Category Archives: Bible Study

Shaft of the Abyss

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Another fresco from Mt. Athos that illustrates the Apocalypse. Here we see the attack of the demonic locusts described in chapter 9, the “first woe” of three to be unleashed by the angels faithful to God. These locusts, an allusion to the 8th plague that struck Egypt at the Exodus, are allowed to torment–but not kill–the people of the earth.

I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given a key to the shaft of the abyss. He opened the shaft of the abyss, and smoke came up from the shaft like smoke from a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft. Out of the smoke came locusts… (Apoc. 9:1-3)

A fallen star is a fallen angel. Hence, the star is “he” and given a key to the abyss. Stars–in apocalyptic writing–are always angels, whether good or bad, faithful to God or not. The tradition of fallen angels is ancient though it does not appear in the oldest layer of biblical writing; the story of the angelic fall is told in 1 Enoch 6-13, an expansion of Genesis 6:1-4. Jesus also refers to the fall of the angels: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18).

The “abyss” is the usual Greek translation of “the deep” (ex. Gen. 1:2, Psalm 105:9, 107:26); it is also used to refer to Sheol (Job 41, Romans 10). In the Apocalypse, the abyss-the deep-sheol is the provisional prison of Satan and the fallen angels. In the gospel, the demons beg Jesus not to send them there (Luke 8:31). In this chapter of the Apocalypse, a shaft leads to the abyss-the deep-sheol and a fallen angel is allowed to unlock it.

Out of the abyss comes a great cloud of smoke and ash; from the smoke and ash come the monstrous locusts that attack people but are not allowed to attack the earth itself, unlike natural locusts. These supernatural locusts attack and torture but cannot kill; they can sting like scorpions and have a king (the word is more usually translated as “emperor”), unlike natural locusts (Proverbs 30:27).

Is the Apocalypse comparing the locusts to the imperial Roman system by using the Greek word for “emperor” rather than “king” to describe their organization? If so, then the Roman state–and any political system that is in opposition to God–can attack and torment the faithful but cannot destroy or overwhelm the Kingdom of God. I have recently discovered the work of Walter Wink, who writes about the demonic aspect of human political systems. As my friend Daniel says, “Phenomena like The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror do occur, but the real danger is from beings that assume power over humanity in the form of nations, corporations, political ideologies, and economic systems.”

Wormwood

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Monastic fresco on Mt. Athos illustrating chapter 8 of the Apocalypse: the angels at the heavenly altar cast judgement/ hail onto the earth and sea.

The first angel blew his trumpet; there came hail… cast upon the earth…. The third angel blew his trumpet and a great star fell from the sky…. The name of the star was Wormwood. (Apocalypse 8:7, 10-11)

The angels begin to blow their seven trumpets and unleash a series of destructive judgements: hail with fire, a flaming mountain thrown into the sea, a falling star. Repeatedly, a third of everything is destroyed: a third of the earth is burnt up, a third of the trees are burnt up, a third of the sea is turned to blood, a third of the sea creatures die, a third of the sun-moon-stars are wiped out, a third of the ships are destroyed (see illustration above). This repetition of the destruction of one-third of everything suggests to many Early Church readers that one-third of the angels rebelled against God and became the demons of hell.

The destructive plagues released by the trumpet blasts mimic the plagues that God sent to destroy Egypt in the book of Exodus. In both cases, creation is undone and refashioned. Many of the prophets in the Old Testament describe similar plague-judgements that God will unleash at the End of Days: the sun and moon and stars will go dark, the sea will be consumed by fire, darkness will envelop the earth. Jeremiah describes a mountain that will be reduced to a burning, smoldering ruin and 1 Enoch describes 7 stars that are like 7 fiery mountains. These are not the acts of a vindictive God; these are the descriptions of what happens when creation rises up in rebellion and goes-against-the-stream that is cooperation (synergy) with God.

One of the most interesting images of judgement-destruction is the star called Wormwood. This name, which in Slavonic is Chernobyl, was often mentioned by evangelical Christians when the Chernobyl nuclear accident happened. It was popular to muse in the United States if the nuclear accident was the great portent of the End described in the Apocalypse; timelines for the coming judgement were eagerly discussed.

Wormwood is a plant with a bitter taste and is a metaphor for divine judgement (Jeremiah, Lamentations, Amos, Proverbs). This plague is the reverse of the miracle at Mara in the desert: there, poison water was made fresh but the star Wormwood makes fresh water poison. “Wormwood” is the perversion of justice in Amos: the blazing star that falls from the sky in the Apocalypse can be viewed as the downfall of the Devil himself, the father of lies and deception (John 8:44).

The Seventh Seal

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Dionysiou Monastery on Mt. Athos was founded in 1374. In its refectory (dining hall) is a magnificent series of frescoes that illustrate the Apocalypse. In this illustration of chapter 8, we see the seven angels with trumpets, the censer with smoke, a mountain in the sea, the bloody sea water, destroyed ships, the fountain of water, the star Wormwood (in the rocks in the right corner), a darkened sun, etc.

When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. I saw the seven angels who stand before God and they were given seven trumpets. (Apoc. 8:1)

The silence in heaven is momentous. It grabs the attention. It is louder than the thunder and commotion that either precede or follow it. Silence is not simply the absence of noise or the lull between events, one thing having finished and the other not yet having started as sometimes happens when a reader or performer is not ready to begin. Silence is a living presence.

I read many years ago that the most brilliant moment in music is the silence before the Et incarnatus of Bach’s “B Minor Mass.” The silence in heaven is like that. It is the sudden silence that follows Dorothy’s house crashing into Munchkinland as it drops from the cyclone in which she has seen Miss Gulch become the Wicked Witch.

This silence in heaven is an echo of the silence in heaven that preceded God’s first utterance: “Let there be light.” (see 4 Ezra 7:30-33) The apocalyptic silence in heaven is liturgical silence, the moment when all creation holds its breath seeing the Word of God crucified. It is the silence of the Great Entrance on Holy Saturday: God the Word has died and descended into Hades. It is the moment before all creation is turned topsy-turvy by Life himself tearing Death to shreds from the inside out.

Before the angels blow their trumpets, another angel-deacon comes to offer incense at the heavenly altar. There is “much incense” offered. The smoke creates an impenetrable cloud, much like the cloud of incense that the prophet Isaiah also saw (Isaiah 6). It was said that when the High Priest offered incense in the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur that there was not enough smoke if he could still see his hand in front of his face. The smoke creates a buffer that serves to protect the human from the brilliant glory of God that would annihilate anything or anyone that dared stand unprotected in the terrible light.

In the Our Father, we pray, “Thy kingdom come.” Before the kingdom comes, all creation holds its breath and peers through the smoky clouds of incense, waiting to see what will happen when God reveals himself.