Ver. 12. ‘‘Soasto darken a third part of them, and (i.e.) to prevent a third of the day from shining (φάνῃ, or φανῇῃ, Win.) and of the night likewise”. Daylight is shortened by a third, and the brightness of an Eastern night correspondingly ’ lessened (cf. the Egyptian plague of darkness). The writer either forgets or ignores the fact that he has already cleared the heaven of stars (vi. 13).
Ver. 13. An ominous introduction to the last three trumpets. An eagle, here asin Apoc. Bar. lxxvii. 17-22, Ixxxvii. I (cf.
6
406
a viii. τοι IX. 1. ΚΑΙ 6 πέµπτος ἄγγελος ἐσάλπισεν, καὶ εἶδον " ἀστέρα ἐκ Riegy isn. gi a ig Hi mn - xiv. 12, τοῦ οὐρανοῦ " πεπτωκότα εἰς τὴν γῆν, καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ ἡ κλεῖς τοῦ
uke x i " . μα. Ὀφρέατος τῆς ἁβύσσου, 2. καὶ ἤνοιξε τὸ φρέαρ τῆς ἁβύσσου, καὶ xi. 7, xvii.
8, xx. 1,3, ἀνέβη °Kamvds ἐκ τοῦ φρέατος ὡς καπνὸς Kapivou peyddns, καὶ
n. Χ.
31,cf.Gen. XXiX. 2.
ς Gen. xix. , 28, Exod, Tl, xix.
ἆ xvi. το. Only here in N.T. in literal sense. in final clause. gi.7. h vii. 4-8.
Rest of Words of Bar. vii.) a messenger and herald of catastrophe (its associations are punitive and bodeful, Deut. xxviii. 49, Hos. viii. 1, Hab. i. 8, Eurip. Rhes. 528-536) flies in the zenith, {.ε., swoop- ing exactly over the heads of men. For the eagle (Simurgh in Zoroastrianism) as the servant of Deity in ancient (Sy- rian) mythology, see E. Bi. ‘‘ Cherub,” § 8, and Acts of Thomas (Hymn of Soul, 51).—‘‘Woe . . . for the rest of the trumpet voices.” The first woe finishes at ix. 12, the second (after the interlude of x. I-xi. 13) at xi. 14, the third appar- rently at xii. 12—though as usual one series of phenomena melts irregularly at the close into another.
CHAPTER IX.—Vv. 1-12: The fifth trumpet. Ver. 1. Stars (as σώματα ἐπουράνια)
drop from heaven in the form of beasts (Enoch Ixxxvi. τ f.) and men (ibid. Ixxxviii.) throughout Jewish apocalyptic (cf. ibid. xviii. 16, xxi. 1, 6, xc. 21, 24) ; even earlier (Judges v. 20, Job xxxviii. 7) they had been personified. On falling stars, associated as evil portents with death or divine displeasure, see Frazer’s Golden Bough (and ed.), ii. 18f. From what follows, it is possible that this an- gelic being who had fallen is conceived as an evil agent (reff.), permitted (ἐδόθη) to exercise malicious power on earth in furtherance of divine judgment. ‘The pit of the abyss ” is the abode of the devil and daemons (reff. cf. Aen. vii. 583 f., viii. 243 f.), a subterranean chasm or waste underworld, located sometimes in the middle of the earth (Slav. En. xxviii. 3), and represented here (cf. xx. 1) as covered by a lid or great stone. To judge from xiii. 1, this abyss seems to contain, as in O.T., the flow of waters formerly upon the earth, and now confined (according to Jewish folk-lore) by God’s
ὡς ἔχουσιν ἐξουσίαν ot σκορπίοι τῆς γῆς' 4.
e Cf. Schol. on Arist. Acharn. 150.
3. Καὶ
ἐκ τοῦ καπνοῦ ἐξῆλθον ἀκρίδες eis τὴν γῆν, καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς ἐξου-
καὶ ἐρρέθη
18, > a _¢ ee , 9 , ~ a if οσον ἆ a Q Joel ii, 2, αὐτοῖς ἵνα μὴ ἀδικήσουσιν τὸν χόρτον τῆς γῆς, ΄ οὐδὲ * πᾶν χλωρὸν, οὐδὲ πᾶν δένδρον, εἰ μὴ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους 5 οἵτινες οὐκ " ἔχουσι τὴν
f Hebraistic Ξοὐδέν; οὐδέ synt. irreg-
decree and the magical potency of His name (cf. on xx. 4 and ii. 17 also Prayer of Manasseh, ‘‘O Lord Almighty... Who hast shut up the deep, τὴν ἄβυσσον and sealed it by thy terrible and glorious name”’. A fearsome cavity (‘ditis spiraculum”) emitting poisonous ex- halations once existed near Hierapolis (Pliny, H. N. ii. 05). Such chasms (throughout Italy, Greece and Asia) seemed, to the superstitious, local inlets into Hades and outlets for infernal air in the shape of mephitic vapours. In Phrygia itself springs of hot vapour and smoke are a feature of the Lycos valley (C. B. P. i. 2, 3), and the volcanic cone in the harbour of Thera was believed to be such an aperture of hell. Fire belch- ing from this subterranean furnace was a sure portent of the final catastrophe (4 Esd. v. 8); cf. Renan, 330 f., 396, R. S. 127, and Jeremias, 116 f.