(Rev. 7:5-8). All the tribes of Israel are enumerated, this is a solemn enumeration as a sign that the twelve chosen inheritances, twelve thousand in each, are one hundred and forty-four thousand. The tribe of Dan is not mentioned here, some think that it had disappeared from the record by that time. There is even an opinion, though not confirmed by anything, that the Antichrist would come from the tribe of Dan, so there was not a single person from this tribe who would remain faithful to God and follow Christ. In fact, during the first centuries of the church, there were almost no people left from the tribe of Naphtali and Asher, who disappeared many centuries ago in Assyrian captivity. In fact, the descendants of the tribes of Judah, Levi, Benjamin, Simon, and their remnants remained in Palestine and in the diaspora, and all the other tribes disappeared, so that the enumeration is purely symbolic. This means that in the church of the Old Testament there is a small remnant, the core of the church of the New Testament. But the movement of the kingdom of Christ throughout the world is not limited to this small number, this remnant.

The next picture takes us into a broader perspective (Rev. 7:9-17). Here we are talking about the universal Church, about people who cannot be counted, from all tribes and peoples. They walk in white robes with palm branches in their hands. Feast garments and palm branches are attributes of the Feast of Tabernacles, and in the second part of the book of the prophet Zechariah, it is the Feast of Tabernacles that is associated with the era of the coming of the Messiah, so that these people with palm branches celebrate a new eschatological Feast of Tabernacles, a feast associated with the Exodus from Egypt, with liberation from slavery, just like the Feast of the Passover. The Old Testament Temple may have been destroyed (it probably no longer existed at that time), but John the seer tells us that the Temple exists, that it is a heavenly Temple, and that all who have washed their garments with the blood of the Lamb, that is, who have received baptism and the redemptive power of Christ's sufferings, will serve Him who sits in the Temple day and night. This Temple is already a heavenly Temple, a universal Temple, a universal Church. And then the author quotes literally the words of the prophet Isaiah: "They will hunger no more, nor thirst, and the sun will not burn them, nor any heat." "The Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will feed them and lead them to living fountains of waters" is a quote from the prophet Isaiah, that is, everything here is said in the words of the Old Testament seers. In other words, the universal Church will celebrate the liberation of the world from the power of darkness and evil, and God will be with her until the complete destruction of all darkness. No evil will touch them, because the Lord will be with them, and the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will be their Comforter and only Shepherd.

8

1 And when he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven, as it were for half an hour. 2 And I saw seven angels standing before God; and seven trumpets were given to them. 3 And another angel came, and stood before the altar, holding a golden censer; And a great quantity of incense was given to him, that with the prayers of all the saints he might lay it on the golden altar which is before the throne. 4 And the smoke of incense went up with the prayers of the saints by the hand of an angel before God. 5 And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the ground: and there came voices, and thunders, and lightnings, and an earthquake.

6 And the seven angels, having seven trumpets, prepared to blow.

7 And the first angel sounded, and hail and fire were made, mingled with blood, and fell to the earth; and a third part of the trees was burned, and all the green grass was burned.

8 The second angel sounded, and it was as a great mountain burning with fire that was cast down into the sea; and a third part of the sea became blood, 9 and a third part of the living creatures that dwell in the sea died, and a third part of the ships perished.

10 And the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a lampstand, and fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters. 11 The name of this star is wormwood; and a third part of the waters became wormwood, and many of the people died because they became bitter.

12 And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars, were smitten, so that the third part of them was darkened, and the third part of the day was not bright, as was the night. 13 And I saw and heard one angel flying in the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, 'Woe, woe, woe to them that dwell on the earth, because of the rest of the trumpet voices of the three angels who shall sound!'

Comment

Open. 8, 1–6. The seventh seal signifies the beginning of the calamities, the beginning of the seven trumpets, which are essentially an expanded reproduction of the ancient seven plagues of Egypt. The seven angels are the same angels mentioned in the book of Tobit, signifying, as it were, the Lord's retinue in heaven, and at the same time the same seven angels who appear at the beginning of the Apocalypse.

There is silence in the sky, this silence is a sign of an approaching thunderstorm. The seer of Patmos, when he was on the rocks of this island, was probably able to observe more than once how the sea calmed down, how the air became as it were heavy and motionless, and all the inhabitants of the Mediterranean knew that this calm always happens before a storm. And besides, it reminds us of the silence in which the Lord came, as He appeared to Elijah the prophet after thunders and lightnings. God draws near, judgment goes before Him, trumpets go before Him, as heralds go before a king, trumpets that sounded at Sinai. And incense before the Lord is no longer bodily incense, but the prayer of the saints, which rises to heaven and has some effect on the world. (We always know this, it is not for nothing that they speak of the three righteous men). And so, the caddle with fire, and all this fell to the ground, and voices, and thunder, and lightning, and an earthquake — the moment comes when God's truth meets human untruth. Seven plagues, seven trumpets.

Open. 8, 6–13. As I have already said, these terrible signs, these terrible events that follow the sound of the trumpets, are depicted by John in the colors of the ancient legend of the plagues of Egypt. The plagues of Egypt are a picture of evil sown by man and again falling on man as retribution. The Egyptians deified the air, the earth, the animals, and all these elements that they worshiped themselves turn against them. Darkness is gathering over Egypt, and insects, and hail mixed with fire and blood, that is, all the elements seem to turn against man, because man has deified them. Everything that is said here about the disasters associated with the first trumpet is directly taken from the book of Exodus, which speaks of this hail, the destruction of trees, the death of animals, etc. And the meaning is the same: mankind sows evil and reaps it. This evil that people have created comes upon them as retribution. But in this, in this tragedy, demonic forces are involved. The image of a large mountain blazing with fire is interpreted by some historians as an image inspired by the geological catastrophes that shook the Mediterranean world at that time: volcanoes erupted, entire islands collapsed. In many places, and not far from Patmos, one could see volcanic debris, even fire.

But such an interpretation does not make much sense, we need to look at the system of symbols that was characteristic of the literature of that time. "The mountain blazing with fire" is the image of an angel, very often repeated in the Book of Enoch, written a century and a half before the birth of Christ and full of bright, frightening cosmic symbols. The Book of Enoch attempts, like the Book of the Apostle John, to tell about the drama of the struggle of demonic forces against the truth of God. And so, the angels and, in particular, the fallen angels are depicted there in the form of flaming mountains and gigantic fiery masses, luminaries in the sky, stars. The fallen stars descending into the bowels are a symbol of some demonic spiritual being, well, let's say that Satan is spoken of here again. The fall of Satan in the cosmic battle is depicted in the Gospel in the same colors. "I saw Satan fall like lightning to the earth," says Christ. The unleashing of satanic forces on earth leads to the fact that the calamities, these new plagues of Egypt, in this case the plagues are already world-wide, continue to intensify.