The seventh “bowl” produced the final overthrow of Babylon, the Great City, and completed the “wrath of God”– Revelation 16:17-21.
The seventh “bowl of wrath” anticipates the fuller description of the destruction of end-time “Babylon” in chapters 17 and 18 of Revelation. The Old Testament story behind it is the plague of hail inflicted on Egypt at the word of Moses. Emptying the bowl “on the air” prepared for the “great hail” that concluded this last “plague.”
The sixth “bowl of wrath” causes the final battle between the “Lamb” and the forces of the “Dragon” – Revelation 16:12-16.
The first four “bowls” targeted the economic foundations of the beastly empire, and the fifth attacked its political power. When the sixth “bowl” is emptied, demonic forces gather the “kings of the earth” to the final battle of the “Great Day of God the Almighty” at “Armageddon,” the last desperate effort by Satan to unseat the “Lamb.”
The first four “bowls” destroyed the economic structure of Babylon. The next “bowl” targets its political sphere – Revelation 16:10-11.
The first “four bowls of wrath” attacked the economic infrastructure of the empire used to dominate the “inhabitants of the earth” and to wage war on the “saints,” leaving the global commerce on which the “beast” depended destroyed. Now, the “fifth bowl” targets its political power and prestige.
The first four bowls of wrath destroy the economic infrastructure of the kingdoms of the earth– Revelation 16:1-9.
The “seven bowls of wrath” include language and imagery from the plagues of Egypt, the exodus, the defeat of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, and Ancient Babylon, only here, divine judgments are inflicted on the persecutors of God’s people, the “beast from the sea” and the “great city,” end-time “Babylon.”
The destructive forces released by the “last plagues” echo the destruction of the Egyptian army in the Red Sea– Revelation 15:5-8.
Having seen the saints standing victorious on the “sea of glass,” John then saw the “sanctuary” and the “Tent of Witness” opened in “heaven,” from which the seven angels with the “bowls of wrath” were dispatched to empty the deadly contents of their bowls upon the earth.
Having “overcome” the Beast, the saints stand on the Sea of Glass and sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb – Revelation 15:1-4.
The fifteenth chapter introduces seven angels poised to empty the seven “bowls of wrath.” But first, we see the picture of “overcoming” saints standing on the “sea of glass” and “singing the song of Moses and of the Lamb.” This victorious company has overcome the “beast, its image, mark, and number.”