Revelation Chapter 16
Verse 4: And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
Verse 5: And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and was, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
Verse 6: For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
The third plague was the third volume of the Studies in the Scriptures series, titled Thy Kingdom Come, written in 1890.
This volume traces, among other things, the prophetic and historical workings of Antichrist in shedding the blood of saints and prophets. Since the “rivers and fountains of waters” depict sources of water and not cisterns, lakes, or ocean beds, in which water is collected and stored, it should not, of necessity, be concluded that the third plague was specially directed against Jesuits, theological seminarians, preachers, or Sunday school teachers. All the plagues affect the same religious system as a whole. The various symbols are different ways of indicating the same basic lesson while avoiding unnecessary repetition. Due to a paucity of clues in the content or ingredients of each plague vial, only minimal information can be gleaned based upon the effects or language employed.
Usually wherever a river goes, verdure, vegetation, and life are associated with it—the river fructifies the land. The waters of the text being considered are meant to be thought of as a supply of flowing water for drinking (Verse 6). A spring is associated with life as Jesus, in a higher sense, informed the woman of Samaria (John 4:13, 14). The poet has aptly expressed:
Traverse the desert, and then you can tell
What treasures exist in the cold, deep well.
And then you may learn what water is worth.
The gnawing of hunger’s worm is past,
While fiery thirst lives on to the last.
The hot blood stands in each gloomy eye,
And “Water, O God” is the only cry.
Let heaven this one rich gift withhold,
How soon we find it better than gold.
In the second plague the contaminated sea was likened to the blood of a dead man, which soon after death separates into two component parts: the serum and the clot. The clot darkens and sends out a stench of stagnation and death.
In the third plague the situation appears to be a continuous flow of live blood with a sickeningly sweet stench. Instead of fresh flowing water, clear and refreshing to the taste, the supply is now red with blood and hence is repulsive and obnoxious—not fit for drinking, cooking, or laundering. This condition is reminiscent of how “all the water . . . in the Nile turned to blood . . . so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile” (Exod. 7:20, 21 RSV).
The “angel of the waters” (Verse 5) is heard to testify that the Eternal God has ever witnessed and been cognizant of—He has not forgotten—the misdeeds of centuries past. Furthermore, the angel or message declares it most fitting and worthy of God that He inflict retribution in part for the misdeeds of the present. The persecutors should be given blood to drink as retribution for the blood they shed of the saints in general and of the spokesmen or representatives of these holy ones.
Verse 7: And I heard another out of the altar say, even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
The Great Pyramid
The Sinaitic manuscript omits the phrase “another out of,” rendering the passage thus: “And I heard the altar saying, even so, Lord God Almighty…”
It is as though another voice immediately assents to the testimony of Verse 6.
A remarkable, additional confirmation of the same theme, although of a different nature, is contained in a separate section of the third volume, Thy Kingdom Come. Appended as Chapter 10, the section is entitled “The Corroborative Testimony of God’s Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt.” The altar that speaks in Verse 7 is neither the brazen altar in the Court nor the golden incense altar in the Holy of either the Tabernacle or the Temple ceremonial worship. This verse refers to the Great Pyramid:
“In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts [the “Lord God Almighty” in Verse 7] in the land of Egypt: for they [a type of the oppressed spiritual Israelite's] shall cry unto the Lord because of the oppressors” (Isa. 19:19, 20).
The teaching of the Great Pyramid, particularly the symbolism's of its lower passage system, is in full accord with the testimony of the third plague angel. The Great Pyramid is by no means an addition to the written revelation, for that revelation is complete and perfect and needs no addition. But it is a strong corroborative witness of God’s plan and is stated as such by the Prophet Isaiah. The context shows that in a prophetic sense it shall be a witness in the day when the great Savior and Deliverer comes to set at liberty sin’s captives.
On to the Forth Plague in our next post.
