Builder or Destroyer?

Israel, God’s people, were dissatisfied. After being defeated many times by their enemy neighbors, they believed a king would solve their problems. Though God was their king, they desired to be like other nations (1 Samuel 8:4–7). Samuel warned them about the pitfalls of having an earthly sovereign (vv. 10–18), but they persisted—and later regretted it.

While the Proverbs tells us that “locusts have no king” (30:27), these described in the fifth trumpet do, another indication that they are symbolic. Their king is “the angel of the bottomless pit,” which takes us back to Revelation 9:1, 2.

Some have likened this king of the locusts to the first ruler of the Ottomans, Osman I, also known as Osman Ghazi or Othman. It was under his reign that the Turkish peoples united and the Ottomans began their onslaught upon the Byzantine Empire; his direct descendants were responsible for the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, which grew to control much of Southeastern Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the fourteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this view, “the angel of the bottomless pit” is a human messenger, as in Revelation 1:20, instead of a supernatural being.

Abaddon is a Hebrew word that means “destruction” or “ruin.” The Greek form is Apollyon, which means “destroyer.” These names are symbolic, describing the character of this expanding Turkish empire. But they also hearken back to another creature, a literal angel and the “star” who did open the bottomless pit: Ultimately, the leader of all these rebellions is Satan, the mastermind behind war, division, and destruction. It is he, the thief, who has “come … to steal, and to kill, and to destroy” (John 10:10). It is he “who had the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14).

If we would not be swept away by the judgments of God or deceived by the false teachings of the enemy, we must make Christ our only ruler, who comes not to destroy but to give abundant life (John 10:10; 11:25).

Dear Jesus, I put my broken and sinful life into Your powerful and compassionate hands. Protect me today and make me into Your divine image.

For Further Study: Deuteronomy 17:14–20; Luke 9:56; Ephesians 2:1–5

Key Bible Texts

And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. (Revelation 9:11 KJV)