Revelation 16:12 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates Affected also by the sixth trumpet; and the water thereof was dried up And of all the rivers that flowed into it. The Turkish empire seems to be here intended, lying chiefly on this side the Euphrates. The Romish and Mohammedan affairs ran nearly parallel to each other for several ages. In the seventh age rose Mohammed himself, and a little before him Boniface III., with his universal bishopric. In the eleventh, both the Turks and Gregory VII. carried all before them. In the year 1300 Boniface appeared with his two swords at the newly-erected jubilee. In the self-same year arose the Ottoman Porte; yea, and on the same day. And here the vial poured out on the beast is immediately followed by that poured out on the Euphrates; that is, as appears, on the Mohammedan antichrist, as the former were on the Papacy. And as the sixth trumpet brought the Turks from beyond the Euphrates, from crossing which river they date their rise, this sixth vial dries up their waves, and exhausts their power, as the means and way to prepare and dispose the eastern kings and kingdoms to renounce their heathenish and Mohammedan errors, in order to their receiving and embracing Christianity. To nearly the same purpose Mr. Faber interprets the effects of this vial. “Under the sixth trumpet,” says he, “the four Turkish sultanies, the mystic waters of the Ottoman empire, issued from the river Euphrates: under the sixth vial the waters of the same Euphrates are to be dried up. We cannot, therefore, reasonably doubt that the symbolical Euphrates means, in both cases, the same power. Rivers typify nations; and when a particular river is specified, the nation immediately connected with that river is obviously intended. Such being the case, as the issuing forth of the four sultanies, those mystic waters of the Euphrates, which deluged the eastern empire, denotes the rise of the Turkish power, so the drying up of those waters must evidently denote its subversion.” As a prelude to this, if we advert to the present state of the Turkish power we shall be convinced that, for several years, it has gradually been upon the decline; and the approaching termination of the Ottoman empire is so manifest, that even those whose attention is solely directed to politics, are sufficiently aware that the time of its extinction cannot be far distant. Of late it has been preserved rather by the jealousy of the great European powers than by any physical strength of its own; and it doubtless will be preserved by the hand of Providence, until his own appointed season shall approach for preparing a way for the kings of the east, and for gathering together the kings of the Latin world to the battle of the great day of God Almighty By the kings of the east are probably meant the kings or kingdoms lying east from the Euphrates, namely, in Persia, India, and perhaps also China, for the conversion of whom to the Christian faith, it seems the removal of the Mohammedan empire will prepare the way. But though this seems probable, there can be no certainty of it; nor can the matters here predicted be more than the subjects of conjecture. Whoever these kings or kingdoms may be, they appear, Bishop Newton thinks, to threaten the ruin and destruction of the kingdom of the beast; and, therefore, the agents and emissaries of Popery, (Revelation 16:13-14,) of the dragon, the representative of the devil, and of the beast, the representative of the antichristian empire, and of the false prophet, the representative of the antichristian church, (that is, as some think, the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits,) as disagreeable, as loquacious, as sordid, as impudent as frogs, are employed to oppose them, and stir up the princes and potentates of their communion to make their united and last effort in a religious war. These three unclean spirits, it is said, are the spirits of devils working miracles Namely, pretended miracles, to impose upon the weak and credulous; which go forth to the kings of the earth Της οικουμενης ολης, of the whole Roman world, or empire, as the expression frequently means; to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. That is, they use all their evil arts and wicked policy to excite the princes and great men of the world to unite more firmly against all who aid and abet the cause of truth and righteousness, of God and religion.