Revelation 16:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And I heard a great voice out of the temple All things being prepared, the angels having received their instructions from the oracle, and the vials being filled with the wrath of God, by one of the four living creatures, (see on Revelation 15:7,) I heard the word of command given to the seven angels to pour out their vials in their order, the inhabitants of the earth being ripe for those judgments which the justice of God had appointed for their punishment. The epistles to the seven churches are divided into three and four; the seven seals, and so the trumpets and vials, into four and three. The trumpets gradually, and in a long tract of time, overthrow the kingdoms of the world; the vials destroy chiefly the beast and his followers, and that with a more swift and impetuous force. The four former affect the earth, the sea, the rivers, the sun: the rest fall elsewhere, and are much more terrible.