Blessed Is He Who Watches

A loud voice from the temple, where no one could enter in chapter 15, sends out the seven angels: Go and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God on the earth. The bowls follow the pattern of the trumpets: land, sea, rivers, sun, darkness, the Euphrates, and finally the air. But where the trumpets struck a third as warnings, the bowls are complete. Like the plagues on Egypt in Exodus, they show God’s power over every part of creation and expose false gods.

Between the third and fourth bowls, John hears worship. The angel of the waters says, You are righteous, who are and who were, O Holy One, because you have judged these things. Those who poured out the blood of saints and prophets are receiving justice. Then the altar, where the souls under it once cried How long?, answers: Yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are your judgments. The prayers of chapter 6 are being answered. Yet three times the chapter notes that people curse God and do not repent. Judgment reveals hearts as well as punishing evil.

The sixth bowl dries up the Euphrates to prepare the way for the kings from the east. Three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet. They gather the kings of the whole world for the war of the great day of God. Suddenly Jesus himself breaks in: Behold, I come like a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his clothes. The kings gather at the place called in Hebrew Harmagedon. Finally the seventh bowl is poured into the air, and a loud voice from the throne says, It is done! The greatest earthquake ever known splits the great city, and Babylon the great is remembered before God.