Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Revelation 5:12-14

Revelation 5:12 a. And I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The verb ‘saw' is again to be taken absolutely as in Revelation 5:1-2; Revelation 5:5; Revelation 5:8. The things seen divide themselves naturally into four groups; and we need not add to what has been already said as to the meaning of this number. (1) ‘A great earthquake,' which must be understood in its usual sense as a shaking of the earth alone (chaps. Revelation 8:5, xi 13, 19, Revelation 16:18), and not as a general shaking including heaven as well as earth. The celestial phenomena immediately following are quite independent. The idea of the earthquake may be in part that of Matthew 24:7, but it is especially that of Matthew 24:29. The figure is frequently used in the Old Testament as a symbol of the judgments of God about to come upon a sinful world (Psalms 60:3-5; Isaiah 13:13; Haggai 2:6; Haggai 2:22-23).

Revelation 5:12 b, Revelation 5:13-14 A. And the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became as blood, and the stars of the heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her unripe figs when she is shaken of a great wind, and the heaven withdrew as a book roll when it is rolled together. (2) We pass from earth to the heavens. The vision is still couched in the language of Matthew 24:29, and that again rests upon the figures with which Old Testament prophecy had made the Jews familiar (Isaiah 13:10; Isaiah 1:3; Jeremiah 4:23; Ezekiel 32:7-8; Joel 2:31; Joel 3:15; Amos 8:9-10; Micah 3:6). The sun becomes ‘black as sackcloth of hair,' the coarse sackcloth made of the black hair of camels. His light is quenched; and, instead of shining with his splendour in the sky, he appears as a great black orb. It is obvious that here, as in innumerable parts of the Apocalypse, we are to content ourselves with the main idea of the writer, and not to demand prosaic verisimilitude. The ‘whole' moon next becomes as blood, the word ‘whole' denoting the moon at its full size, so that the spectacle may be the more terrible. The addition is not found in the Old Testament prophecies upon which the language before us rests. It is made by the Seer under the feeling that no ancient prophet had foreseen such sights of woe as he had been commissioned to reveal. ‘The stars of the heaven' next fall to the earth, like unripe figs when the fig tree is shaken by a great wind. Firmly as they appear to be set in heaven, they are yet as easily displaced as the unripe fig when a ‘great wind' blows. They fall in a moment. ‘The heaven' itself is touched last of all Like a book-roll, it is rolled together, and is no longer the glorious firmament that it has been.

Revelation 5:14 b. And every mountain and island were moved out of their places. (3) In these words the third member of the description follows. It will be observed that we have in them much more than the mention of the earthquake in Revelation 5:12. An earthquake shakes the earth, but when the shaking is over things return, no doubt with some exceptions, to their old positions. Here all things are ‘moved out of their places;' the confusion and overthrow are complete.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Revelation 5:12-14

Old Testament

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