Revelation 8:8 Commentary and Bible Study

‘And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire’ – note those words: ‘as it were’; it wasn’t a great mountain burning with fire, but it was something indescribable which resembled it – ‘was cast into the sea.’ And the third part of the sea became blood’, and that’s based on a plague of Egypt. ‘And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.’ So you have got catastrophes brought about by God on the land, and catastrophes on the sea. Well that includes tsunamis and shipwrecks, and many floods are sea borne, and perhaps it includes journeys too, and international trade. From time-to-time God will cause these things to be blighted, and fortunes lost, confidence shattered, and great consternation. They are part of the warning judgements of God, that man isn’t all-powerful and autonomous, and able to do as he likes.We can imagine something like a great burning meteorite hurtling towards the earth and landing in the sea. It lands with tremendous force in the sea. Huge tidal waves spew up and travel across the ocean swamping numerous ships and coastal regions. The impact itself causes the death of vast numbers of sea creatures. This is a symbol which represents all such disasters involving the sea and oceans, which have turned them into human graveyards. Through storms and shipwrecks so many have perished. Perhaps also we should see ships as associated with human trade and understand that God strikes us in this way, to resist man’s attempts to enrich himself. But there is more here, for storms do not destroy the sea creatures themselves. This reminds us of the first of the Egyptian plagues in which the fish in the rivers which had been turned to blood, died. The book is not telling us that the miracles performed by Moses in Egypt are going to be repeated in the wider world, but it is making Egypt a type of all disasters sent by God which involve the seas. The sea creatures also die because the creation has to suffer on account of what man has done.