<p>8:9 <em>And there died the third part of the creatures (even they that had life) which were in the sea, and the third part of the ships were destroyed</em>- The connection is clearly with Rev. 5:13, where the &quot;creatures&quot; s.w. in the sea all give glory to the Lamb enthroned. To get to that end point, the creatures in the sea who will not give Him glory must be judged. The seals, trumpets, vials and descriptions of the judgments upon the beast and whore can be read as being all aspects of the final judgment. But it could also be that the last judgment of the unbelieving world comes in stages. Here in the trumpets, a third of the sea creatures die; in 16:3, the sea becomes as the blood of a dead corpse &quot;and <em>every</em> living creature died in the sea&quot;. The same Greek word for &quot;died&quot; is used there as here in 8:9. As commented previously, God gives warning of His final judgments, in the hope that men will learn from the condemnation of others and repent. We marvel at His patience, portrayed as it is throughout the various judgments we read of. Our human sense would be to simply liquidate the entire unbelieving, abusive system in one shot. But He works, with all the intricacies of the systems of seven interlocking, interrelated judgments, in order to try to elicit repentance at every turn. Truly, as Emil Brunner observed, &quot;the wrath of God is the love of God&quot;. Even in His style of condemning wicked men and systems, we see shining through His urgent desire for human repentance and other, better outcomes. &quot;The sea&quot; is the area from which the beast arises (13:1). We can therefore interpret it as the power base of the beast- the nations and peoples within the land promised to Abraham. This would explain the repeated judgments upon the &quot;sea&quot; in Revelation. The emphasis given to &quot;the ships&quot; being judged would therefore speak of the mercantile activities within that area. The only other references in Revelation to &quot;ships&quot; are when we read that the ships associated with the Babylon-beast system are destroyed in her final judgment (Rev. 18:17,19). At the time of the trumpet judgments, only a third of them are destroyed- but finally, they are all destroyed. The destruction of a third of them is again a portent of the final total destruction- and is therefore an appeal for repentance. Likewise we read that this third part of shipping was &quot;destroyed&quot; but the word is found elsewhere in Revelation only when we read of the total 'destruction' of those who had destroyed the land (11:18).</p>