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Echoes of Revelation
Revelation never quotes the Old Testament outright, yet no New Testament book refers to it more. See both texts side by side, why they don’t match, and what John does with them.
Revelation 16:10-11, darkness on the beast's kingdom
The fifth bowl brings Egypt's ninth plague, a darkness that could be felt, on the throne and kingdom of the beast.
Revelation 16:10-11, in every translation this tool compares.
A blackout across a whole city puts even the mayor's office in the dark. In Egypt, Moses stretched out his hand and a darkness came that could be felt, for three days. The fifth bowl is poured on the beast's throne, and his whole realm goes dark. People gnaw their tongues in pain and curse God. The plague that struck Pharaoh's land now strikes the beast's whole realm.
Darkness sent on a kingdom as a plague. The Greek of Exodus 10:22 says darkness (skotos) came on all the land of Egypt. Revelation 16:10 says the beast's kingdom was darkened (eskotomene). In both, the ruler of the land is the real target.
Exodus darkens Egypt for three days; John darkens the beast's kingdom with no time given. John adds pain: people gnaw their tongues, then curse the God of heaven for their pains and sores. Exodus says the darkness could be felt (10:21), which Keener and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible connect to the pain. The fourth trumpet (8:12) used the same plague on a third.
Beale reads the throne as the beast's power to rule anywhere, so the bowl strikes his whole system. He reads the darkness as the anguish of people who sense they are cut off from God, an early taste of the outer darkness Jesus warned of. Like Pharaoh, they still do not repent.
Not a quotation of Exodus. John keeps the plague of darkness, drops the three days, and adds people gnawing their tongues in pain.
Beale says this woe, like the fourth trumpet, is based on Exodus 10:22, a plague partly aimed at the sun god Ra, of whom Pharaoh was thought an incarnation. He identifies the beast's throne with Satan's throne in 2:13. Wisdom 17 reads Egypt's darkness as a picture of separation from God and of the darkness of hell, and Beale follows that line: the pain stands for the horror of knowing one is cut off from God, a precursor of the outer darkness of Matthew 8:12; 22:13; 25:30. Jewish writings applied the plague of darkness to Rome (Midrash Rabbah on Leviticus 6.6; Pesikta Rabbati 17.8). Beale also cites Isaiah 8:21-22 and Jeremiah 13:16, where darkness and anguish fall on idolaters. Keener calls it the ninth plague. The ESV Study Bible, the CSB Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible cite Exodus 10:21-23, the last adding the darkness that marks the Lord's day in Joel 2:1-2 and Amos 5:20. The grade is drawn here: the plague is plainly Egypt's ninth.
Heiser follows Beale: the throne stands for the beast's rule over his whole realm, so the bowl cripples his power everywhere. He links it to the ninth plague (Exodus 10:21-29), to the fourth trumpet, and to the darkening on the day of the Lord in Aune's list (Isaiah 13:10; Joel 2:10; Amos 8:9). He finds Beale's reading of the pain as spiritual anguish, a foretaste of outer darkness, reasonable.
The sources differ on the pain. Beale reads it as the anguish of separation from God. The CSB Study Bible suggests cold, the earlier sores, the burns of the fourth bowl, or all three. Aune, as Heiser reports, notes the problem without solving it. MacArthur reads the throne as the Antichrist's own throne or capital, with real darkness spreading from it over his whole kingdom, and the gnawing of tongues as a vain attempt to ease the pain of sores, drought and heat.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 16:10 and 16:11
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 16:10-11
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 16:10
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 16:10-11
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 16:10-11
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 16:10
- Septuagint, Exodus 10:21-22, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 16:10
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 15-16: The Seven Angels, Seven Plagues, Seven Bowls of God's Wrath, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 16:10
