Revelation 9:10,11 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And their power was to hurt men five months,— See on Revelation 9:5. where it is said, as well as here, that they were to hurt and torment five months, in conformity, no doubt, to the type; for locusts are observed to live five months, that is, from April to September. But of those locusts, it is said, not that their duration or existence was only five months, but their power of hurting and tormenting men continued five months. Now these months may either be months commonly so taken, or prophetic months, consisting each of thirty days, as St. John reckons them, and so making one hundred and fifty years, at the rate of each day for a year; or, the number being repeated twice, the sums may be thought to be doubled; and five months and five months, in prophetic computation, will amount to three hundred years. If these months be taken for common months, then, as the natural locusts live and do hurt only in the five summer months, so the Saracens, in the five summer months too, made their excursions, and retreated again in the winter. It appears that this was their usual practice; and particularly when they first besieged Constantinople, in the time of Constantine Pogonatus. For from the Month ofApril to September they pertinaciouslycontinued the siege, then departed for the winter, and in spring renewed their attacks; and this course they held for seven years. If these months be taken for prophetic months, or one hundred and fifty years, it was within that space that the Saracens made their principal conquests. Their empire might subsist much longer; but their power of hurting and tormenting men was exerted chiefly within that period. Their greatest conquests were made between the year 612,—when Mohammed first opened the bottomless pit, and began publicly to teach and propagate his imposture,—and the year 762, when the caliph Almansor built Bagdad, and called it the city of peace. Syria, Persia, India, the greatest part of Africa, Spain and some other parts of Europe, were subdued in the intermediate time. But when the caliphs fixed their seat at Bagdad, then the Saracens ceased from their excursions and ravages like locusts, and became a settled nation; their power and glory began to decline, and their empire to moulder away: then they had no longer, like the prophetic locusts, one king over them, Spain having revolted in the year 756, and set up another caliph, in opposition to the house of Abbas. If these months be taken doubly, or for three hundred years, then the whole time that the caliphs of the Saracens reigned with a temporal dominion at Damascus and Bagdad together, was three hundred years, viz. from the year 637 to the year 936 inclusive, when their empire was broken into several principalities or kingdoms. So that, let these five months be taken in any possible construction, the event will still answer, and the prophesy will still be fulfilled; though the second method of interpretation and application appears much more probable than either the first or the third. It is added, that they had a king (Revelation 9:11.). The same person should exercise temporal as well as spiritual sovereignty over them; and the caliphs were their emperors, as well as the heads of their religion. The king is the same as the star, or angel of the bottomless pit, Revelation 9:1. whose name is Abaddon in Hebrew, and Apollyon in Greek, that is, the destroyer. It has been thought, that this has some allusion to the name of Obodas, the common name of the kings of that part of Arabia whence Mohammed came; as Pharaoh was the common nameof the kings of Egypt; and such allusions are not unusual in the style of scripture. However that be, the name agrees perfectly well with Mohammed and the caliphs his successors, who were the authors of all those horrid wars and desolations, and openly taught and professed that their religion was to be propagated and established by the sword.