Here, O sinner, is thy sting.

 Here, O sinner, is thy sting. 

from Jon Bill Swiftmahr’s* commentary on Revelation (in the Incoherent series, published by Rantrage Press, 2014, p. 106) –

 

Here, O sinner, is thy sting.

 IX. The fifth angel blew his horn, and I saw a star falling, falling from heaven to earth, and the star was holding the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit in its hand.  2 And it unlocked and opened the door to the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the open door came smoke as from the stacks of the chimneys of the filthiest factories, so thick that the air became like pea-soup fog and the sun was like in eclipse.  3 And out of the smoke came locusts swarming the earth, but they were like scorpions -  4 they didn’t gobble up the grass or any tree, or anything green; they bit with their tails any of humankind that did not have the mark of God on their foreheads.     

     5 They tortured them for five months, but they weren’t to kill them; they were to torture - as a scorpion does, when it stings,  6 so that in those days men will seek death, but they won’t find it; they will long - they will yearn, ache - to die, but death will run the other way.

     7 The locusts were like horses dressed for battle; on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold, but their faces were like human faces,  8 their hair like women’s hair, their teeth like lions’ teeth;  9 they had scales like plates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of countless horse-chariots galloping into battle.  10 They had tails like scorpions, and scorpion stingers in their tails, and their power to torture men was in those tails.
    11 They have as their Caesar the angel of the bottomless pit whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek Apollyon.
 

12 And that’s the first “woe”; there are still more to come.

 Notes

  ix. 1.  “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” (Lk 10:18) In Hebrew/Jewish adaptations of the Canaanite myth in which the Day Star, Ashtar, tries to replace Baal and is exiled to earth when he fails - there to reign as “god of it all,” a whole order of angels fall from heaven to corrupt the earth by teaching human beings how to write, for example. But good angels defeat the bad, round them up, and lock them in the bottomless pit. See I Enoch 6 - 10.

       2.  “And the smoke went up like the smoke from a kiln.” (Ex 19:18).

       5.  The life-span of a locust is about five months.

       6.  “Why is light given to one in misery - that longs for death, but death does not come. (Job 3:20). “They shall prefer death to life, the remnant of this evil tribe.” (Jer. 8:3)

      9.  The Italian for locust is cavaletta, “little horse,” German slang Heupferd, “hay horse.”

     10.  God does not put sinners out of their misery; the idea, according to Patmos John, is to keep them in it. Let them wish to die, but keep them alive and suffering.

     11.  See - and read! - Dawn Powell’s wonderful novel, The Locusts Have No King. “The locusts have no king, yet they march in file.” (Prov. 30:27). Here they have a king, and they swarm.

Commentary

The sun comes up. I am squinting into it. As yet, I see nothing, but Apollyon Abaddon is fizzing up out of a crack in earth and ocean, from New Babylonia into the Lower Sea, the First Horse and Rider in one beast with the sting of a scorpion in its tail. (See figure 7.)

     Here is the genius of the torture: The sting of the scorpion seldom kills - it would not kill a hardened sinner; it burns instead from the outside in and then from the inside in. It ignites; it blazes; it boils the blood and the blood boils over and scalds the skin. This is what God has in store for miserable sinners. Anyone not marked with his 888 will be stung - and stung again. And again, again, again. Again! He will dance St. Vitus’s Dance - he will walk as if he is running and run as if he is stumbling, his arms will shake, his hands will milk one another, his face will be filled with tics, his mouth will be filled with worms.

Figure 7

     This is what God has in for him from icy April to gelid November, burning, boiling and chilled to the bone and freezing all at the same time. This is what God with the help of his Lower Angels can do. This is what God with Their help is going to do. Pretend to live it up now, you rich and powerful suckers - politicos, bizzos, high culturos. Pretend; but it is only pretense! Soon enough you’ll be in hell on earth. The shit - your own shit - will hit the fan, and you’ll be coated in it, its gritty dirt, its gagging stink; it will cover you like fleas and crawl into every orifice like maggots.

     This will last for five months. But it is only the first shit to hit your fan. Selah.

     The sun climbs several degrees. Under it, between its tail and the horizon, is a thin line of smoke.

04.18.18

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 * 2015’s “the angriest man in the Bible biz” (Roiling Stone)