The Sixth Trumpet of Revelation: The Second Woe
Time Frame and Location
Revelation 9:13-15
13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.
Revelation 9:13-21 describes the prophecy of the sixth trumpet. In the passage’s first verse, John hears a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar in Heaven. The altar imagery mirrors the fourth chapter of Leviticus, which describes a purification ceremony the Israelite priests would perform when either they or the Israelites sinned.[1] First, the priest would slaughter a young bull at the door of the Tabernacle as an offering to God. The animal’s blood would then be collected and sprinkled on the altar’s horns. According to Leviticus 16:18, the same ceremonial sacrifice occurred on the annual Day of Atonement.[2] These ritual sacrifices were a penance for sin and allude to the intent of the sixth trumpet: the Roman Empire had sinned against God by persecuting Christians and still had not repented.
The fulfillment of the sixth trumpet would take even longer than the fifth. Verse fifteen says four angels were prepared for “an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year” to slay the third part of men. Under the day-year principle, one prophetic day, month, and year would indicate a fulfillment lasting 391 years. The prophetic hour—or one twenty-fourth of the Hebrew year—would add just fifteen days. After the 391 years and fifteen days had ended, what remained of the Roman Empire would finally die.
This is a clear escalation from the prior trumpet, when the locust army hurt the Byzantines but was ordered not to kill. The fifth trumpet said death would be out of reach, even for those who wanted to die.[3] Although God shifted the focus of his judgments from Rome to Constantinople with the fifth trumpet, the Islamic army only tormented the Byzantine Empire. The sixth trumpet would go beyond the confines of the fifth, ultimately “slaying” the last vestige of Rome’s fabled empire.
To find the correct fulfillment of the sixth trumpet, we need to subtract 391 years from the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 AD, which brings us to 1062. Next, we must locate the conquerors of the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Turks, and their relation to that year.[i] We also learn from the first several verses where the sixth trumpet would begin. Verse fourteen states the four angels were “bound in the great river Euphrates,” so the river should be the geographical focus of our search.
The one regional power at the start of the eleventh century that would have been a formidable threat to the Byzantines was the Ghaznavid Empire under Mahmud of Ghazni. However, Mahmud was far more interested in a conquest of the Indian lands to his east, so the threat his army posed to the Byzantines far to the west was minimal. Upon Mahmud’s death in 1028, his sons fought over the empire, eventually losing much of the Ghaznavid lands to the Seljuk Dynasty in the Battle of Dandanaqan in 1040.[ii] This battle was before 1062 and east of the Euphrates, so it would not satisfy the fulfillment of the prophecy.[iii]
At this point in Middle Eastern history, Mesopotamia was controlled by the Buyid Dynasty, whose land extended across both sides of the Euphrates. Once the Ghaznavids lost at Dandanaqan, the Buyids shared their eastern border with the Seljuks, who retained strong military ambitions.
These ambitions would be achieved within fifteen years. In December 1055, the Seljuk sultan Tughril deposed the Buyid emir al-Malik al-Rahim, effectively taking Baghdad. The Buyids still controlled some land as a Seljuk vassal state under the final emir, Abu Mansur Fulad Sutun, whose reign ended when he died in battle against the Shabankara tribe. Shortly after his death, the Seljuks took the rest of the Buyid lands in early to mid-1062 AD.[iv], [v]
Buyid Dynasty, which controlled the land around the Euphrates River, 1055 AD.
The Seljuks were an ethnically Turkish people who originated southeast of the Caspian Sea. In the decades following the fall of the Buyids, the Seljuk armies advanced into Anatolia and fought a series of conflicts known as the Byzantine-Seljuk Wars. As a result of the first war, the Seljuks established the Sultanate of Rûm—their first infringement on Byzantine territory.
The next several centuries would bring chaos and instability as various regional powers fought over territory and the Seljuks became a target of the earliest Catholic crusaders from Europe. The Seljuks ultimately collapsed in 1194 AD at the hands of the Khwarazmians, leaving the Sultanate of Rûm as the last remnant of their empire.[vi] When Rûm was later defeated, it created an opportunity for new regional powers to arise.
The Ottoman Turks were the people nearest Constantinople in the early fourteenth century. Situated in Anatolia on the opposite side of the Bosporus Strait, the Ottoman army laid siege to a diminished Constantinople at least five times before ultimately conquering the city in 1453 AD. For the 391 years after the Seljuk Turks conquered the Buyid Dynasty in 1062 AD, ethnically Turkish armies assaulted the Byzantine Empire and its capital. The “hour, and a day, and a month, and a year” culminated in 1453 when the final siege of Constantinople resulted in the city’s collapse. This decisive defeat marked the end of the Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, the last remaining fragment of the “third part of men.”[vii]
The Seljuk Empire in the late eleventh century. The Seljuks conquered the Buyids in 1062 AD.
Description of the Army
Revelation 9:16-17
16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.
Like the locust army, these conquerors are again described as a cavalry. The King James Bible incorrectly renders the number of horsemen from the Greek as “two hundred thousand thousand,” meaning two hundred million. However, based on the original Greek in the Textus Receptus, “δύο μυριάδες μυριάδων,” this was likely misinterpreted. The Greek phrase “δύο μυριάδες μυριάδων” would translate to “two myriads of myriads.”[viii] The Old Turkish word for myriad is “tümän,” a standard unit of measurement that translates to “ten thousand.”[ix] However, δύο μυριάδες μυριάδων could also be rendered as “two ten thousands,” which would mean an army that consisted of twenty thousand horsemen.[x]
John saw the horsemen wearing “breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone.” Biblical scholars believe these descriptors are metaphors for the colors worn by the soldiers. Fire suggests a red color in the Bible. The Koine Greek word for jacinth is ύακινθίνους.[xi] Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon defines ύακινθίνους as “the name of a flower…also of a precious stone of the same color, i.e., dark-blue verging towards black.”[xii] In the Bible, brimstone is a synonym of sulfur, which has a yellow coloring. Theologian Charles Daubuz, who saw these comparisons to colors, wrote of the Ottoman soldiers’ attire, “the Ottomans from their first appearance having affected to be clothed in scarlet, blue, and yellow.”[xiii] Several contemporary artists also depicted the Ottomans wearing these colors in the fifteenth century.
Their Power Is in Their Mouth
Revelation 9:18-19
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.
19 For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.
Revelation 9:18 explains that the third part of men would be killed using the fire, smoke, and brimstone coming from the mouths of the Ottoman invaders. Before the mid-fifteenth century, the European and Middle Eastern weaponry used in battle was primarily limited to swords and spears in close combat and medium-range projectile weapons such as trebuchets or archers. By no later than the Ottoman-Hungarian Wars of 1443-1444, the Ottoman infantrymen regularly carried arquebuses, an early long-barreled gun similar to a musket, making the Ottomans among the first militaries to use firearms in Europe.[xiv]
When a soldier fires a long gun, he rests his weapon against his cheek to better aim his weapon. Gunpowder contains brimstone, as it is made from sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate. In the first century, well before the advent of firearms, it would be conceivable for John to define a long gun as fire, smoke, and brimstone that “issued out of their mouths.”
Verse nineteen says the army’s power was not only in their mouths but also in their tails. Edward Bishop Elliott interpreted the word “tails” as a reference to the standards of the Ottoman army, called pashas, which were long poles with horse tails hanging from the top. The more powerful a man was, the more tails his pasha would have. Provincial governors and generals would have one or two, depending on their rank or position within the army and government. Only the Ottoman grand vizier would have three tails on his pasha. To Elliott, the horse tails displayed the power of rank, while the fire, smoke, and brimstone coming out of the soldiers’ mouths represented the power of military force.[xv]
However, a closer investigation of the original Koine Greek is required. Constantin Tischendorf’s Greek New Testament uses ούραῖσ and ούραί for the two words the King James Version translates as “tails” in Revelation 9:19.[xvi] Although the Greek root word ούρά, or ourá, can mean the tail of an animal, the second definition; “of an army marching, the rear-guard, rear,” is more relevant to this verse.[xvii] This would suggest John saw the Ottoman soldiers’ military power fired not only from the mid-range arquebuses resting against the mouths of infantry, but also from the rear guard. The Ottomans had as many as seventy cannons,[xviii] the largest of which could fire projectiles from over a mile away.[xix] For the first time, armies in Europe had the advantage of long-range weaponry.
Idolatry and Sorcery
Revelation 9:20-21
20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.
After the Byzantine Empire fell, the Catholic Church did not change its behavior. Church doctrine continued to encourage Catholics to practice idol worship through graven images, exactly as verse twenty prophesied. Paul’s apostasy accelerated between the falls of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. The medieval Roman Catholic Church fell deeper into superstition, false doctrine, sorcery, and idolatry. It committed mass murder against the Christians who refused to participate in Catholic paganism. As the Anglican priest John Woodhouse wrote, “It was in a corrupt period of the Church, when the altar of Religion called for vengeance; when idolatry in particular was a reigning vice…Yet the progress of this evil was slow and gradual; and it was a long time before it could justly be said to have amounted to that general prevalence described in the twentieth and twenty-first verses. This character is not fairly and generally applicable to the Christian Church, before the sixth century. But toward the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh century, the measure of this iniquity became full.”[xx]
The designation of the final three trumpets as woes evokes Isaiah 5:20, which reads, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.”[4] The Roman Catholic Church’s distortion of good and evil is obvious to avid Bible readers. The rituals, iconography, and saint veneration within Catholicism are easily recognizable through their pagan roots as sorcery, idolatry, and polytheism. Constantine’s apostasy had distorted Christianity so absolutely that Catholics today perform rituals akin to witchcraft, pray to graven images, and venerate saints as if they were minor deities.
After the 391-year prophecy, the sixth trumpet continues. John had a series of three distinct visions that set the stage for the final trumpet. He first sees a vision of an angel holding a little book. Next, John is told to measure the temple of God and its altar, but exclude its courtyard. After he finishes measuring, John sees two witnesses who testify on God’s behalf until their deaths. Only after these three visions are fulfilled will the seventh trumpet be allowed to sound.
The Little Book
Revelation 10:1-2
1 And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:
2 And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,
The first vision begins when an angel descends from Heaven with a little book in his hand at the start of Revelation 10. Later in the passage, the angel swears by God that time is running out for Catholics, stating, “There should be time no longer.” Next, a voice from Heaven declares that when this time runs out, the seventh trumpet will end the “mystery of God.” When it finally sounds, all the superstitions, sorcery, rituals, and false doctrine of the Roman Catholic religion will be peeled away from the Christian faith, leaving a purer form of true Christianity for believers.
Revelation 10:5-7
5 And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,
6 And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:
7 But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
The association between the phrase “the mystery of God” and the false church of Mystery Babylon is unmistakable. If John’s description of Mystery Babylon did not make her representation of Catholicism clear, the use of the word “mystery” to define the cryptic deceptions of Catholic dogma provides more evidence. The seventh trumpet would finally expose its duplicity.
Revelation 10:8-10
8 And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said, Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.
9 And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.
10 And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.
In the rest of the chapter, John takes the book, which represents the Bible, and eats it, making his stomach bitter. By ingesting the Bible, John was symbolically receiving it on behalf of the Christian people and preserving it for the rest of time.
This vision’s placement following the “hour, and a day, and a month, and a year” is extraordinary. Shortly before the fall of Constantinople, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. The first complete book he printed was the Latin Vulgate Bible, and the first copies were sold less than two years after the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
On March 12, 1455, Enea Silvio Piccolomini—who would become Pope Pius II—wrote to Cardinal Juan de Carvajal after visiting Frankfurt. “It seems what I had been told was true,” he wrote, “I have not seen entire Bibles, but I have seen signatures of five folded sheets.” Piccolomini called Gutenberg an “amazing man” and told Cardinal Carvajal, “I shall try to buy a volume for you but I fear this will not be possible, not only because of the distance, but because copies are sold even before they are completed.”[xxi]
At this moment, less than two years after Constantinople’s fall, the first printed Bibles began to make scripture more easily accessible. While these Bibles were still prohibitively expensive, Gutenberg’s movable type printing press would be refined, progressively making the scriptures more available to the masses.
John’s stomachache likely represents the deep angst felt by the leaders of the Protestant Reformation. Once these men were able to read and analyze the Bible for themselves, they realized Catholics had been deceived by their own church. The words of scripture were uncomfortable to read, as the Bible disagreed with Catholic teaching.
Measuring the Temple
With the Bible now secured, John resumes prophesying. In a short scene at the beginning of Revelation 11, he is commanded to measure the temple of God in Heaven and its altar, but ignore its courtyard. In the process, John is also directed to measure those worshipping inside the temple.
Revelation 11:1-2
1 And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.
2 But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
Measuring is an act of evaluation. The angel charges John with analyzing God’s temple to determine the standard for salvation. He then measures the worshippers inside the temple to ensure they satisfy God’s expectations. As Jesus said in Matthew 7, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven…And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”[xxii]
Some Historicists believe John is measuring the Roman Catholic Church, but that interpretation is backward. He is unmistakably scrutinizing the temple of God, not a false church. John was measuring God’s temple to determine the criteria for being worthy of worshipping God for eternity.
Notably, John is told to leave the courtyard out so it can be “given unto the Gentiles.” The angel predicts these Gentiles will tread on the holy city for forty-two prophetic months, another reference to the Great Tribulation. If the courtyard was left to those who would tread on the holy city during the Tribulation, these were not typical Gentiles, as the conventional definition of a Gentile is any non-Jew. However, because the Gentiles described here were the driving force behind the Tribulation, this indicates the people relegated to the courtyard are not the non-Jews but the non-Christians, specifically, the Roman Catholics.
A reasonable inference can be made that the courtyard is left unmeasured because those attempting to worship God who do not meet his standard will find themselves trapped there when they are prohibited from entering the temple of Heaven. The temple walls draw a distinction, separating those God regards as true Christians from those he does not. Sadly, Catholics will find themselves confined outside the temple walls.
In the timeline of Revelation, the measuring of the temple aligns with the years before the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther was ordained as a priest in April 1507. Over the next decade, he studied the Bible in-depth, eventually learning of the many ways the Catholic Church had fulfilled the prophecy of Mystery Babylon. He would spend the rest of his life writing about how far the Catholic Church had fallen away from the pure, organic faith at the heart of Christianity. When Luther and the other leaders of the Protestant Reformation measured the temple of God, they found Catholics were unworthy of eternal life.
The Two Witnesses
Revelation 11:3-6
3 And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
4 These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.
5 And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.
6 These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.
Next, the angel—who was likely Jesus—tells John he would send his two witnesses to prophesy for 1,260 days. There is much debate on what or who the witnesses represent. Many Futurists see the witnesses as a reappearance of the prophets Enoch and Elijah, neither of whom saw death according to the Bible. Others say Moses and Elijah, who appeared alongside Jesus at his transfiguration. If Futurism is correct, the witnesses would arrive at the start of the Tribulation. But God would not warn us that Jesus’ return was nearing through the return of prophets. According to The Pulpit Commentary, “It is inconceivable that Moses and Elias, or any other of the saints of God, should return from Paradise to suffer as these two witnesses.”[xxiii]
Most Historicists agree that the number of witnesses is at least partially a reference to Hebrew law. Both Deuteronomy 17:6 and 19:15 regulate the reliability of witnesses’ claims against a defendant. In these verses, Moses stated that testimony from a second, corroborating witness was required for a legal claim to be credible.[5] The New Testament book of Hebrews also refers to this aspect of ancient Mosaic law.[6]
Generally, Historicists see the two witnesses as at least an allusion to the law. This interpretation suggests God is commanding us to be witnesses for the gospel beyond the unreliability that exists from a single witness. Several times in Biblical history, God commissioned witnesses as pairs. Moses and Aaron, Elijah and Elisha, Joshua and Caleb, Paul and Barnabas, and Paul and Silas all appeared together as witnesses for God.
While some Historicists believe the two witnesses are only a reference to Moses’ Deuteronomic Code, others believe this reference is foundational but interpret the witnesses as the Old and New Testaments. During the 1,260 years of the Great Tribulation, the Bible was largely inaccessible, but it never reached a point of extinction. Whenever the privileged few who could read the Bible studied it, the Old and New Testaments testified on God’s behalf.
There is a valid reference point in the Old Testament book of Zechariah that supports this interpretation. In Zechariah 4, Zerubbabel had a vision of a candlestick flanked by two olive trees. The trees emptied their oil into the candlestick to fuel its flames. An angel interpreted the trees in the vision for him, stating, “These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.”[7] There is also support for the Israelites’ use of olive oil as lamp fuel in Exodus 27:20, where they were commanded to use it in the Tabernacle to “cause the lamp to burn always.”[8]
In Zechariah 4, there is only one candlestick. In Revelation 11, there are two. Supporters of the theory that the witnesses represent the Old and New Testaments point to this as additional evidence for their interpretation. Zerubbabel, an Old Testament prophet, saw only one candlestick because he lived before the New Testament was written. Two olive trees were there to provide oil, but at the time, only one candlestick’s flame needed fuel.
Another possible solution is that the two witnesses represent lineages of believers. Two individual witnesses would not be physically able to testify for 1,260 years, but a group could. John wrote in Revelation 1:20 that the seven candlesticks in Jesus’ presence in Heaven represented the seven churches to whom Revelation was written.[9] The Christian churches have kept the flame of the gospel alive for millennia, just as the light of the candlestick in the Tabernacle was never to be extinguished.
The actual fulfillment of this passage may be an amalgamation of these interpretations. The true Christian church kept the light of the gospel shining throughout some of the darkest times for the faith—the Roman persecutions and Tribulation. The members of the church—the olives from the trees—provide oil to fuel the candlesticks—the church. The angel says the witnesses, the Old and New Testaments, represent the olive trees and the candlesticks. In Matthew 5, Jesus compared the testimony and faith of his disciples to a light when he commanded his followers not to hide their faith under a bushel, but to put it on a candlestick to share their light with others.[10]
Revelation 11:7-10
7 And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.
8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
9 And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.
10 And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.
Revelation 11:7 says that after the witnesses finish their testimony, they will be killed, and their lifeless bodies will lie in the street for three and a half days. About a century before the Reformation, two leading theologians, Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague, called for changes to the Catholic Church. Jerome was inspired by the writings of John Wycliffe, which he brought to Hus. Hus then wrote extensively about his own ideas based on Wycliffe’s concepts. In 1414, Hus was called to appear at the Council of Constance to explain his beliefs. King Sigismund, a Catholic, granted safe passage to Hus, and Jerome joined him to provide support. Upon arrival, they were immediately arrested by Pope John XXIII and later burned at the stake for heresy. For a thorough understanding of the nauseating behavior that took place at Constance, this was the same council that ordered John Wycliffe’s bones to be exhumed and burned at the stake.
At the Fifth Lateran Council, no one spoke against the Catholic Church’s proclamations, as advocates for church reforms remembered the wickedness and betrayal of the Catholic leaders at Constance a century earlier. In their nineteenth-century work, The Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, expositors David Brown, Andrew Robert Fausset, and Robert Jamieson described this event. “It is a curious historical coincidence,” they explained, “that, at the fifth Lateran Council, May 5, 1514, no witness (not even the Moravians who were summoned) testified for the truth, as Hus and Jerome did at Constance; an orator ascended the tribunal before the representatives of Papal Christendom, and said, ‘There is no reclaimant, no opponent.’”[xxiv] The Catholic Church’s martyrdom of Hus and Jerome remained fresh in the minds of the pre-Reformation Protestants. No one felt emboldened enough to testify on behalf of scripture in front of all of Catholicism, and God’s two witnesses were killed.
Revelation 11:11-13
11 And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.
12 And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.
13 And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
Next, the angel explains that the two witnesses will lie dead in the street for three and a half prophetic days before being resurrected. Three and a half years after the Fifth Lateran Council, the great earthquake of Revelation 11:13 occurred. As the story goes, on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed the Ninety-Five Theses to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Germany, sparking the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther was the first significant theologian to publicly stand up for scripture against Catholicism since the deaths of Jan Hus and Jerome. By publishing his Theses, Luther testified as a witness for scripture. This event resurrected the two witnesses, caused the earthquake, and ended the sixth trumpet. After the trumpet ends, we are told, “Behold, the third woe cometh quickly.”
Revelation 11:14
14 The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.
[1] Leviticus 4:25 And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out his blood at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering.
[2] Leviticus 16:18 And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the Lord, and make an atonement for it; and shall take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about.
[3] Revelation 9:6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
[4] Isaiah 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
[5] Deuteronomy 17:6 At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.
Deuteronomy 19:15 One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.
[6] Hebrews 10:28 He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:
[7] Zechariah 4:11-14 11 Then answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof? 12 And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves? 13 And he answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord. 14 Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.
[8] Exodus 27:20 And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always.
[9] Revelation 1:20 The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.
[10] Matthew 5:14-16 14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
[i] The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2023. Fall of Constantinople. May 22. Accessed November 2, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/event/Fall-of-Constantinople-1453.
[ii] Spuler, B. 1991. “Ghaznawids.” In The Encyclopedia of Islam. Vol. II, edited by B. Lewis, C. Pellat and J. Schacht, 1051. London: Brill.
[iii] Grousset, Rene. 2002. The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, 147. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
[iv] Bosworth, C. E. 1975. “Iran under the Buyids.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 4: From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs, edited by R. N. Frye, 250-304. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[v] Lowick, N. M. 1970. “Seljuq Coins.” In The Numismatic Chronicle (1966-), Seventh Series, Vol. 10 241-251.
[vi] Buniyatov, Z.M. 2015. A History of The Khorezmian State under the Anushteginids 1097-1231, 43. Samarkand: IICAS.
[vii] The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2023. Ottoman Empire. July 3. Accessed August 20, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/place/Ottoman-Empire.
[viii] Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose. 1877. Textus Receptus, 571. London: Deighton, Bell, & Company.
[ix] Houghton Mifflin Company. 2000. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
[x] Barnes, Albert. 1860. “Chapter IX.” In Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Book of Revelation, by Albert Barnes, 258-265. New York: Harper & Brothers.
[xi] Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose. 1877. Textus Receptus, 571. London: Deighton, Bell, & Company.
[xii] Thayer, Joseph Henry. 1889. “ὑακινθίνους.” In A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, by Joseph Henry Thayer, 633. New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: American Book Company.
[xiii] Daubuz, Charles. 1730. “Vision II. Part III. Trumpet VI. § I. Explained.” In A Perpetual Commentary on the Revelation of St. John, 329. London: Charles Daubuz.
[xiv] Ágoston, Gábor. 2014. “Firearms and Military Adaptation: The Ottomans and the European Military Revolution, 1450-1800.” In Journal of World History 25, No. 1 85-124.
[xv] Brewer, E. Cobham. 1898. “Pasha of Three Tails.” In Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 947. Philadelphia, PA: Henry Altemus Company.
[xvi] Tischendorf, Constantin von. 1873. “John’s Apocalypse.” In Novum Testamentum Graece, 417. Leipzig: Bernhardi Tauchnitz.
[xvii] Liddell, Henry George, and Robert Scott. 1882. “οὐρά.” In An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, 577-578. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago: American Book Company.
[xviii] Lanning, Michael Lee. 2005. The Battle 100: The Stories Behind History’s Most Influential Battles, 139-140. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, Inc.
[xix] Davis, Paul. 1999. “Constantinople (1453).” In 100 Decisive Battles, 166. Oxford: ABC-CLIO, Ltd.
[xx] Woodhouse, John Chappel. 1805. “Ch. IX 13-21.” In The Apocalypse, Or, Revelation of Saint John, Translated; with Notes, Critical and Explanatory, 263-264. London: J. Brettell.
[xxi] Wellesley, Mary. 2018. Gutenberg’s Printed Bible is a Landmark in European Culture. September 8. Accessed November 4, 2023. https://www.apollo-magazine.com/gutenbergs-printed-bible-landmark-european-culture/.
[xxii] Matt. 7:21-23 (KJV).
[xxiii] Exell, Joseph S., and Henry Donald Maurice Spence-Jones. 1980. The Pulpit Commentary, Vol. XXII Epistles of Peter, John & Jude. The Revelation, 289-290. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers.
[xxiv] Fausset, Andrew Robert. 1873. “Revelation XI.” In A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. I, by Robert Jamieson, Andrew Robert Fausset and David Brown, 577. New York, Philadelphia, Hartford, Cincinnati: S. S. Scranton and Company.
