The Second Vial of Revelation
Revelation 16:3
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.
The second vial’s prophecy closely parallels the second trumpet. When the second trumpet sounded in Revelation 8:8, “a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood.” Comparatively, the second vial also targets the sea and turns it into blood.
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Edward Bishop Elliott began his analysis of the second, third, and fourth vials by writing, “Here is described the outspreading of the evil, and of the mortality and destruction consequent thereon, to different parts of Anti-Christendom. And first, under the second vial, to its sea.”[i] In his view, these early vial judgments were also levied against France. Elliott interpreted the fulfillment of the second vial as a series of naval battles that caused France a vast loss of life and territory.
In 1791, the wealthiest and most important of France’s colonies, Saint-Domingue, was ravaged by a widespread slave revolt. The British and Spanish militaries entered the conflict in support of the Haitian slaves after France declared war against them in 1793.
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The rebellion quickly intensified into a full-scale war for independence. In 1803, the British again aided the slaves, this time with a naval blockade that prevented the arrival of supplies and reinforcements for the French. By 1804, the Empire of Haiti had gained its independence.[ii]
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While the Haitian Revolution took place overseas from mainland France, the fulfillment of the second vial also included a succession of major naval battles fought during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. The Siege of Toulon in 1793 left roughly half of the French navy in ruins. The 1794 invasion of Corsica and the Fourth Battle of Ushant caused further losses, as the West Indian islands of Dominica, Saint Lucia, and Tobago were ceded to Britain along with other overseas French possessions. In June of 1795, Lord Bridport and the British won another naval victory at the expense of the French in the Battle of Groix.
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France’s allies also suffered naval defeats with comparable losses of life and territory. The British captured the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch during the Battle of Muizenberg in September 1795. Spain, now an ally of the French, lost the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1797. The same year, the Dutch navy was routed by the British in the Battle of Camperdown. The British also defeated the French navy in the Battle of the Nile and the Battle of Trafalgar. In total, France lost approximately two hundred ships of the line, between three and four hundred frigates, and countless smaller vessels during these naval battles.[iii]
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[i] Elliott, Edward Bishop. 1847. “The Second, Third, and Fourth Vials.” In Horae Apocalypticae, Vol. III, by Edward Bishop Elliott, 376-395. London: Seeley, Burnside, and Seeley.
[ii] The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2023. Haitian Revolution. April 25. Accessed July 27, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Haitian-Revolution.
[iii] Elliott, Edward Bishop. 1862. “The Second, Third, and Fourth Vials.” In Horae Apocalypticae, Vol. III, by Edward Bishop Elliott, 376-395. London: Seeley, Burnside, and Seeley.