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Revelation 9:2

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

He opened the bottomless pit - Το φρεαρ της αβυσσου· The pit of the bottomless deep. Some think the angel means Satan, and the bottomless pit hell. Some suppose Mohammed is meant; and Signior Pastorini professes to believe that Luther is intended!

There arose a smoke - False doctrine, obscuring the true light of heaven.

Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

And he opened the bottomless pit - It is represented before as wholly confined, so that not even the smoke or vapor could escape.

And there arose a smoke out of the pit - Compare Revelation 14:11. The meaning here is that the pit, as a place of punishment, or as the abode of the wicked, was filled with burning sulphur, and consequently that it emitted smoke and vapor as soon as opened. The common image of the place of punishment, in the Scriptures, is that of a “lake that burns with fire and brimstone.” Compare Revelation 14:10; Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:10; Revelation 21:8. See also Psalm 11:6; Isaiah 30:33; Ezekiel 38:22. It is not improbable that this image was taken from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 19:24. Such burning sulphur would produce, of course, a dense smoke or vapor; and the idea here is, that the pit had been closed, and that as soon as the door was opened a dense column escaped that darkened the heavens. The purpose of this is, probably, to indicate the origin of the plague that was about to come upon the world. It would be of such a character that it would appear as if it had been emitted from hell; as if the inmates of that dark world had broke loose upon the earth. Compare notes on Revelation 6:8.

As the smoke of a great furnace - So in Genesis 19:28, whence probably this image is taken: “And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the land of the plain, and beheld and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.”

And the sun and the air were darkened, … - As will be the case when a smoke ascends from a furnace. The meaning here is, that an effect would be produced as if a dense and dark vapor should ascend from the under-world. We are not, of course, to understand this literally.

Uriah Smith
Daniel and the Revelation, 473

Verse 2

“Like the noxious and even deadly vapor which the winds, particularly from the southwest, diffuse in Arabia, Mohammedanism spread from thence its pestilential influence, — arose as suddenly and spread as widely as smoke arising out of the pit, the smoke of a great furnace. Such is a suitable symbol of the religion of Mohammed, of itself, or as compared with the pure light of the gospel of Jesus. It was not, like the latter, a light from heaven, but a smoke out of the bottomless pit.”DAR 473.2

Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary
Upon sounding the fifth trumpet, a star fell from heaven to the earth. Having ceased to be a minister of Christ, he who is represented by this star becomes the minister of the devil; and lets loose the powers of hell against the churches of Christ. On the opening of the bottomless pit, there arose a great smoke. The devil carries on his designs by blinding the eyes of men, by putting out light and knowledge, and promoting ignorance and error. Out of this smoke there came a swarm of locusts, emblems of the devil's agents, who promote superstition, idolatry, error, and cruelty. The trees and the grass, the true believers, whether young or more advanced, should be untouched. But a secret poison and infection in the soul, should rob many others of purity, and afterwards of peace. The locusts had no power to hurt those who had the seal of God. God's all-powerful, distinguishing grace will keep his people from total and final apostacy. The power is limited to a short season; but it would be very sharp. In such events the faithful share the common calamity, but from the pestilence of error they might and would be safe. We collect from Scripture, that such errors were to try and prove the Christians, 1Co 11:19. And early writers plainly refer this to the first great host of corrupters who overspread the Christian church.