Revelation 16:12 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

The sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates, &c.— Whether by Euphrates be meant the river so called, or only a mystic Euphrates; and whether by the kings of the East be meant the Jews in particular, or any eastern potentates in general, can be matters only of conjecture, till the event shall make the determination. Whoever they be, they appear to threaten the ruin and destruction of the kingdom of the beast, and therefore of the agents or emissaries of Popery;—of the dragon, Revelation 16:13-14. the representative of the devil; and of the beast, the representative of the antichristian empire; and of the false prophet, the representative of the anti-christian church; as disagreeable, as loquacious, as sordid, as impudent as frogs. These are employed to oppose the kings of the East, and to stir up the princes and potentates of their own communion to make their united and last effort in a religious war. Of necessity these must be times of great trouble and affliction; so that an exhortation is inserted, Revelation 16:15. by way of parenthesis, of the suddenness of these judgments, and of the blessedness of watching, and of being clothed, and prepared for all events. This parenthesis has led our translators, as well as several others, to render the following words, Revelation 16:16. And HE gathered them together, when the true construction is, And THEY gathered them together; the evil spirits and agents before mentioned, gather all the forces of the Popish princes together, into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon, that is, the Mountain of Destruction. That Megiddo had been a place remarkable for slaughter, appears from Joshua 5:19. Exodus 9:27. 2 Chronicles 35:22. Zechariah 12:11. To express the certain destruction of the antichristian powers, they are described as brought together to this mounta.