The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star falling from the
sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. Revelation 9: 1
Few biblical commentators are qualified to discuss the meaning of these verses for few have undertaken to study the semiotic significance of the various stellar references in the Revelation of St. John the Seer. Few have given time to observe the movement of the stars and planets, or to consider the influence the motion of these heavenly bodies has upon the meaning and interpretation of scripture. It is s not enough to read the dry words upon the printed page, one must know the vector of the planets as they moved through the houses of the heavens as those words were first recorded.
And yet this ignorance has not prevented them from issuing the most trivial and irrelevant comments upon this chapter and many others like it.
In the beginning of his record of this Revelation, John told us that he was ‘in the spirit on the Lord’s Day.’ By this he does not merely mean that he was worshipping on the Sabbath, or that it was the Christian Sabbath, Sunday – though these statements are neither incorrect nor inconsequential. But John is telling us something more. The deeper meaning of that phrase is John’s grounding of the Revelation in astrological observation and it is this that should guide the careful commentator.
The ‘Lord’s Day’ is not just a generic notation of a day of the week –but a clue for the scholar and student. Here John is telling us that he is ‘in the spirit’ – that is, caught up into the houses of the heavens, and with the phrase ‘on the Lord’s Day’ he makes that reference more specific. The Lord is none other than Leo the Lion – for the Lord Jesus is the Lion of Judah. By this we can understand that John was writing sometime between July 23 and August 22.
Now, keeping this in mind, when we read that John saw a star falling from the sky, we can know with a fair degree of certainty which star he means. It is the star Regulus – which means “Little King” and is also called Qalb al-Asad in Arabic – meaning “the Heart of the Lion.” Ancient Persian astronomers (perhaps even those who came to visit the infant Jesus in Bethlehem) knew this star as “Magh” meaning “the Great.”
This reference to a falling star should not be dismissed, as it too commonly is by those ignorant and untrained commentators mentioned earlier, as an angel – though angels are most certainly at work here. When John says ‘star’ he does, in fact, mean a ‘star.’ And still others will scoff that stars (which are many times larger than the planet Earth) cannot literally fall to the Earth without completely enveloping and consuming it. These mockers are as thickheaded as those witless scholars who relegate it entirely to the sphere of angelic action. The Greek word here blandly rendered ‘star’ is aster and refers to all physical bodies in the heavens – stars, planets, and, obviously, asteroids.
The true impact of this verse is that an object from the region of Regulus in the constellation Leo (put into motion and guided by angelic forces, no doubt) will collide with the earth, breaking open the shaft the abyss. Those who because of their lack of understanding of these astrological forces cannot comprehend this should shut their mouths. The key in hand here is the power to crack open the surface of the earth and to open a gateway to hell.
Few biblical commentators are qualified to discuss the meaning of these verses for few have undertaken to study the semiotic significance of the various stellar references in the Revelation of St. John the Seer. Few have given time to observe the movement of the stars and planets, or to consider the influence the motion of these heavenly bodies has upon the meaning and interpretation of scripture. It is s not enough to read the dry words upon the printed page, one must know the vector of the planets as they moved through the houses of the heavens as those words were first recorded.
And yet this ignorance has not prevented them from issuing the most trivial and irrelevant comments upon this chapter and many others like it.
In the beginning of his record of this Revelation, John told us that he was ‘in the spirit on the Lord’s Day.’ By this he does not merely mean that he was worshipping on the Sabbath, or that it was the Christian Sabbath, Sunday – though these statements are neither incorrect nor inconsequential. But John is telling us something more. The deeper meaning of that phrase is John’s grounding of the Revelation in astrological observation and it is this that should guide the careful commentator.
The ‘Lord’s Day’ is not just a generic notation of a day of the week –but a clue for the scholar and student. Here John is telling us that he is ‘in the spirit’ – that is, caught up into the houses of the heavens, and with the phrase ‘on the Lord’s Day’ he makes that reference more specific. The Lord is none other than Leo the Lion – for the Lord Jesus is the Lion of Judah. By this we can understand that John was writing sometime between July 23 and August 22.
Now, keeping this in mind, when we read that John saw a star falling from the sky, we can know with a fair degree of certainty which star he means. It is the star Regulus – which means “Little King” and is also called Qalb al-Asad in Arabic – meaning “the Heart of the Lion.” Ancient Persian astronomers (perhaps even those who came to visit the infant Jesus in Bethlehem) knew this star as “Magh” meaning “the Great.”
This reference to a falling star should not be dismissed, as it too commonly is by those ignorant and untrained commentators mentioned earlier, as an angel – though angels are most certainly at work here. When John says ‘star’ he does, in fact, mean a ‘star.’ And still others will scoff that stars (which are many times larger than the planet Earth) cannot literally fall to the Earth without completely enveloping and consuming it. These mockers are as thickheaded as those witless scholars who relegate it entirely to the sphere of angelic action. The Greek word here blandly rendered ‘star’ is aster and refers to all physical bodies in the heavens – stars, planets, and, obviously, asteroids.
The true impact of this verse is that an object from the region of Regulus in the constellation Leo (put into motion and guided by angelic forces, no doubt) will collide with the earth, breaking open the shaft the abyss. Those who because of their lack of understanding of these astrological forces cannot comprehend this should shut their mouths. The key in hand here is the power to crack open the surface of the earth and to open a gateway to hell.
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