In the previous section, I have analysed in detail the symbols
of the first woe-trumpet. I have resolved them severally into
the things they signify. In this section, I shall put their
significations together, and thereby show what the apostle
predicted if he had recorded what he saw in plain unsymbolical
terms. This is what I mean by a synthetic exposition of the
first woe.
1. "And the fifth angel sounded, and
I saw one who had acquired power, and become a king,
precipitate the forces of his kingdom upon the territory
of the eastern Roman empire. And to this king was yielded
the power of Arabia. 2. And he removed the barriers by
which Arabia was shut up from the world without, and
a fiery host issued forth, and, by reason of the smoking
fierceness of their wrath, subverted the imperial Byzantine
authority, and changed the political aerial constitution
of the catholic countries they overrun.
3. "The wrathful hosts that invaded
the eastern Roman empire were Arabians like locusts for
multitude; and they had power fatal as the power of scorpions.
4. And it was commanded them by one, styled the Commander
of the Faithful, that they should not hurt the grass
of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but
only those men who have not the truth of the Deity in
their understandings. 5. And to the Arabians it was given
that they should not extinguish the sovereignty of these
men, but that they should be tormented in war during
one hundred and fifty years, with a scorpion-like torment.
6. "And in those days shall these
ignorant professors of christianity seek political extinction,
and shall not find it; and shall earnestly desire to
be a conquered people, and political death by conquest
shall flee from them.
7. "And the resemblances of these
Arabians when embattled exhibit them as cavalry prepared
for war; and on their heads they wore yellow turbans;
and their faces were bearded, and they had long flowing
hair like the tresses of women; and their spirit was
ferocious as lions. 9. And they had on polished steel
cuirasses; and the sound of the right and left wings
of their armies were of multitudes of cavalry rushing
into battle. 10. And they trailed in their rear, or tails
of their hosts, scorpion-artillery for destruction; and
their power to hurt the rest of men westward was also
one hundred and fifty years.
11. "And they had over them a king styled a CALIPH, the
Messenger of Destruction among the subjects of the eastern
Roman empire, or "the abyss." In the land of
the Hebrew, he earned the name Abaddon, or Destroyer;
and in the land of the Greek, that of Apollyon, which
signifies the same.
12. "One woe, that of the fifth trumpet,
is passed away after three hundred years; and, behold,
there come two woes more before the consummation -- the
sixth and seventh trumpets, after these things."
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