The New Testament with Commentary Revelation 15

Here come the bowls!

1 And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous: seven angels having the seven last plagues—in them the fury of God is completed.*

The song of the victors

2 And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who prevailed over the Beast and over his image and over the number of his name, standing on the glassy sea, having harps of God.† 3 They sing the song of Moses, the slave of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying:

“Great and marvelous are Your works,

O Lord God, the Almighty!

Just and true are Your ways,

O King of the nations!‡

4 Who could not fear You, O Lord,

and glorify Your name?

Because You alone are holy;

because all the nations will come

and do obeisance before You,

because Your righteous judgments have been manifested.”

The angels are commissioned

5 After these things I looked, and the sanctuary of the tabernacle of the testimony in the heaven was opened. 6 And out from that heaven§ came the seven angels, the ones having the seven plagues; they were clothed in pure bright linen and were girded around the chests with golden belts.* 7 Then one of the four living beings gave the seven angels seven golden bowls filled with the fury of God, the One who lives forever and ever. 8 The sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power, and no one was able to go into the sanctuary until the seven angels' plagues were completed.

*15:1 I take it that this is a generic cover statement, referring to the detailed description that follows. I further take it that these ‘bowl’ plagues relate to the seventh trumpet (11:15) and make up the third ‘woe’ (11:14).

†15:2 These people were martyred by order of the Beast, so how did they ‘prevail’ over him? By refusing to bow to him they escaped from hell (14:11); they died physically but won spiritually (but see 12:11).

‡15:3 KJV and NKJV read ‘saints’ instead of “nations”, following the TR which is here based on only two very late manuscripts.

§15:6 The best line of transmission has “heaven”, all the rest having the expected ‘sanctuary’. At first glance the context seems to call for ‘sanctuary’; so much so that if ‘heaven’ were original some might have omitted while others made the obvious change—if ‘sanctuary’ were original, why would anyone omit or change? On the other hand, there are at least three heavens, 2 Corinthians 12:2, and they may have come out of the third, into the second. This is the only mention of the tabernacle of the testimony in Revelation, so the throne of God was not there and none of the action related by John up to this point took place there—there have been several references to the temple, with angels coming out of it, but I doubt that temple and tabernacle are to be equated.

*15:6 Just like the glorified Christ (1:13). Perhaps a belt around the chest was like ‘war paint’, part of getting ready to fight.