Revelation 9 Passage

Interpretation

9:3 locusts

Vast hordes of military troops: the description which follows certainly agrees better with the Saracens than with any other people or nation, but may also apply to the Romans.

9:4 they should not hurt the grass

Neither the common people, the men of middling condition, nor the nobles. However, this appears rather to refer to the prudent counsels of a military chief, not to destroy the crops and herbage of which they might have need in their campaigns.

9:4 which have not the seal of God

All false, hypocritical, and heterodox Christians.

9:5 that they should be tormented five months

Others consider the months as being prophetical months, each day being reckoned for a year; therefore this period must amount to one hundred and fifty years, counting thirty days to each month, as was the general custom of the Asiatics.

9:7 The locusts were like unto horses

The whole of this symbolical description of an overwhelming military force agrees very well with the troops of Mohammed. The Arabs are the most expert horsemen in the world: they live so much on horseback that the horse and his rider seem to make but one animal.

9:7 crowns like gold

Not only alluding to their costly tiaras or turbans, but to the extent of their conquests and the multitude of powers which they subdued.

9:7 their faces were as the faces of men

That is, though locusts symbolically, they are really men.

9:8 hair as the hair of women

No razor passes upon their flesh. Their hair long, and their beards unshaven.

9:8 their teeth were as the teeth of lions

They are ferocious and cruel.

9:9 the sound in their wings

Their hanging weapons and military trappings, with the clang of their shields and swords when they make their fierce onsets.

9:10 they had tails like unto scorpions

This may refer to the consequences of their victories. They infected the conquered with their pernicious doctrines.

9:11 a king over them

A supreme head; some think Mohammed

Revelation 9 Passage

Interpretation

9:2: and he opened the bottomless pit

and this, as it may be applied to Mahomet, the eastern antichrist, may regard the publishing of his Alcoran, and obliging all his followers to receive it as the infallible word of God:

9:3 locusts

Now these Saracens sprung up in the times of antichristian darkness, both Papal and Mahometan, and may be said to come out of the smoke of the bottomless pit; and the religion of Mahomet, which they embraced, was no other; and like locusts they were innumerable, they went in troops and bands, as locusts do, Pro 30:27; pillaging and ravaging all they could and their sudden and frequent incursions, the desolations and ravages which they made in the eastern empire, are very aptly expressed by the running to and fro of locusts

9:4 they should not hurt the grass

true Christians, private believers, it may be those of the lower class; who for their numbers, and for their flourishing estate under the dews of heavenly grace, and the distillations of the doctrine of grace, and the clear shining of the sun of righteousness upon them, and for their weakness, may be compared to grass;

9:4 which have not the seal of God

and these were they that suffered most by the Saracens, who abhorred image worship, and fell foul on the idolaters of this kind:

9:5 that they should be tormented five months

The time that the locusts should torment men, which is "five months", seems not to design any determinate time; but only that seeing five months is the time that locusts live, and are in their strength and power, even the five, hottest months in the year, from April to September, this seems to denote, that as long as the locusts live, the Saracens in the east, and the monks and friars in the west, so long men should be tormented by them; for it is certain that these have had power to torment men longer time than barely five months; yea, even though these should be understood, according to the prophetic style used in this book, of five months of years, or an hundred and fifty years; and though this should be doubled, seeing they are repeated, Rev 9:10; and so make up in all three hundred years; for both the Saracens and the Romish clergy have distressed men, either of them, longer time than this: indeed, the flourishing condition of the Saracens was but about three hundred years, or two five months;

9:7 crowns like gold

And the Arabians, as Pliny observes, go "mitrati" (m), with mitres, turbans like crowns, on their heads. This may design the several victories and conquests which the Saracens obtained in Arabia, Persia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, Spain, and many other places;

9:7 their faces were as the faces of men

which may be expressive of the affable carriage of Mahomet, and his followers, especially to the Christians, and of his great pretensions to holiness and religion, and of the plausible and insinuating ways, and artful methods, used by him, to gain upon men;

9:8 hair as the hair of women

this fitly points at the Arabians or Saracens, who, as Pliny says, used to wear long hair without cutting it, and attired as women, and have their names also from women:

9:8 their teeth were as the teeth of lions

which may denote the ravages and devastations of the Saracens in the empire, robbing, pillaging, and destroying all they met with

9:9 the sound in their wings

this may be expressive of the swift and rapid incursions of the Saracens, and of the dreadful alarms to the nations which their invasions made

9:10 they had tails like unto scorpions

with which both Mahomet, who set himself up for a prophet, and the Romish clergy, who set up their decrees and unwritten traditions above the word of God, have poisoned and destroyed multitudes of souls:

9:11 a king over them

by whom is meant the false prophet Mahomet, who was at the head of the Saracens, and led them on to commit the outrages they did; and is believed in by the Turks to this day, as the great prophet of God, and by them preferred to all prophets, not only to Moses, but to Jesus Christ

9:11 whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon

and are very applicable both to Mahomet, who by his imposture has been the cause of the destruction of multitudes of souls, as well as by his wars, and those of the Saracens and Turks, of the lives of millions, and of the ruin of many kingdoms, countries, cities, and towns.

It should be noted here that John Gill argued this passage in Revelation 9:1-11 was referring dually to both Mahomet and the Roman popes throughout history.

Revelation 9 Passage

Interpretation

9:2

The locusts, who afterwards rise out of it, seem to be, as we shall afterwards see, the Persians; agreeable to which, this smoke is their detestable idolatrous doctrine, and false zeal for it, which now broke out in an uncommon paroxysm.

9:3

Such were the Persians, from whom the Jews, in the sixth century, suffered beyond expression. In the year 540 their academies were stopped, nor were they permitted to have a president for near fifty years.

9:7

This description suits a people neither throughly civilized, nor entirely savage; and such were the Persians of that age. Of the locusts are like horses - With their riders. The Persians excelled in horsemanship. And on their heads are as it were crowns - Turbans. And their faces are as the faces of men - Friendly and agreeable.

9:8

All the Persians of old gloried in long hair. And their teeth were as the teeth of lions - Breaking and tearing all things in pieces.

9:9

With their war - chariots, drawn by many horses, they, as it were, flew to and fro.

9:10

That is, each tail is like a scorpion, not like the tail of a scorpion. To hurt the unsealed men five months - Five prophetic months; that is, seventy - nine common years So long did these calamities last.