“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11).
And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given
unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat,
and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and
they repented not to give him glory (Rev. 16:8-9).
As we have already seen, the judgments of these bowls are amplified versions of the trumpet judgments. The fourth trumpet had caused the sun to dim, along with the moon and stars.
And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise (Rev. 8:12).
But now, with the judgment of the fourth bowl, the heat of the sun was ramped up such that men were scorched by it. In the historical documents of the Jewish War, we dont have any records of extraordinary heat from the sun, and so our attention turns to a possible symbolic interpretation. This judgment is a covenant judgment, falling upon Jerusalem and Israel, just as the curses of Deuteronomy had predicted.
The Lord will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation *and fiery heat*, and with drought and with blight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish (Deut. 28:22 ESV, emphasis added).
The striking thing about this judgment is that as this harbinger of Hell was approaching, the men under judgment did not consider repentance. Rather, they blasphemed the name of God, and they did not repent in such a way as to give Him glory. The fact that this is mentioned indicates what the appropriate response to such a judgment should have been.
