the first trumpet

**shootingdead** · Jul 11th 2010, 01:34 PM

Revelation 8:7The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.

hail and fire mixed with blood poured out in huge quantities to cause such damage. for a start hail, fire and blood is unusual. and if it happen literally Christians and non-Christians would know straight away that it was a direct fullfillment of this verse.

how would all the green grass be burned up but only a third of the trees? wouldn't a lot of humans and animals be killed and injured at the same time?

this makes me think it is likely to be figurative language. i was wondering if hail and fire might be warefare i.e. hail of bullets and gunfire. there wouldn't have been words for these things.

please can i ask what people's thoughts are?

just to add i think the only way this could be literal is if it is a time when it is too late i.e. where the unbelievers are unable to become believers.

***Beckrl*** · Jul 11th 2010, 04:21 PM

I believe we can find this reference to Israel's disobedience from the promised cursings.
Leviticus 26:14-39. especially 18.

"And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins."

Also Deuteronomy 28:15-68.

**shootingdead** · Jul 11th 2010, 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by Beckrl

I believe we can find this reference to Israel's disobedience from the promised cursings.
Leviticus 26:14-39. especially 18.

"And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins."

Also Deuteronomy 28:15-68.

and also perhaps Psalm 79:12

12 Pay back into the laps of our neighbors seven times
the reproach they have hurled at you, O Lord.

**hisvessel1** · Jul 16th 2010, 07:41 PM

1. It hasn't happened yet.
2. When the first trumpet sounds, there will be literal fire and hail.
3. God doesn't lie.

***markedward*** · Jul 16th 2010, 08:48 PM

1. And............ instead of simply claiming something... what's your Scriptural reasoning for why "it hasn't happened yet"?
2. Again, Scriptural reasoning? The Revelation is a highly symbolic book, so a case could be made for the symbolic fulfillment of such a verse.
3. No one said he did, so don't trying suggesting as much.

***markedward*** · Jul 16th 2010, 08:55 PM

As we read through the book, we will notice that several of the judgments mimic after the plagues of Egypt. Once more, this helps to identify the target of John's prophecies. We've consistently seen John make references to apostate Old Covenant Israel, and these Exodus-style "plagues" follow suit. It was during the Exodus that God told the Israelites, if they ever rejected him and his Covenant:

Deuteronomy 28.27-29,60-62: The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed. The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind, and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind grope in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. And you shall be only oppressed and robbed continually, and there shall be no one to help you. [...] And he will bring upon you again all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. Every sickness also and every affliction that is not recorded in the book of this law, the LORD will bring upon you, until you are destroyed. Whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, you shall be left few in number, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God.

The first trumpet resembles the seventh plague of Egypt.

Exodus 9.22-26: Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand toward heaven, so that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt, on man and beast and every plant of the field, in the land of Egypt." Then Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth. And the LORD rained hail upon the land of Egypt. There was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very heavy hail, such as had never been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. The hail struck down everything that was in the field in all the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And the hail struck down every plant of the field and broke every tree of the field. Only in the land of Goshen, where the people of Israel were, was there no hail.

In Genesis, God brought about a great flood of water to punish mankind for its gross wickedness. However, following the flood God told Noah that "the waters shall never against become a flood to destroy all flesh". In other words, water was God's primary tool of punishment. But he vowed to not use it again in the destructive manner he did before. Following the flood, we consistently see that God turned from water to fire for his primary tool of punishment. God's fire manifests literally in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Damascus, Samaria, Jerusalem, etc., and his fire manifests symbolically in the destruction of God's other enemies as described in the Old Testament prophetic books. [Isaiah 1.31; 5.24; 9.19; 10.16-17; 26.11; 66.15-16; Jeremiah 4.4; 5.14; 11.16; 21.12; 48.45; Lamentations 1.13; 2.3-4; 4.11; Ezekiel 15.4-7; 19.12-14; 21.31; 28.18; 30.14; 38.22; Amos 1.4-2.5; 7.4; Obadiah 1.18; Micah 1.4; Nahum 1.6; 3.15; Zephaniah 1.18; 3.8; Zechariah 9.4; 11.1; Malachi 4.1-3]

Here John sees the fire of God's wrath fall down upon apostate Israel, describing in the same fantastic symbolism of the Old Testament prophets, and combined with imagery drawn from the seventh plague of Egypt.