Revelation 9
Things get gruesome and scary. Is it time to think global in my trilogy novels?
I’m writing The Q’Zam’Ta Trilogy in first person at an individual level. But as I verbalized the imagery of Revelation, chapter 9 on a recent walk, I realized that this book is for individuals written on a global level from a cosmological perspective.
The four horse riders represent:
countries conquering peoples;
leaders and individuals waging global and individual wars, shattering peace wherever they live and go;
economies at multinational scales that affect individuals;
and death ranging from the widespread to one ordinary person.
Chapter 8 with its prayers and God’s response, its mountain falling into the sea, and a third of land, sun, and sea destructed — works at the community, planet, and universe levels.
Note: I’m following N.T. Wright’s Revelation: 22 Studies for Individuals and Groups and his newest book 20th Anniversary Edition with Study Guide, Revelation for Everyone. See my post Prepare for Revelation for suggested materials.
The Three Woes Start
And now in chapter 9 we begin the three woes. Locusts from the bowels of the earth torture masses. Plagues kill a third of humanity. These are population-level woes.
Although the Bible and near-death/terminal lucidity experiences hint of individuals being resurrected before the general Resurrection, the Resurrection expands from communities to the universe. The two witnesses mentioned later in chapter 11 are considered to represent the church. The very first messages in Revelation were to seven churches, communities of the early Christian sect. Not individuals.
Yet we live as individuals who cannot fathom how we can affect worldwide catastrophes. But if we consider how we’re supposed to be working hand in hand with God (according to the Gathas), how God works with human-made things (it’s a city that descends later in Revelation, not a garden — humans not God build cities), then should I add a worldwide persepective to the second novel in my trilogy? Does my novel-in-progress The Soul’s Reckoning require lifting one’s eyes from individual reconciliations to global ones?
“8 men are holding 8 billion people hostage.
I’d say 9, but one died and a group replaced him. The front man is not the power but the group.
So 8+1 theocracy holds 8 billion hostage. What makes that possible?”
I’m not a writer who writes big-world-scale stories. Yet John wrote Revelation to Christian communities being persecuted by their equivalent of a global empire (and others). We see today a global mental health catastrophe brought about by these eight men, by the wealthy and powerful protecting themselves while, for profit, gaslighting the masses to expose themselves to a deadly and disabling virus and to the climate crisis swallowing up whole island nations.
In chapter 9, the locusts that stream out of the abyss with human faces could represent the avaricious heart, the power-ravenous miens of autocratic men, the envy of neighbour to neighbour, the judgement of the healthy on the indigent poor — as well as the conquering hearts of militarily and economically strong countries towards weaker ones that harbour resources to be exploited on the cheap for the strong’s unimaginable profit.
N.T. Wright writes on page 63:
“[John] lavishes more detailed description on these super-locusts than on any other creature in this vivid book. So much so, in fact, that many modern readers, struck by the almost mechanical appearance of the creatures in verses 7-10, have tried to identify them as this or that kind of modern military machine….This seems a typical case of trying to tie down John’s symbolism….The point is the nightmare: all your worst dreams realized in an instant.”
Nightmare on Sheep Street
The first receivers of John’s vision were living in a nightmare. Persecution, being lilterally thrown to the lions, crucifixion, Rome’s propensity towards torture and gruesome killing. But today, we’re also living in a nightmare. We’re grazing like oblivious sheep,
as Putin wages war in country after country in an effort to own the world, risking famines and carving up peace and productivity;
willingly gaslit as COVID-19 soars the disability rate and literally reduces the intelligence of victims’ brains and reverses the strides made in lengthening lifespan and good health;
scared about climate change yet unwilling to give up ever-bigger vehicles consuming ever greater litres of gasoline and homes heated by fossil fuels while complaining about the decades-delayed increasing cost of ensuring the planet remains habitable for all of us, not just those with wealth.
The Plagues
Interestingly, the plagues in the second half of chapter 9 aren’t viruses and pathogens. They’re fire, smoke, and brimstone. Brimstone is sulphur. The horses’ mouths issued these plagues, but their tails — snakes with heads — also damaged their victims.
The four angels slayed a third of humanity in this way.
The fire, smoke, and brimstone traditionally represent divine punishment and purification. But they can also represent the weapons of war, of crime.
The snakes remind me of the serpent in Eden tempting Eve and Adam, of Adam not pushing back against the snake’s lies but docilely going along with them, of God’s edict that the snake would bite their ankles. What strikes me most is the human non-thinking complicity with evil in the way that Adam accepted the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.
As Wright said on page 67, and many others have as well, “You become like what you worship.”
“Repentance is more than just expressing regret for a few peccadilloes. It is a radical, heartfelt, gut-wrenching turning away from the idols which promise delight but provide death. God longs for that kind of repentance. He will do anything, it seems, to coax it out of his rebellious but still image-bearing creatures.”
Wright is saying that God releases evil from the human heart until it topples over from its own weight. I guess once toppled, people will wake up and rue the destruction…right?
Does Evil Lead to Repentance?
Except that after WWII, after people woke up and rued the planet-wide destruction that 6 years of world war had wrought and had instituted wiser treaties and humane policies, they saw once again the gleam of gold, of riches and control accrued into their own hands, and begat the cycle of the four horse riders and six trumpeting angels all over again. Everyone believed that wealth could be theirs and endorsed selfish greed instead of collective compassion, the kind that Stephen showed the Greek widows in concert with Jesus’s teachings. No matter how little money and power comes their way — since only a very very few, like 1 percent few — reap that money and power, most believe in it over sharing the wealth, even to the point of their own impoverishment or endless cycle of financial stress from believing they’re not rich enough to be safe.
So how do I represent this in The Soul’s Reckoning? Have I done so consciously or subconsciously and have forgotten (I tend to do that, forget that I’ve written important concepts)? Do I need to introduce worldwide perspectives or events? I’ll let my mind cogitate on this.
In the meantime, do you think that if literally a third of the population were to drop dead, if the sea swallowed up a third of the land, and if clouds from contrails and a warming planet dimmed a third of the sunlight — would all that cause 8 billion people to rise up against the 8 men and to repent of their own sheep complicity?