Revelation 16:12

Revelation 16:12. And the sixth poured out his bowl upon the great river, the river Euphrates. The sixth trumpet had related to the river Euphrates, chap. Revelation 9:14, and the principles of interpretation necessary there are also to be applied here. The Euphrates is the river of Babylon, the seat of antichristian power, from which proceed assaults upon the people of God.

And the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings from the sunrising may be prepared. At the foundation of this figure of the drying up of the Euphrates may lie the drying up of the Jordan when Israel took possession of the promised land; but it is more probable that the Seer has in view that diverting of the course of this river by means of which Cyrus captured Babylon. When Cyrus is predicted as the destroyer of Babylon he is twice spoken of by Isaiah as from the East or the sunrising (Isaiah 41:2; Isaiah 46:11). Cyrus was indeed generally thought of by the fathers as a type of Christ, and it may be observed that, when He is first alluded to, it is in the chapter immediately succeeding that in which Isaiah prophesies of the Baptist as ‘preparing the way of the Lord' (chap. Revelation 11:3). The figure of drying up waters is one often met with in the prophets, where it is used to express the steps by which God prepares the way for the deliverance of His people and the destruction of their enemies (Isaiah 44:27; Isaiah 51:10; Jer. 1:38; Zechariah 10:11). In addition to this, the words, ‘that the way may be prepared,' lead us directly to the thought of the ‘preparing of the way of the Lord' by the Baptist, and thus to a preparation of which the good, not the wicked, shall avail themselves. Further, this very expression, ‘from the sunrising,' has already met us in chap. Revelation 7:2, in connection with the angel who comes from that quarter with the seal of the living God in his hand; and, as it is always necessary in the Apocalypse to interpret the same expression in the same way, we are once more led to the thought not of evil but of good. This view is confirmed by another remarkable fact, that in the prophets Christ Himself is sometimes designated by the word ‘The East.' Thus in Zechariah 3:8, where we read in the Authorised Version ‘Behold I will bring forth my servant the Branch,' the LXX. read ‘my servant the East;' so also in Zechariah 6:12; while, in Jeremiah 23:5, ‘I will raise unto David a righteous branch,' is in the LXX. ‘a righteous East.' Once more, it is difficult to resist the impression that there is a contrast between these kings ‘from the sunrising,' and those described in Revelation 16:14 as ‘the kings of the whole world,' who are evidently evil.

Putting these circumstances together we seem compelled to come to the conclusion that the persons described as ‘kings from the sunrising' are the very opposite of what they are often interpreted to be. They are not ‘the forces of rude and open evil which have been long restrained;' still less are they the princes who would fain return with a Nero redux for the destruction of Rome. They are representatives of all Christ's faithful ones who are not only priests but kings unto God, and for whom the waters of the Euphrates are dried up that their march to the destruction of Babylon may be easy and triumphant.

Christ's people are now gathered together as an army. But they shall not need to fight. We shall see that they do not fight (comp, chap. Revelation 20:9). They shall rest in Christ. God shall fight His own battle. The war shall be that ‘of the great day of God, the Almighty' (Revelation 16:14).