Revelation 9:3Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The locusts are the worms of which the prophet says: "Their worm shall not die" (Isa 66:24). See verse 4.

They are signified by the locusts coming out of the smoke. For heretics, like smoke, seem to rise toward heaven when they strive to take first place in their teachings, but like smoke they also disperse.

Concerning this smoke it is said in the person of the wicked: "The breath in our nostrils is smoke, and speech is a spark in the movement of our heart" (Wis 2:2).

Scripture says that the impious plotted against Wisdom Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. These same men, as described here, fight against His Church. Their army is harmful by its mouth and destroys the green crop and the trees.

From the smoke of scientific and technological progress, which darkens the sun and air to the point of ecological catastrophe, there comes forth a new ideology of technology, like the old Tower of Babel forgotten and then remembered again. It spreads across the whole maddened planet by means of the militant noise and clamor of the mass media. It exercises harmful dominion over the minds and hearts of men for a definite time, five months. This time is needed to prepare a generation incapable of being corrected or repenting from the coming admonitions. At the same time, its destructive nature is evident to all: to believers who speak the language of the knowledge of God, and to pagans who chiefly use the language of Hellenic wisdom.