Fifth Trumpet / First Woe - Locusts Judgement
Trumpet - God's Judgement on the Roman Empire (First Beast)
Revelation 9:1 - Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit.
Revelation 9:2 - And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit.
Revelation 9:3 - Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth. And to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
Revelation 9:4 - They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
Revelation 9:5 - And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man.
Revelation 9:6 - In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them.
Revelation 9:7 - The shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men.
Revelation 9:8 - They had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth.
Revelation 9:9 - And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running into battle.
Revelation 9:10 - They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails. Their power was to hurt men five months.
Revelation 9:11 - And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon.
Revelation 9:12 - One woe is past. Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things.
A falling star (Isaiah 14:12) is a great person or leader, who executes evil plans. Muhammad was a great leader (star) who was used by God to darken the Roman Empire.
The 5th Trumpet represents the Rise of the Islamic Empire, which God used to execute Judgement on the Roman Empire. The fifth trumpet sent forth those troops of locusts, the Saracens, or Arabs, (a nation as populous and numerous as locusts) were excited to the destruction of so many nations.
Quran denies the deity of Jesus and says that he was just a prophet. They deny that he died on the cross and shed his blood for redemption. The religion of Islam darkened the True Christian way of the Sun of Righteousness i.e. Jesus (Malachi 4:2) in the Roman Empire.
Isaiah 22:22 - The key of the house of David I will lay on his shoulder; So he shall open, and no one shall shut; And he shall shut, and no one shall open.
Luke 11:52 - Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered.
Revelation 1:18 - I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.
The key of the bottomless pit Power to inundate the Roman earth with a flood of calamities and moral evils.
Deuteronomy 4:20 - But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people, an inheritance, as you are this day.
1 Kings 8:51 - for they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out of Egypt, out of the iron furnace.
Jeremiah 11:4 - which I commanded your fathers in the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey My voice, and do according to all that I command you; so shall you be My people, and I will be your God
Real Locusts do not have a King Proverbs 30:27 - The locusts have no king, Yet they all advance in ranks;
Revelation Locusts are Men Revelation 9:11 - And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon.
Revelation 9:7 - The shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men.
Midianites & Amalekites = Arabians Judges 7:12 - Now the Midianites and Amalekites (Arabians), all the people of the East, were lying in the valley as numerous as locusts; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the seashore in multitude.
Region in the East of Egypt = Arabian peninsula Exodus 10:13 - So Moses stretched out his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind on the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind (Arabia lies to the East of Egypt) brought the locusts.
Joel 1:4 - What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten; And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten.
Joel 1:5 - Awake, you drunkards, and weep; And wail, all you drinkers of wine, Because of the new wine, For it has been cut off from your mouth.
Joel 1:6 - For a nation has come up against My land, Strong, and without number; His teeth are the teeth of a lion, And he has the fangs of a fierce lion.
Joel 2:4 - Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; And like swift steeds, so they run.
Joel 2:5 - With a noise like chariots Over mountaintops they leap, Like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble, Like a strong people set in battle array.
Locusts represents the vast hordes of Arabian military troops assembled for the destruction of Roman Empire.
The locusts were like unto horses This symbolical description of an overwhelming military force agrees very well with the troops of Arabia. The Arabs are the most expert horsemen in the world.
1 Peter 1:24 - because All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.
Isaiah 40:7 - The grass withers, the flower fades, Because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; Surely the people are grass.
Isaiah 51:12 - I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid Of a man who will die, And of the son of a man who will be made like grass?
Psalms 103:15 - As for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
They should not kill the common people.
Abu Bakr (Father-in-law of Muhammad) declared that they should not harm the trees or the fields, so that they could take them over and make themselves prosperous.
The non-Muslim inhabitants like Jews, and Christians of the conquered lands were called dhimmis (the protected people). Those who accepted Islam were treated in a similar manner as other Muslims, and were given equivalent rights in legal matters. Non-Muslims were given legal rights according to their faiths' law except where it conflicted with Islamic law.
In some senses, Islamic law made dhimmis second-class citizens. Dhimmis were allowed to practice their religion, and to enjoy a measure of communal autonomy and were guaranteed their personal safety and security of property, but only in return for paying tax and acknowledging Muslim rule.
The Rashidun Caliphs had placed special emphasis on relative fair and just treatment of the dhimmis. They were also provided protection by the Islamic empire and were not expected to fight; rather the Muslims were entrusted to defend them.
Islamic Rules of War: Do not uproot or burn palms or cut down fruitful trees.
In two verses (Revelation 9:5,10), it says they should be tormented five months & their power was to hurt men five months.
Those five months being twice mentioned.
Why should the Holy Spirit repeat the notation of those 5 months nearly in the same words?
Is there not a mystery under this repetition?
5 months X 30 days = 150 days = 150 days X 2 times = 300 Prophetic days
Numbers 14:34 - According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely forty years, and you shall know My rejection.
Ezekiel 4:6 - And when you have completed them, lie again on your right side; then you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days. I have laid on you a day for each year.
300 Prophetic days = 300 years
The period of the Saracenic (Arabian) kingdom, which, from the beginning of the Caliphate of the Abbasides to their losing control to the Turks (Ottoman Empire) is 300 years ie. from 756 A.D to the year 1055 A.D.
In 756 A.D, king Pepin the Short donated the lands of Rome and the former Lombard possessions to the Papacy marking the true beginning of Papal states.
Job expresses the same sentiment Job 3:20-22 - Why is light given to him who is in misery, And life to the bitter of soul, Who long for death, but it does not come, And search for it more than hidden treasures; Who rejoice exceedingly, And are glad when they can find the grave?
So distressing shall be their sufferings and torment that they shall long for death in any form, to be rescued from the evils of life.
The crowns, like crowns of gold, placed on their heads, indicate the success and extent of dominion to be acquired. No nation ever reigned so extensively, nor in so short a space of time were so many kingdoms, so many regions, brought under the yoke of domination.
Incredible is it to be told, yet it is most true, that in the short space of 80 or so years, they subjugated Palestine, Syria, both the Armenias, almost the whole of Asia Minor, Persia, India, Egypt, Numidia, all Barbary, as far as the river Niger, Lusitania, and Hispania. Nor did their good fortune or ambition stop here, till they had added great part of Italy, even to the gates of Rome, besides Sicily, Candia, Cyprus, and the other islands of the Mediterranean Sea.
The tail of a scorpion, with the sting, denotes the propagation of Islam, with its whole apparatus, on which the Arabian locusts relying not less than on warlike force inflicted hurt wherever they went. I believe, no nation before them, relying on a similar imposture, in religion, and under the pretext of destroying the worship of idols, ever contended for the empire of the world.
A king over them - Muhammad their king.
The angel of the bottomless pit - The chief envoy of Satan
Abaddon = Apollyon = Destroyer (same meaning in Hebrew & Greek)
The dress of this warlike nation remains to be considered. And their faces were as the faces of men. They were locusts with a human countenance; that is, truly men, (lest anyone should suppose that insects were spoken of) having hair as the hair of women that is, they were Arabs by nation, who, according to Pliny, wear their hair uncut, having turbans on their heads.
Al-Andalus also known as Muslim Spain was a medieval Muslim territory and cultural domain occupying at its peak most of what are today Spain and Portugal. At its greatest geographical extent in the 8th century, southern France was briefly under its control.
The name more generally describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula governed by Muslims at various times between 711 A.D and 1492 A.D, though the boundaries changed constantly as the Christian Reconquest of Spain progressed, eventually shrinking to the south around modern-day Andalusia and then to the Emirate of Granada.
