelligently.

Let me know if there is any disagreement you have with this sequence.


4 Horsemen ///////// Revelations chapter 6

White Horse/ spiritual deception = * First seal (verse 2): religious deception

Red Horse/ War = * Second seal (verses 3-4): war

Black Horse/ Famine = * Third seal (verses 5-6): famine

Pale Horse/ disease = * Fourth seal (verses 7-8): disease

* Fifth seal (verses 9-11): tribulation and persecution of true Christians

* Sixth seal (verses 12-14): an earthquake and heavenly signs

* Seventh seal divided into 7 trumpets
1st Trumpet: devastation of vegetation
2nd Trumpet: devastation of oceans
3rd Trumpet: devastation of rivers
4th Trumpet: darkening of sun, moon, stars
5th Trumpet: satanically influenced military power
6th Trumpet: rival military power
7th Trumpet: Christ returns


This really clarifies things for me in my mind. I wasn't sure if the war and disease preceded the great deception, I thought the deception would come last, but now I see that the deception kicks off the events, the white horseman. (I didn't know that one of the Horsemen was "Spiritual deception"! I have never seen Project Blue Beam described as the White Horseman before, but now it makes perfect sense!!)

White Horseman/ Spiritual Deception is Project Blue Beam, which occurs on 12-21-12. Project Blue Beam has always stated that the messiah deception will kick off WWIII. Famine occurs. Disease outbreak of bird and swine mixed super flu. The 5th seal, the persecution of the saints would begin on May 19, 2013. People stop despairing because they think Antichrist is Christ and he has come back and is going to rebuild the world... They rejoice and don't repent.

As to it being a very fast recovery period, I agree. But here's the thing, if it is man-made in nature, and the elites are the ones doing it, they know ahead of time how to fix their own problems that they created in the first place! I suspect that most of the deaths in the West will be from this super flu, which more than likely they already have the cure to, because they made it themselves in some lab, so yes, if you just get your mass vaccination stations going (I've done plenty of threads and research into those), then yeah, the recovery period might be not so long. I guess it's possible the only way one gets the vaccine is to agree to the chip.

I just wanted to add really quick that we already have a global government. Just not a global dictator who controls it. Here's EU's first president making the speech where he says that 2009 goes down in history as the first year of global governance! www.youtube.com...

To comments posted by jcrash

One factor to be considered is my theory that Revelation describes TWO persecutions.
The sequence goes;
1) Persecution (implied in ch1)
2) 4 Horsemen as God's angry reaction to the persecution.(this is the thesis of "4 Horsemen- Why?)
The "souls under the altar" are the victims of this previous persecution. Then, in the dialogue, God explains to them that they must wait to be joined by the victims of the later persecution.
The outline you're quoting fails to distinguish between the two.
I understand the first seal as "plague"
3) The time which I call the "Truce". This is the first half of the "seven years". The Beast grows to power, but the Beast does not trouble God, and God does not trouble the Beast. This, to me, is the period when deception is beginning.
4) The breakdown of relations. The Abomination. The consequent second persecution.
5) The Trumpets as God's angry response to the second perseution.
This sequence of Persecution-collapse-recovery-main persecution- main collapse is one that I've worked our for myself, but I stand by it because I think it's what Revelation is trying to describe. My understanding of the timeline hinges on it- has done, since the first thread ("Silence in heaven").

Perhaps, if you stand by the Bluebeam theory, it can be related to the first persecution?

reply to post by DISRAELI


My apologies for not responding sooner. My thinking is indeed in line with this "2 persecutions" understanding, one persecution of govt dissidents in the immediate aftermath of 12-21-12 and WWIII starting, and then one persecution of Christians that do not accept the mark of the beast when it is offered after 5-19-13. About the period of 12-21-12 through 5-19-13, sorry to beat a dead horse on this matter, but I just want to say a couple of things. Your disbelief that this period could be so short I think is exactly what the statement "and they wondered after the beast" refers to. You simply can't believe it and I think most people would have your reaction. Also, I just found out that 5-19-13 is Pentecost, the founding of the church. I think the symbolism of starting a new church on this day would be too fitting for the NWO to pass up.

After thinking more about this matter of the persecutions, I think I understand how this persecution will start.

I think the answer lies in the fact that Protestant Christians (read Tea Party followers and members whose TP politicians will be in charge after Obama the fake Antichrist is removed from office and it goes to Ron Paul as Speaker of the House) are being programmed to think that "aliens are demons". When the Mars rover is on Mars in August 2012 www.physorg.com... (and this is Mainstream news) we will find fake evidence of alien life, face on Mars pyramid or what not. The catch is that the Mars aliens, Martians will look like us.

Well, this creates a problem. People have been programmed to think that aliens are demons, but... they look like us. Now we've gone to a whole new level. The person next to you could be .....a Demon!! (cue music....) And when there is a "demonic invasion" via the Fermi lab's Tevatron (similar to Large Hadron Collider) or "alternate dimension" lab (located in Obama's town of Chicago), no one will know who is who! And then they send the "demons" to the concentration camp.

Just a thought.

I just wanted to add one more point about 5-19-13. from Matthew 24, we read

3And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? 4And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. 5For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. 6And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. 8All these are the beginning of sorrows. 9Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. 10And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. 11And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. 12And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. 13But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

Verse 9 refers to the Fifth seal, the persecution of real Christians. In verse 11 we have the rise of many false prophets. I believe that the people that are fake raptured in Project Blue Beam on 12-21-12 will return to earth in the UFO's on 5-19-13. These are the false prophets that rise up and go out to spread the alien Christian doctrine over the world. These people would make for good "salespersons" for the mark of the beast chip implant.

reply to post by jcrash

A very interesting analysis.
I may come back to it later when I've had more time to think about it.

reply to post by jcrash

Well, we'll have to see what happens.
A couple of observations; one is that if you're going to be literal about the "five months", you really need to find a way to be literal about the "seven years" as well. (That should start after the "horsemen", and the five months should be part of it).
The other is that if things don't start happening on the specified dates, you'll have to go back to the drawing board. That's the danger of too much specifics. That's why I prefer my "expect it when you see it" approach.