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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 8

Section 10

A WARNING PROCLAMATION

 


 
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Apoc. viii. 13

 

"And I saw, and I heard from one, an eagle flying in midheaven, saying in a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the dwellers upon the earth, from the remaining voices of the trumpet-call of the three angels hereafter to sound."

 

1. Symbols Explained

 

An angel, in a symbolic sense, represents a class of agents executing a mission to which they have been appointed. We have seen this use of the word in ch. vii. 3, where an angel says: "Hurt not the earth and the sea until we have sealed the servants of our Deity." So also in the text of the English version, the "angel flying" is representative of a class of agents having a mission to perform.

But Griesbach and other critical editors of the original text read aetou, an eagle, instead of aggelou, an angel. Upon this, Elliott remarks: "The external evidence of manuscripts is decidedly in favor of the former reading. On the other hand, the internal evidence of scriptural analogy, with which Griesbach and the rest did not concern themselves, is as decidedly -- indeed, as it seems to me, even more so -- against it. For nowhere in the Apocalypse is the proclaiming function assigned to a bird, or, indeed to any being but an angel or the divine Spirit... I do not therefore hesitate to retain the reading aggelou."

Tregelles reads eagle in his translation, and gives us to understand that it is justified by manuscripts fourteen hundred years old. This would carry us back to the times of the second trumpet. In a note upon the word, the American Bible Union editor says: "I recommend that this reading be adopted and translated eagle; and that the following note appear in the margin: ‘Or, as a few copies read, angel.’"

I believe that eagle was the original and correct reading, and that it is supported both by the external evidence of manuscripts, and the internal evidence of apocalyptical testimony. It affords us a very important clue to the mystery of the text. Mr. Elliott is unquestionably mistaken in saying that "nowhere in the Apocalypse is the proclaiming function assigned to a bird." We find the very reverse of this in ch. vi. 7, where the fourth living creature, likened to "an eagle flying" in ch. iv. 7, makes proclamation, saying, "Come and see!"

"An eagle flying" is the ensign of one of the camps of "the Israel of God"; and when we consider their relative position at the time when the Latin Catholic "day and night" were darkened by the fourth trumpet, it symbolized their community very fitly. The eagle was the ensign of the sealed servants of the Deity, who, during the tempestuous times of the first four trumpets, and for centuries after, were protected from extermination by the Serpent-power, in "the two wings of the Great Eagle" (xii. 14). They were an eagle "flying" in the "midheaven" of the great eagle-dominion. They had an angelic mission indicated by the action of flying. This is motion from one place to another for a purpose. The eagle encampment was therefore an angel-community; and hence eagle and angel came afterwards to be traditionally used as equivalents in the text. The angelism of the eagle flying was to warn "the dwellers upon the earth" of what was still coming upon them. That flying in mid heaven is symbolical of preaching, or making proclamation, is evident from ch. xiv. 6, where "another angel" is said to "fly in midheaven having the glad tidings of the Aion to preach unto the dwellers upon the earth." Midheaven, mesouranema, is, according to the decorum of the symbol, the region of their flight. They are not luminaries of the political heaven; they are not constituents of the sun, moon, and stars, having no identity, officially or morally, with the secular and spiritual orders they symbolize. Neither are they "of the world," though encamping in the world. "The dwellers upon the earth" were the Arian and Athanasian catholics, and others, to whom they preached. Hence, the Heavenly they occupied was peculiar to themselves; it was, as it were, in the midst between the heaven of government and the peoples governed. In this midheaven they winged their flight as "one" of the four living ones, the fourth, or eagle flying saying, "Woe, Woe, Woe, to the dwellers upon the earth" -- woes issuing "out of the remaining voices of the trumpet-call of the three angels hereafter to sound."

And because these woes were to issue out of the fifth, sixth and seventh trumpets, the last three have been appropriately enough styled woe-trumpets. In the ninth chapter, we enter upon the consideration of the fifth and sixth woes; the latter not being exhausted till the epoch indicated in ch. xi. 13,14. The third woe will prove the most terrific of all winds and woes; to "the dwellers upon the earth," catholics, protestants, "sectaries," and "infidels"; for, to the Lion, the Ox, the Man and the FLYING EAGLE -- symbols of the saints -- will be given the consummating judgments of the three "Woes," that they may slay the beast, and give his body politic to the burning flame (Dan. vii. 11,26).

 

 


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