<p>16:12 <em>And the sixth poured out his bowl upon the great river, the Euphrates, and the water of it dried up, so that the way might be made ready for the kings that come from the east</em>-</p><p>See on 9:14,15,16 16:12 and Jn. 3:32 and 9:14,15,16 for the significance of the Euphrates.</p><p>The sixth trumpet in Rev. 9:14 and the sixth vial in Rev. 16:12,13 both refer to the Euphrates and are therefore referring to the same events. We needn't get too fazed by issues of chronological sequence in fulfilment. The trumpets and vials aren't necessarily events which follow each other chronologically. This is the assumption of a Greek-Latin mindset; but in the Hebrew thought which underpins the New Testament, events can be described without attention to sequence. The Old Testament prophecies therefore often appear to 'jump around' in fulfilment, with no clear sequence in mind. Each vial or trumpet can be a description of events which happen around the time of the Lord's coming, but not necessarily in sequence chronologically. The 'continuous historic' school of interpretation is driven by this insistence upon chronological sequence, but this results in seeking unrealistic fulfilments of the earlier phases of the sequence. These suggested fulfilments often do not hold true to actual history, and are out of context with the main thrust of the prophecies, which concern the situation in the land of Israel in the last days. The masses of aggressive horsemen in Rev. 9 are the &quot;kings of the east&quot; of Rev. 16:12- rulers who come from the East of Israel. This would easily refer to the way in which the jihadist coalition and many of its fighters originated in Iran and Afghanistan, East of the Euphrates, and then are released and allowed to march towards Israel. The allusion is to how God allowed Cyrus to dry up or divert the Euphrates, and Babylon fell as the Medes and Persians under Cyrus approached from the East. The kings of the East are therefore not believers, but the unbelieving enemies of Israel. I have elsewhere pointed out that the jihadists see themselves as warriors coming from the East to destroy Israel, as one of their own Hadith states: &ldquo;The final battle will be waged by Muslim faithful coming on the backs of horses&hellip; carrying black banners. They will stand on the East side of the Jordan River and will wage war that the earth has never seen before... The black flags will come from the East, led by mighty men, with long hair and beards&quot;. These &quot;kings of the east&quot; who are released from the Euphrates are matched in Rev. 9:17-19 by John's description in first century language of the most terrifying technology and aggression of the hordes of horsemen who will be released upon Israel from the Euphrates: &quot;They wore breastplates the colour of fire and of sapphire and of sulphur, and the heads of the horses were like lions' heads, and fire and smoke and sulphur came out of their mouths. By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulphur coming out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound&quot;. The killing of a third of those in the earth / land surely connects with the prediction of Zech. 13:8 that when Jerusalem briefly falls, two thirds of the Jews will be killed. Presumably the other third are killed by other methods- there is repeated teaching in Rev. 8 of how the 'thirds' of those in the land will suffer in the final tribulation.</p><p>Dan. 11:40 speaks of the latter day &quot;king of the north&quot; coming with horsemen and entering into the <em>eretz</em>, the land, like a restrained mighty river that is now gushing and overflowing its banks. This is absolutely the picture of Revelation 16: hordes of horsemen surging from the Euphrates river towards Israel. For the &quot;king of the north&quot; historically this was Babylon or Assyria to enter into the <em>eretz</em>, the land promised to Abraham, he would have to cross the boundary of that land at the Euphrates anyway. He firstly enters the general<em> eretz </em>and then enters specifically the <em>eretz</em> of glory (Dan. 11:41)- the land inhabited by the Jews. This is described in Ez. 20:6 using the same Hebrew words- &quot;a land... flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all the <em>eretz</em>&quot;. The land flowing with milk and honey hardly referred to the entire land promised to Abraham up to the Euphrates, much of which is barren desert. The glory of the <em>eretz </em>was and is Canaan. We can see the process starting- the Islamists are taking over the wider <em>eretz</em>, and will then proceed to focus upon entering into the glory of the <em>eretz</em>, the current territory of Israel.</p><p>The allusion to the drying up of the Euphrates by Cyrus to bring about the fall of Babylon and the return of the exiles. Babylon fell- but the exiles generally didn't return as God intended. The fall of latter day Babylon is mentioned three times in Revelation (Rev. 14:8; 16:17-19; 17:16,17); and it's hard to work out <em>when</em> this happens; Rev. 16:17-19 places the fall of Babylon <em>after</em> Armageddon and Christ's return, whilst Rev. 17:16,17 places it <em>before </em>Armageddon. I see no contradiction here; it's just that the timing of the actual fall of Babylon and return of Christ are events which depend on various preconditions which may or may not be fulfilled by human freewill decisions. Such considerations may explain why it remains unclear whether Christ returns at the time of the 6th, or 7th vial. The language of both vials has application to His return, and yet some of it seems to speak of <em>before </em>His return. Perhaps it's beyond the technique of Biblical exposition to reconcile this language- it may simply be that the actual coming of Christ is dependent upon various conditional factors, and the inspired language of predictive prophecy is therefore appropriately ambiguous. Or take the way Revelation consistently speaks of &quot;the beast&quot; as if there is only one- and yet we read of three beasts, from the sea, the land and the abyss (Rev. 13,17). Is it really that the beast changes form over time- or are there three possible manifestations of &quot;the beast&quot; dependent upon various possible factors in human response? This approach would explain why Revelation is so hard to interpret if we insist on forcing all the events and pictures presented into a strictly progressive chronological sequence.</p><p>Another take on this problem is that Revelation is a kaleidoscope of images, some of them overlapping; there is no attempt to give a chronological timeline of events, but rather rotating images, some of which overlap at the edges with each other, giving different angles and takes on the same events.</p><p>The drying up of the Euphrates in Rev. 16:12 is parallel with the four Angels being released in 9:14. Angels can represent nations, as we find in Daniel- in that each nation has a representative Angel in the court of Heaven. The Euphrates is literally drying up- water flows are at their lowest ever in recorded history, and it may be that the predicted water crisis in the Tigris-Euphrates ecoregion is what drives the peoples of that area to look westwards towards Israel, and to seek to resolve their problems by a united <em>jihad</em> against Israel. The problem of water is acute in the region: &quot;There are thousands of new &ldquo;water refugees&rdquo; in Southern Iraq: people displaced by the changes to their natural environment. &ldquo;Many villages are depopulated because of that. It has a terrible economic impact upon the population&rdquo;&quot; (Bakhtiar Amin, Human Rights Minister of Iraq from 2004 to 2005, as quoted at <a href=http://thoughtfulwander.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/marsh-arabs.html>http://thoughtfulwander.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/marsh-arabs.html</a>). Historically, the literal drying up, or diversion, of the Euphrates was what led to the fall of Babylon. It may well be that we are intended to make this connection when we read in Rev. 16:12 of the drying up of the Euphrates. The logical deduction is: 'So Babylon is about to fall'. And the fall of Babylon is spoken of in Revelation as coming about at the return of Christ to earth.</p><p>But it may not be simply that the Euphrates dries up of its own accord. Now that the key dams could easily fall into the hands of the Islamists, it could be that they like Saddam Hussein before them, dry up the river in order to exert their power over others. And this will bring about the required fulfilment of the prophecy. We recall how the King of Assyria, another prototype of the latter day invader of Israel, boasted that he had dried up rivers and manipulated water sources, and therefore Jerusalem too would fall into his hands: &quot;I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet will I dry up all the rivers&quot; (2 Kings 19:24).</p>