Revelation 9:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven to the earth “Stars, in the language of prophecy,” says Lowman, “signify angels. The angels of the heavenly host, as well as the angels or bishops of the churches, (see Revelation 1:20; Revelation 8:10,) seem to be called stars in Scripture: as when, at the creation, the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy, Job 38:7. In like manner, when the abyss or bottomless pit is shut up, it is represented in this prophecy to be done by an angel coming down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit. These expressions are so nearly the same, as well as upon the same subject, that they may be well taken in the same sense, and so used to explain each other. The expression then, a star fallen from heaven, or an angel come down from heaven, with a key to open the bottomless pit, seems naturally to mean the permission of the Divine Providence for those evil and calamitous events, which are described to follow from opening the bottomless pit, which could not have happened but by the permission of the Divine Providence, and according to the wise and holy orders of the divine government; for the providence of God could as surely have prevented the temptations of Satan, and the powers of darkness, as if Satan and his angels had been fast locked up, and secured in safe prison; so that he sends an angel, his messenger, with the key of the bottomless pit, to open the prison and permit them to go out, to teach that they can only act so far as they have permission, and can always be restrained and shut up again, at the good pleasure of the supreme Governor of the world. The abyss, or bottomless pit, is explained in the prophecy itself to be the place where the devil and Satan are shut up, that they should not deceive the nations, Revelation 20:1-3. The abyss seems also to be used in the same sense when the devils besought Christ that he would not command them to go out into the deep, Greek, εις την αβυσσον, into the abyss, or bottomless pit. Grotius observes on Luke 8:31, that this abyss is the same with what St. Peter calls hell, or tartarus,” 2 Peter 2:4; where see the note. “Now this prison of Satan and of his angels, by the righteous judgment of God, is permitted to be opened for the just punishment of apostate churches, who would not repent of their evil works. We may then say with the bishop of Meaux, ‘Behold something more terrible than what we have hitherto seen! Hell opens, and the devil appears, followed by an army, of a stranger figure than any St. John has anywhere described.' And we may observe from others, that this great temptation of the faithful was to be with the united force of false doctrine and persecution. Hell does not open itself, (as the bishop observes,) it is always some false teacher that opens it.”