XV.
(1) And I saw another sign in (the) heaven. — The sign is, as we noticed before (Revelation 12:1), a token, not a mere empty wonder. This sign is called “great and marvellous;” it introduces a new set of scenes; the same characters will reappear, but we must start with fresh attention.
The seer sees seven angels (not “the seven angels;” it is perfectly needless to ask what angels, or to try and identify them with the trumpet angels) having seven plagues, the last, because in them is completed the wrath of God. The statement that these are the last plagues seems to show that the set of visions now commencing carry us down to the end of the age; there are no other plagues after these: they are the last plagues; the vials, like the seals and the trumpets, run up to the final consummation. They are plagues; the word carries us back to Egypt: on Egypt fell the ten plagues which showed forth God’s righteous power, and exposed the hollow pretensions of the magicians and their gods; the wild beast-power and the false prophet-power of that day was crippled and exposed. In like manner upon the wild beast-power of later ages the plagues of God fall. They are plagues, because they are sent forth, not like the trumpets to warn men to repent, but upon those who have obstinately refused to return; they are not goads to the wavering, but they are strokes upon the wilful and hardened; they are directed against those who are deliberately hostile.