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Read the Bible
Biblia Karoli Gaspar
Jelenések 9:2
Bible Study Resources
Concordances:
- Nave'sDictionaries:
- BakerEncyclopedias:
- InternationalBible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
there: Revelation 9:17, Revelation 14:11, Genesis 15:17, Genesis 19:28, Isaiah 14:31, Joel 2:30, Acts 2:19
and the sun: Revelation 8:12, Exodus 10:21-23, Joel 2:2, Joel 2:10
Reciprocal: Genesis 1:14 - and let Psalms 78:46 - gave also Jeremiah 46:23 - because Daniel 3:6 - a burning Matthew 27:45 - darkness Luke 8:31 - the deep 1 Timothy 4:1 - seducing Revelation 9:12 - woe Revelation 11:7 - out Revelation 16:8 - upon Revelation 16:10 - full Revelation 17:8 - beast that thou Revelation 20:1 - having
Gill's Notes on the Bible
And he opened the bottomless pit,.... With the key that was given him; he made use of his universal power over all bishops and churches, enacted laws, issued out decrees, made articles of faith, and imposed them on men's consciences, and obliged all to submit to his hellish principles and practices; and this, as it may be applied to Mahomet, the eastern antichrist, may regard the publishing of his Alcoran, and obliging all his followers to receive it as the infallible word of God:
and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; the Complutensian edition reads, "of a burning furnace"; and so the Syriac and Arabic versions; which may design false doctrine, and superstitious worship, which sprung from the decrees of popes and councils, and the Alcoran of Mahomet: and smoke being a dark thin vapour, and very troublesome to the eyes and nose, and of a perishing nature, which soon vanishes away, these are fitly expressed by it; for they are the hidden things of darkness, and the authors and abettors of them are such who darken counsel by words without knowledge; they are empty things, have no solidity and substance in them, are comparable to wood, hay, stubble, smoke, and wind; and are very troublesome and offensive to all enlightened persons, and who have the smell and savour of divine things; and will all perish with the using, being the doctrines and commandments of men, when the true Gospel is an everlasting one. Smoke sometimes designs great afflictions, punishments, and judgments upon men,
Genesis 15:17; and here may represent those judgments, both spiritual and temporal, which the antichristian doctrine and worship, brought upon the world, and which have been manifest in all ages since.
And the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit; Christ, the sun of righteousness, was greatly obscured by the Romish antichrist, by his false doctrine and worship, in his offices, merits, and grace, he taking upon him to be head of the church, the infallible interpreter of Scripture, and to give out pardons and indulgences; and particularly by the doctrines of merit, of works of supererogation, and of justification by works, c. as he also was by Mahomet, who represented him only as a mere man, and exalted himself above him as a prophet and by both were "the air", the church which receives its light from Christ, darkened; or the Scriptures, which are the breath of God, are given by inspiration of him, these were most grievously beclouded, and most wretchedly perverted, both by the decrees of popes, and the Alcoran of Mahomet. And it is remarkable what Abulpharagius b, an Arabic writer, reports, that in the seventeenth year of Heraclius the emperor, which was the year 627, and the fifth of the Hegira, in which year Mahomet began to plunder and make war; for in this year was his plundering excursion into Dumato'l Jundal, and the battle of Bani Lahyan, that half of the body of the sun was darkened; and the darkness remained from Tisrin the first, to the month Haziran, so that very little of its light appeared; which might portend that darkness he was introducing by his wretched religion. And frequently the sun and air have been darkened at noonday by the locusts, as Pliny c relates; and of which we have had a late account from Transylvania; see Exodus 8:15.
b Hist. Dynast. p. 99, 102. c Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 29.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
And he opened the bottomless pit - It is represented before as wholly confined, so that not even the smoke or vapor could escape.
And there arose a smoke out of the pit - Compare Revelation 14:11. The meaning here is that the pit, as a place of punishment, or as the abode of the wicked, was filled with burning sulphur, and consequently that it emitted smoke and vapor as soon as opened. The common image of the place of punishment, in the Scriptures, is that of a “lake that burns with fire and brimstone.” Compare Revelation 14:10; Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:10; Revelation 21:8. See also Psalms 11:6; Isaiah 30:33; Ezekiel 38:22. It is not improbable that this image was taken from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 19:24. Such burning sulphur would produce, of course, a dense smoke or vapor; and the idea here is, that the pit had been closed, and that as soon as the door was opened a dense column escaped that darkened the heavens. The purpose of this is, probably, to indicate the origin of the plague that was about to come upon the world. It would be of such a character that it would appear as if it had been emitted from hell; as if the inmates of that dark world had broke loose upon the earth. Compare notes on Revelation 6:8.
As the smoke of a great furnace - So in Genesis 19:28, whence probably this image is taken: “And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the land of the plain, and beheld and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.”
And the sun and the air were darkened, ... - As will be the case when a smoke ascends from a furnace. The meaning here is, that an effect would be produced as if a dense and dark vapor should ascend from the under-world. We are not, of course, to understand this literally.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Revelation 9:2. He opened the bottomless pit — το φρεαρ της αβυσσου The pit of the bottomless deep. Some think the angel means Satan, and the bottomless pit hell. Some suppose Mohammed is meant; and Signior Pastorini professes to believe that Luther is intended!
There arose a smoke — False doctrine, obscuring the true light of heaven.