The Revelation of John II

6:1 Here we come to one of the most memorable sections of the book, and the one I least hope to be able to interpret.

6:2 It is worth mentioning how little the reality of John's vision overlaps with the popular memory of it.  The four horsemen are commonly thought of as Death, War, Plague, and Famine, but this first rider is none of those.

6:7 This verse doesn't even match up with my memory of it.  I had mistakenly remembered Death as the one who follows and swallows up the victims of the preceding four, but it is rather Hades; the grave.

6:8 That these four horsemen are summoned by the living creatures (seraphs?) themselves seems important.  They are not destructive forces against which the angels fight, but rather agents of the angels themselves.  And that first horse.  Freed from the interpretation of my youth, namely that this horseman was the enthroned Christ, I find myself gravitating tot he interpretation that it is rather government itself, the misbegotten instinct of mankind to rule and to conquer, in the wake of which comes war, famine, death, and the grave by turns.

6:9 This fifth seal does not summon anything at all.  It is not causative, if indeed the first four were.  Rather it is a revealing of knowledge to John.  The symbolism of a scroll being opened lends itself to an interpretation that these are not events being announced, but knowledge.

6:12 Although the events of the sixth seal seem to be more causative, there is nothing in the language to suggest that the opening of the seal is the catalyst for the celestial events that follow it.

7:1 Is this more information held beneath the sixth seal, or have we moved on?

7:2 A little research seems to be in order.  Is the word translated "seal" here the same as in ch. 6? It is indeed.
 
7:6 Not sure what to make of the fact that Manasseh has replaced Dan in the twelve tribes.

7:9 The relationship between these two groups, the 144,000 and the great multitude, is unclear here. The interpretation of my youth is hard to overlook here.

8:1 How is John able to judge time in the midst of this vision?

8:2 If the vision is to be taken as a prophecy, rather than an explanation, then both of the above groups are "before the throne" among the angels before the opening of the seventh seal.

8:13 This eagle is another character that I don't recall. Of what nation or ruler could it be a symbol? Or is it a seraph, turned so that John can only see one of its faces?

8:4 Insofar as those with the seal in 7:2 are still on the Earth, we may assume that either their presence before the throne earlier is metaphorical, or the events related here are non-linear. But the fact that the great multitude of 7:9 are either conflated with that group, or subject to the effects of the fifth trumpet is troubling.

9:11 Abaddon, one of the only angels named in the Bible, is described in 9:1 as a "star that had fallen from heaven to earth". Does this mark him as a fallen angel? Even though the description of that fall will take place later in the vision?

9:19 The escalation is clear. The locusts are tortuous, but not fatal. The lion headed cavalry, triply fatal.

10:4 But what is the third woe/seventh trumpet? Is this interlude for dramatic effect? What did the seven thunders say?

10:7 "The mystery of God will be fulfilled" is a fascinating turn of phrase. This seventh trumpet that we are anticipating is the culmination of every last thing the prophets have written, and the culmination of the divinity itself.