The Seven Bowls

This note is interpretation, not translation. It sets out what the seven bowls of chapters 15 and 16 are, what each one does, where the pictures come from, and what the text leaves open.

What they are. John calls them the end of something: “seven messengers with seven plagues — the last ones, because with them God’s anger is finished” (15:1). The temple of the tent of testimony in the sky is opened, the messengers come out of it, and “one of the four living creatures gave the seven messengers seven gold bowls full of the anger of the God who lives into the ages” (15:5–7). Then “the temple was filled with smoke from God’s glory and from his power, and nobody could go into the temple until the seven plagues of the seven messengers were finished” (15:8). That is the picture of the tabernacle and the temple on the days they were filled: “Moses could not enter the tent of meeting, because the cloud settled on it and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:35), and the priests “could not stand to minister because of the cloud” (1 Kings 8:11); Isaiah’s temple “was filled with smoke” (Isaiah 6:4). Then the order: “Go and pour out the seven bowls of God’s anger onto the earth” (16:1).

The song before them. Before a single bowl is poured, those who came through their struggle with the animal stand on a sea of glass and sing “the song of Moses, God’s servant, and the song of the Lamb: Great and astonishing are the things you have done, Lord God, Ruler over everything. Right and true are your ways, King of the nations. Who will not fear you, Lord, and give glory to your name? … Because all the nations will come and bow in front of you” (15:2–4). Moses sang his song on the far side of the sea, after the plagues of Egypt (Exodus 15). Here the song comes first, and it hopes for the nations.

The seven, one by one.
The first, onto the earth: “a foul and painful sore broke out on the people who had the stamp of the animal and bowed to its image” (16:2).
The second, into the sea: “it turned to blood like a dead man’s blood, and every living thing in the sea died” (16:3).
The third, into the rivers and springs: “they turned to blood” (16:4), and the messenger of the waters says, “You are just … because they poured out the blood of God’s people and of the prophets, and you have given them blood to drink” (16:5–6).
The fourth, onto the sun: “it was allowed to scorch people with fire … and they did not change their minds and give him glory” (16:8–9).
The fifth, onto the throne of the animal: “its kingdom went dark, and people chewed their tongues in pain … and they did not change their minds about what they had done” (16:10–11).
The sixth, onto the Euphrates: “its water dried up, so that the road could be made ready for the kings from where the sun rises” (16:12); three unclean spirits like frogs, from the mouths of the dragon, the animal and the false prophet, gather the kings of the whole world “for the battle of the great day of God” at Har-Magedon (16:13–16).
The seventh, into the air: “It is done” (16:17); lightning, voices, thunder and the greatest earthquake there has ever been; the great city split in three, Babylon given the cup, every island fled, and hail the weight of a talent (16:18–21).

Egypt again. Every bowl but the fourth draws on the plagues of Egypt: the sores (Exodus 9:9–11), water turned to blood, twice, in the sea and in the rivers (7:20–21), the darkness (10:21–23), the frogs (8:6; 8:2 in the Hebrew) and the hail (9:23–24). Only the scorching sun has no plague in Exodus. The purpose of those plagues is stated there: “the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand over Egypt and bring the children of Israel out from among them” (Exodus 7:5). And they were aimed: “on that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, where my people live, so that no swarms will be there” (8:22; 8:18 in the Hebrew); “only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no hail” (9:26); in the darkness “all the children of Israel had light in their homes” (10:23). The first bowl is aimed the same way, at “the people who had the stamp of the animal” (16:2). The trumpets already replay the plagues (marked at 8:7); the bowls do it again, and then end.

Called just. Twice in the middle of the bowls a voice says that they are deserved. The messenger of the waters: “You are just … they poured out the blood of God’s people and of the prophets, and you have given them blood to drink” (16:5–6), with Isaiah’s “they will drink their own blood” marked there; and the altar: “Yes, Lord God, Ruler over everything: your judgments are true and just” (16:7). The song before them said the same: “Right and true are your ways” (15:3).

The call inside them. Even under the bowls the book keeps saying who did not turn: “they did not change their minds and give him glory” (16:9); “they did not change their minds about what they had done” (16:11); and at the end “people insulted God because of the plague of the hail” (16:21). It is only said where turning was open. And between the sixth bowl and the seventh, Jesus breaks in: “Look — I am coming like a thief. Happy is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes on” (16:15). The invitation is still being made in the middle of the last plagues.

The trumpets and the bowls, side by side. The two series strike the same seven places in the same order, and the pairing is the kind of thing a reader can check line by line.
First: the trumpet falls on the earth, hail and fire, a third of the earth burned (8:7); the bowl onto the earth, sores on those with the stamp (16:2).
Second: into the sea, a third becomes blood and a third of its creatures die (8:8–9); into the sea, it becomes blood and everything in it dies (16:3).
Third: on the rivers and springs, a third turned bitter (8:10–11); into the rivers and springs, they turn to blood (16:4).
Fourth: the sun, moon and stars, a third darkened (8:12); onto the sun, it scorches people with fire (16:8–9).
Fifth: the shaft of the bottomless place opened, the sun darkened by its smoke, locusts that torment (9:1–6); onto the throne of the animal, its kingdom goes dark, people chew their tongues in pain (16:10–11).
Sixth: the four messengers at the Euphrates released (9:14); onto the Euphrates, it dries up for the kings from the east (16:12).
Seventh: lightning, voices, thunder, an earthquake and heavy hail (11:19); lightning, voices, thunder, the greatest earthquake there has been, and hail the weight of a talent (16:18–21).

Three things differ, and they are the point of the pairing. First, the reach: every trumpet says “a third” (fifteen times between 8:7 and 9:18), and no bowl does; under the bowls the sea is blood entire and “every living thing in the sea died”. Second, the room to turn: after the sixth trumpet the book says “the rest of humanity … still did not change their minds” (9:20–21), and under the bowls it says it twice more, with people insulting God instead (16:9, 16:11, 16:21). Third, only the bowls end: the seventh trumpet brings the kingdom and the opened temple (11:15–19), and the seventh bowl brings “It is done” (16:17), the series of which 15:1 says “with them God’s anger is finished”. Behind both runs the same set of plagues, Egypt’s, which also came in a run and ended at the sea. The shape of the two sevens differs as well: the seals and the trumpets each pause between the sixth and the seventh (chapter 7; chapters 10–11), and the bowls run straight through, with one verse of warning between the sixth and the seventh (16:15). Whether the bowls follow the trumpets in time, or tell the same end again more fully, the text does not say. The reading on the trumpets sets out that series on its own.

“It is done.” The bowls are where “God’s anger is finished” (15:1), and the verb there, etelesthē, is the verb Jesus spoke from the cross: “It is finished” (tetelestai, John 19:30). John does not join the two; the same verb is there for the reader. At the seventh bowl the voice from the throne says “It is done” (gegonen, 16:17), and the book uses the same word once more, for the opposite: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the one who is thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life, free of charge” (21:6). The first “It is done” closes the anger; the second opens the new creation, and what it gives is still free.

Where the text leaves it open. The text does not say whether the bowls are to be read as literal events or as pictures in the way the plagues of Egypt are pictured, whether they come after the trumpets in time or tell the same end again more fully, or when they fall. Readers differ on all three, and this note decides none of them. What the text does say is what they are poured on, who they are aimed at, that they are called just, that the call to change one’s mind is still being made while they fall, and that with them the anger is finished. The Trumpets reading sets out, under “What a reader in the first century could have seen”, the events of Nero’s years and of the war of 66–70 that some readers match to the third, fifth and seventh bowls, as readings held and not as claims made, with where that reading stops and what the scriptures say about judgments that repeat.