The Seven Vials (Bowls) of Wrath in the Book of Revelation

Below is the 28th of multiple excerpts of commentary on the Book of Revelation from The Parousia, the late 19th-century masterpiece on the Second Coming by James Stuart Russell:

"The Fifth Vision

"THE SEVEN VIALS [BOWLS], Chaps. xv. [15] xvi. [16]

"Chap. xv. 1 [Rev. 15:1-8]---‘And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is completed the wrath of God,’ etc. "This vision opens, like the first [messages to the seven churches], second [the seven seals], and third [the seven trumpets], with a prologue or preamble. The scene is laid in heaven, where the Seer [John] beholds seven angels, charged with the infliction of seven plagues, which are called the last, as being the completion of the divine wrath upon the guilty nation [1st-century Israel]. The imagery in this introductory scene is conceived in a style of the loftiest sublimity. The seven ministers of vengeance receive from one of the living creatures or cherubim, seven golden vials [bowls] full of the wrath of God, and are commissioned to begin at once the execution of their mission, which is, to pour out their vials on the land ([Greek:] ten gen). ...

"...The last of the seven vials represents Babylon the great as coming in remembrance before God; yet in the catastrophe of the vision her judgment is suspended, because it is to form the material of a separate vision, viz. [that is] the sixth [the vision of the Harlot City]. "It will now be proper to pass in brief review the successive vials of the seven angels.

"The first four vials (chap. xvi. 2-9 [Rev. 16:2-9]), like the first four trumpets, affect the natural world,---the earth or land, the sea, the rivers, the sun. These are all smitten with distemper and plague,---the frame of nature is out of joint, and the inanimate creation sickens and groans on account of the wickedness of men. [Compare Luke 21:25-26] ...If the testimony of [the 1st-century Jewish-Roman historian] Josephus is to be relied on, the destruction of Jerusalem was preceded by portents of the most alarming kind. It is to be observed that the area affected by these plagues is ‘the land,’ that is Judea, the scene of the tragedy. The local and national character of the transactions represented in the vision is distinctly brought out in ver. 6 [of Rev. 16]. When the third angel turns the rivers into blood, the angel of the waters is heard acknowledging the retributive justice of this plague,---‘For they shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou has given them blood to drink; they are worthy [Rev. 16:6].’ This ‘killing of the prophets’ was the very sin of Israel, and of Jerusalem, nor is there any other city or nation against which this particular crime can be alleged as its peculiar characteristic. This impeachment decisively fixes the allusion in the vision to the Jewish people [of the 1st century], and to that fateful period in their history [namely, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in A.D. 70] when it might truly be said that their rivers ran with blood. "The fifth vial (chap. xvi. 10, 11 [Rev. 16:10-11]) corresponds with the fifth trumpet. It is poured out on the seat or throne of the beast, which seems to be identical with ‘the abyss’ of the trumpet vision. The abyss is the region from which the beast is said to ascend (chap. xi. 7 [Rev. 11:7]); and that this was the name given to the abode of evil spirits appears from the fact that the demons cast out of the possessed Gadarene besought Jesus ‘that he would not command them to go away into the abyss’ (Luke viii. 31 [Luke 8:31]). The seat of the beast, therefore, is the same as the abyss,---the kingdom of the power of darkness. ... "The sixth vial, like the sixth trumpet, takes effect upon the great river Euphrates (ver. 12 [Rev. 16:12]), the water of which is dried up, that ‘the way of the kings of the east may be prepared.’ ...Translated into historical terms this symbol represents the mobilising of the forces of the Empire and of the kings of the neighbouring nations for the Jewish[-Roman] war. The drying up of the Euphrates seems plainly to signify its being crossed with ease and speed; and this...points to the drawing of troops from that quarter for the invasion of Judea. This we know to be a historical fact. Not only Roman legions from the frontier of the Euphrates, but auxiliary kings whose dominions lay in that region, such as Antiochus of Commagene and Sohemus of Sophene, most properly designated ‘kings from the east,’ followed the eagles of Rome to the siege of Jerusalem. The name given to the approaching conflict decisively determines the event to which reference is made:---it is ‘the battle,’ or ‘war of that great day of God Almighty’ [Rev. 16:14]---an expression equivalent to ‘the great and terrible day of the Lord’ [Joel 2:11, 2:31]. That this day was now at hand is plainly intimated by the warning in ver. 15 [Rev. 16:15], ‘Behold, I come as a thief.’ The scene of the conflict also, ‘Armageddon,’ [Rev. 16:16]---a name that is associated with one of the darkest and most disastrous days in the history of Israel, the field of Megiddo, the emblem of defeat and slaughter [Zech. 12:11], lies in Jewish territory. That name of evil omen was meet [fitting] to be the type of that final field of blood on which Israel as a nation was doomed to perish [in A.D. 70]. "The seventh vial, like the seventh trumpet, brings the catastrophe of the vision, accompanied by the same portents of ‘voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake, and great hail [Rev. 16:18-21].’ A voice from the temple, a voice from the throne itself, proclaims the consummation, ‘It is done! Gegonen! [Greek: "It has come to be!"] Actum est! All is over!’ That is to say, the catastrophe of the vision, and that which it symbolises, is come; for it will be observed that every catastrophe lands us in virtually the same conclusion. An earthquake of unparalleled violence shatters ‘the cities of the nations’ and divides ‘the great city’ itself, the city which is pre-eminently the theme of these visions, into three parts [Rev. 16:19]. ‘Babylon the great’ (which is clearly meant to be the name of the city just referred to) ‘was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath [Rev. 16:19];’ her sins cry for vengeance, and now her judgment is come, and the wine-cup of the fierce wrath of God is filled for her to drink. "That all this refers indubitably and exclusively to Jerusalem is surely self-evident, and it is capable of the clearest demonstration as the sequel [sixth vision] will show."