Revelation 8: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The Lamb opens the seventh and last seal, and heaven falls silent for about half an hour. Seven angels are given seven trumpets, and another angel offers incense with the prayers of God's people, then throws fire from the altar down to the earth. The first four angels blow their trumpets, and each blast strikes a third of some part of the world: the land, the sea, the fresh water, and the light of sun, moon, and stars. The chapter ends with a warning that three more trumpet blasts are still to come.

Claim by Claim

1. 8:1
   • He opened the seventh seal.
   • There was silence in heaven when the seventh seal was opened.
   • The silence lasted about half an hour.
2. 8:2
   • The narrator saw the seven angels who stand before God.
   • Seven trumpets were given to the seven angels.
3. 8:3
   • Another angel came and stood at the altar.
   • That angel had a golden censer.
   • Much incense was given to that angel.
   • The incense was given to him so that he would offer it together with the prayers of all the saints.
   • The incense was to be offered on the golden altar.
   • The golden altar was before the throne.
4. 8:4
   • The smoke of the incense went up with the prayers of the saints.
   • The smoke went up before God.
   • The smoke went up out of the angel's hand.
5. 8:5
   • The angel took the censer.
   • The angel filled the censer with fire from the altar.
   • The angel cast the censer to the earth.
   • There were voices.
   • There were thunderings.
   • There were lightnings.
   • There was an earthquake.
6. 8:6
   • The seven angels had the seven trumpets.
   • The seven angels prepared themselves to sound the trumpets.
7. 8:7
   • The first angel sounded his trumpet.
   • Hail and fire mixed with blood followed.
   • The hail and fire were cast upon the earth.
   • A third of the trees was burned up.
   • All green grass was burned up.
8. 8:8
   • The second angel sounded his trumpet.
   • Something like a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea.
   • A third of the sea became blood.
9. 8:9
   • A third of the creatures in the sea that had life died.
   • A third of the ships were destroyed.
10. 8:10
    • The third angel sounded his trumpet.
    • A great star fell from heaven.
    • The star was burning like a lamp.
    • The star fell upon a third of the rivers.
    • The star fell upon the springs of waters.
11. 8:11
    • The star's name is called Wormwood.
    • A third of the waters became wormwood.
    • Many men died from the waters.
    • The men died because the waters had been made bitter.
12. 8:12
    • The fourth angel sounded his trumpet.
    • A third of the sun was struck.
    • A third of the moon was struck.
    • A third of the stars was struck.
    • The purpose was that a third of them would be darkened.
    • The day did not shine for a third of it.
    • The night likewise did not shine for a third of it.
13. 8:13
    • The narrator looked.
    • The narrator heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven.
    • The angel spoke with a loud voice.
    • The angel said woe three times to those who dwell on the earth.
    • The woes are because of the remaining trumpet blasts of the three angels who are yet to sound.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

8:1

The seventh seal is the last of seven wax seals on the scroll John saw earlier, in chapter 5. In the Roman world an important document was rolled up and closed with blobs of wax stamped with a signet ring, and breaking them was the act that gave access to the contents. Each seal broken releases what follows.

8:2

"Stood before God" is court language: these are attendants who hold a standing position in the royal presence, like courtiers permanently on duty. Jewish writing of this period speaks of seven such angels of the presence; the book of Tobit names Raphael as one of the seven. The trumpets are signal instruments, not musical ones. Straight metal trumpets and rams' horns were blown to call an assembly, raise an alarm, signal a battle, or announce the arrival of a ruler.

8:3

The King James "saints" does not mean a special class of unusually holy people, still less people formally canonized by a church. The Greek word means those set apart as God's, that is, all believers. The "golden altar" is a particular piece of temple furniture. The sanctuary had two altars: a large bronze one out in the courtyard where animals were burned, and a small gold-plated one inside, standing in front of the curtain that screened the innermost room. Only incense was burned on the golden one.

8:4

Rising incense smoke was a standard image for prayer going up to God: "Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense" (Psalm 141:2). Here the smoke and the prayers rise together.

8:5

The King James "voices" translates a Greek word for sounds or noises in general; here it means crashes and rumblings rather than anyone speaking. Thunder, lightning, and earthquake together were the standard way of describing God's presence breaking into view, as at Mount Sinai in Exodus 19.

8:7

Hail and fire falling together recalls the seventh plague on Egypt, where fire ran along the ground with the hail (Exodus 9:23-24). The first four trumpets all echo the Egyptian plagues: hail and fire, water turned to blood, undrinkable water, darkness. Some ancient manuscripts also say that a third of the earth was burned up; the manuscripts behind the King James lack that line, which is why it does not appear here.

8:8

"As it were" in the King James means "what looked like." John is reporting what the thing resembled, not naming what it was.

8:10

The King James "lamp" here means a torch, an open flame carried in the hand, not a small dish of oil with a wick. "Star" in ancient usage covered anything bright moving in the sky, including meteors and comets.

8:11

Wormwood is a real plant, a shrub of the Artemisia family with an intensely bitter taste. In the Hebrew scriptures its name had become proverbial for bitterness and for poisoned or ruined water; Jeremiah pairs it with "water of gall" (Jeremiah 9:15, 23:15). The plant itself is bitter rather than deadly, so naming the poisoned water after it takes a familiar figure of speech to an extreme.

8:12

The last part of this verse is genuinely ambiguous in the Greek. It can mean that a third of the daylight hours were blacked out entirely, or that the light was dimmed by a third throughout the day, and the same for the night. Translators divide over which sense is meant.

8:13

The oldest surviving manuscripts read "eagle" here, while the later manuscripts behind the King James read "angel." The two words are close in Greek: aetos and angelos. "The midst of heaven" means mid-heaven, the highest point of the sky where the sun stands at noon, so the flying creature is visible and audible to everyone at once. "Woe" is not a curse laid on anyone but a cry of alarm and grief, the sound a mourner or a prophet makes over a disaster on its way.