Revelation 16:15-21

15"Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed."
16Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.
17The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, "It is done!" 18Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. 19The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. 20Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. 21From the sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible.



16:15 - The account of the seven bowls is suddenly interrupted with a declaration of the central theme of the book of Revelation: Behold, I come like a thief! It is really the summation of Christ’s message to the seven Churches. The coming of the Roman empire will be, in truth, Christ’s coming in his wrath against his enemies. The specific wording here is based on the words from the letter to the Church in Sardis as well as other words of Jesus (Rev. 3:3; Matt. 24:42-44; Luke 12:35-40; cf. 1 Thess. 5:1-11). That letter also praises those who have not soiled their clothes but promises that the one who overcomes will wear white clothes. In a similar vein, we are told: Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that they may not go naked and be shamefully exposed. The imagery here comes from the Temple. There was an officer whose duty was to see that the watchmen stayed awake. If he found them asleep once he beat them; if he found them asleep a second time he burnt their clothes. This, then, means that it is the time for those who are guarding the Temple to keep awake. The whole symbolism of the Sixth Bowl, of which this is a part, has to do with an attack on the Temple. The time has come and the churches must be awake.

16:16 - The narrative is resumed as we are told that the kings will gather at a place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. Much has been made by futurists (that claim the only way to read Revelation is literally) concerning this battle of Armageddon. The problem here for them is that this is literally spelled Har-Magedon, which means Mount Megiddo. Megiddo is a city on a plain, not a mountain. The closest mountain is Mt. Carmel. Why didn’t John just say Mt. Carmel? Apparently he wanted to refer to both Megiddo and Mt. Carmel at the same time. Mt. Carmel was associated with the defeat of Jezebel’s false prophets, and Megiddo was the scene of several important military engagements in Biblical history (Josh. 12:21; Jud. 5:19; 2 Ki. 9:27). Probably the most significant event that took place, in terms of John’s imagery, was the confrontation between Judah’s King Josiah and the Pharaoh Neco. Josiah faced Neco in deliberate disobedience to God, and was mortally wounded (2 Chron. 25:20-25). Judah’s downward spiral into apostasy, destruction, and bondage following Josiah’s death was swift and sure. The Jews continued to mourn Josiah’s death down through the time of Ezra (2 Chron. 35:25). Megiddo was, for John, a symbol of defeat and desolation, a place that held defeat for those who set themselves against God. Austin Farrar says that "Mt. Megiddo stands in [John’s] mind for a place where lying prophecy and its dupes go to meet their doom; where kings and their armies are misled to their destruction; and where all the tribes of the earth mourn to see Him in power, whom in weakness they had pierced."

16:17 - The seventh angel pours out his bowl into the air, accompanied by a loud voice from the throne, saying it is done. Once again the voice comes out of the Temple, signifying God’s control and approval. John said that these plagues were the end (Rev. 15:1), and now the voice proclaims it is done.

16:18 - Once again we have the phenomena, flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake, that accompany the glory cloud of God. This is the seventh mention of earthquakes in Revelation (Rev. 6:12; 8:5; twice in 11:13; 11:19; twice in 16:18), emphasizing the Covenantal aspects. Christ came to bring the definitive earthquake of the New Covenant, one such as no earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth (See Heb. 12:25-29 for similar sentiments).

16:19 - The great city is Jerusalem where the Lord was crucified (Rev. 11:8; cf. 14:8). The city is to be split into three parts. The imagery here comes from Ezekiel 5:1-12, where God has Ezekiel stage a drama (which included shaving his head with a sharp sword) portraying the coming destruction of Jerusalem. There is also a historical correspondent to this prophecy: During the siege of Jerusalem, the city was divided amongst three factions who were fighting within the city for control. This, no doubt, sped up the fall of the city greatly. John gives another indicator that the great city is Jerusalem, as he distinguishes it from the cities of the nations, which are the cities of the Gentiles. It is also very clear in this verse that Jerusalem is Babylon the great, a distinction that will become important as we proceed.

16:20 - Every island fled and the mountains could not be found. In this final judgment, there is no place to hide for the wicked. Every false refuge disappears before the wrath of God.

16:21 - Just as Ezekiel foretold that Jerusalem’s false prophets would bring destruction by a great hailstorm (Ezek. 13:1-16), John tells the same fate as he writes of hailstones that weighed a hundred pounds each. This, as with the other plagues, correlates to the plagues of Egypt. It is interesting to note that Josephus records that the Romans catapulted into Jerusalem "stone missiles" that weighed about a hundred pounds each. The rebellion of these men was so complete that the plagues did not humble them, but rather, they blasphemed God for the destruction that had been brought on by their own actions.