Revelation 16:2Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The vial, like the bowl, is used here for a punitive action. When it was poured out by the angel, festering sores appeared.

These signify the sorrow that arises in the hearts of apostates and torments them, like a festering of the heart. For those punished by the plagues sent by God will receive no relief from the Antichrist, whom they acknowledge as god.

It is also likely that their bodies will be struck by the flattering Antichrist and apostate with the arrows of diabolical deception.

Therefore we suppose that until divine wrath against the ungodly separates the righteous from the unrighteous, the saints will in no way receive their portion in the heavenly Jerusalem, nor priestly service and rest in the temple of God.

All these wounds are spiritual and arise in the soul. For at that time the whole impious people will not be harmed by any bodily wound, since they have not merited punishment in this age.

It is as though that people has received full power to work iniquity. Yet spiritually, so to speak, all the impious and proud are punished for sins of will and mortal sins, which are the sores in their souls.

These words may be interpreted in two senses: either literally, with reference to the time of the end of the world, or allegorically.

When the Lord addressed His disciples concerning the signs of the end of the world, He set before them many evils that would take place then.

He said: “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

There will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Mt 24:6-8). A little later He added: “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall be” (Mt 24:21).

The character of a deadly wound is this: the small place it occupies on the body has greater power to cause death than the rest of the body has to preserve health, or rather to strive toward preserving the man’s health.

Although the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ came both as help for the salvation of believers and as testimony for the condemnation of unbelievers, the wound from this blow may be reckoned the worst fate for the whole body of the lost.

For we read of Christ: “Behold, this Child is set for the fall and rising of many, and for a sign that is spoken against” (Lk 2:34).

Yet this applies most of all to the Jewish people, from whom the Antichrist is to come. By this one crime they destroyed the pious observance of the law, if they could have possessed it.

The preachers pour out the bowls of God's wrath upon the earth in two ways. Either by spiritual judgment they bring the punishments of the impious down upon them, as Peter said to Simon: "May your silver perish with you" (Acts 8:20).

Or they reveal them to the holy Church in preaching, according to the word of the same Peter: "Their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction does not slumber" (2 Pet 2:3).

The festering sores signify grief in the hearts of apostates. The antichrist, whom they acknowledge as God, will not be able to heal it, though he will promise to satisfy every demand of human nature.

Perhaps these are also perceptible sores that will strike their bodies, in order to expose their decaying souls.

"An evil and grievous sore upon men." In the following punishments one notices a resemblance to the Egyptian plagues. Similarity in oppression is accompanied by similar punishments.

As for confirming these plagues by examples from Roman history, the obscurity of that time hides from us the explanation of what is revealed here.