Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Revelation · About this commentary
The Great Day of Their Wrath
Revelation 6:12-17
12 I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood. · WEB
The sixth seal breaks into the signs of the end, the whole social order hides in the rocks, and the seal closes on an unanswered question.
I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood. The stars of the sky fell to the earth, like a fig tree dropping its unripe figs when it is shaken by a great wind.
The sixth seal leaps to the threshold of the end, and its inventory is the prophets' assembled day-of-the-Lord imagery: the quake, the blackened sun and bloodied moon of Joel Joel 2:31, the falling stars and the sky removed like a scroll when it is rolled up of Isaiah Isaiah 34:4, every mountain and island moved. The seals have carried history from the gospel's riding to its terminus — and the terminus is described first not by what appears but by what dissolves: the fixed points, sky and mountain and island, the things mankind navigates by, all moved.
Then the sociology of the day, and the list is deliberately complete: the kings of the earth, the princes, the commanding officers, the rich, the strong, and every slave and free person, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains Revelation 6:15.
Seven classes — the book's number of totality — from Caesar to slave: the day levels every rank, and the powerful lead the flight. Their cry is Hosea's, prayed to geology: fall on us, and hide us Hosea 10:8 — mankind's last recorded prayer in the seal, addressed to rocks, preferring burial to sight. And what they hide from is the book's most arresting phrase: from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb Revelation 6:16.
The wrath of the Lamb — the book joins the two words no one joins. The slain one's wrath: not temper but the settled verdict of rejected mercy — the terror of the day is the face of the one who was pierced for the hiders, met at last by those who refused him. The mourning of the theme-verse arrives on schedule Revelation 1:7.
For the great day of his wrath has come, and who is able to stand? Revelation 6:17.
The seal ends on the question, unanswered — the fifth seal asked how long from under the altar; the sixth asks who can stand from inside the rocks. And the book's structure answers before the seventh seal opens: the entire next chapter exists to show exactly who stands — sealed, robed, and before the throne Revelation 7:3 Revelation 7:9.
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