Revelation 8:4-6 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And the smoke of the incense ascended before God In an odoriferous cloud, with the prayers of the saints A testimony of God's gracious acceptance, both of the intercession of the great High-Priest, and of the prayers of his believing people, proceeding from devout hearts; and consequently of the continuance of his protection and blessing to his faithful worshippers. And when the angel had performed this office, in order to show the awful manner in which God would avenge the injury which his praying people upon earth had received from its tyrannical and oppressive powers, he took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar Not of the golden altar, upon which there was no fire, (except that which was in the censer, and which burned the incense,) but from the brazen altar of burnt-offerings; and cast it into the earth To denote the judgments about to be executed upon the earth, as in Eze 10:2 coals of fire are taken from between the cherubim and scattered over Jerusalem, to denote the judgments of God about to be executed upon that city; and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings Which seemed to break forth from the divine presence; and also an earthquake The violent shock of which seemed to shake the foundation of the world; the usual prophetic signs these, and preludes of great calamities and commotions upon the earth. See Revelation 16:19. Accordingly, this being mentioned here previous to the sounding of the trumpets, was intended to foretel that many calamities were approaching, which should afflict the world and the church, notwithstanding the seeming secure prosperity of both, after the Roman empire had become, in profession, Christian. And the seven angels prepared themselves to sound As the seals foretold the state and condition of the Roman empire before and till it became Christian, so the trumpets foreshow the fate and condition of it afterward. The sound of the trumpet, as Jeremiah says, Jeremiah 4:19, and as every one understands it, is the alarm of war; and the sounding of these trumpets is designed to rouse and excite the nations against the Roman empire, called the third part of the world, as perhaps including the third part of the world, and being seated principally in Europe, which was the third part of the world at that time.