The fifth angel emerges from the heavenly temple, also with a sickle.
The sixth angel tells the fifth angel, loudly, to gather the clusters of grapes
from the earth, because they are ripe, to throw them into the wine press of
God's wrath. The power of the sixth angel over fire seems out of context here,
as his role is simply to tell the fifth angel that it was time to harvest.
Perhaps this is to identify this angel and to foreshadow what is to come. (Rev.
16:8-9) The fifth angel responds by swinging his sickle. Verse 19 follows closely
on the heels of verse 16 in which the Son of Man reaps the earth. What do we
make of this?
The
most likely explanation is that the reaping of verse 16 is the gathering of the
good fruit, and the sickle in verse 19 is to cut the weedlike vines from the
earth and throw them away. Except that they are thrown into the wine press of
God's wrath. This can be compared to the parable of Jesus of the tares sown
among the wheat. (Matthew 13: 24-30) In
that parable the wise landowner tells the slaves to let them grow together
until harvest and the gather up the tares to burn them and gather the wheat
into his barn. In this case the tares are compared to grapevines that will,
when pressed with God's wrath, yield blood.
The
wine press of God's wrath produces so much blood that it is several feet deep over a
distance of a few hundred miles. It calls to mind the Nile turning into blood
at Moses' words (Exodus 7:20). Lev 7:11-14 and Deut 12:23 identify that life is
in the blood, so the Israelites are forbidden to eat it. Jesus said that
whoever drinks His blood has eternal life. (John 6:53-54) The epistle to the
Hebrews (9:11-28) makes it clear that the blood of Jesus did away with the need
for the blood of animals. But this is not blood relating to atonement and redemption.
This blood (Rev. 14:20) demonstrates the punishment for rebellion against God
in earthly terms. Punishment in eternal terms will come in Rev. 20:15.
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