Until the power of the Prophet-King, or Star, was matured in "the pit of the abyss," the pit was shut; so that neither "smoke" nor "locusts" could issue forth upon "the earth" to torment and destroy the unsealed. The furnace was roaring with flaming blast in the pit, from which nothing could come forth until the acquisition of undisputed authority and power by the star. This he at length acquired; for it is testified, that "he opened the pit of the abyss." He had become a powerful star, ruling over the kingdom of the pit, styled historically, the kingdom of Arabia; the armies of which no longer in a state of civil war, but united under the yellow banner of the star, were prepared to rush through the opened portals of the pit, and to invade the world at large.

And invade it they did; for when the pit was opened, smoke poured out in columns vast enough to darken the sun and the air. "Smoke" when considered as proceeding from fire, signifies punishment and war. Thus Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the cities of the plain, were situated in the pit of the abyss; and when they were destroyed, "the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." Here, the smoke became representative of their judgment. It is the adjunct of anger, as in Deut. xxix. 20, "The anger of Yahweh shall smoke against that man;" and in Psa. lxxiv. 1, "O God, why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?" Smoke arising out of a pit, and darkening the sun and air, is symbolical of divine anger and wrath against the things represented by "the sun and air." In ch. ix. 18, the men obnoxious to the sixth trumpet woe, are said to be "killed by the fire, by the smoke, and by the brimstone." In ch. xiv. 11, smoke is associated with torment as "the smoke of their torment ascendeth to the aions of the aions; and they have no rest day nor night;" and in ch. xv. 8, "the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of the Deity and from his power;" that is the wrath contained in the seven vials, and which in its seventh vial consummation comes for the destruction of the destroyers of the earth (xi. 18).