The bowls of wrath
The bowls of wrath in the book of Revelation can give the impression of a God who has finally lost patience with a world that won’t listen and lets loose one last outburst of anger. But that reading has it backwards — the truth is closer to the opposite.
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Background
Like the other two series, the bowls of wrath originate in the throne room of God. Seven angels appear, and one of the four living creatures (representing the creation) hands them the bowls of wrath — an interesting detail, since it raises the question of whether this is creation itself asking God to put an end to this.
These bowls complete the wrath of God. So what is the wrath of God, exactly? It’s both his refusal to let evil have the last word and his compassionate ambition to solve the world’s problem — justice and restoration together, not one instead of the other, as the altar's own verdict makes clear: 'true and just are your judgments'.
You may have already noticed that the seven bowls have a great deal in common with the seven trumpets, and that both cycles are closely tied to the plagues in Egypt. What ties the bowls together, though, is this: the wrath of God is connected to the prayers of the saints. What a thought — God's plan is affected by our prayers.
The bowls
The first bowl strikes everyone who has taken the mark of the beast (a symbol of loyalty). This is close to the heart of what God is concerned with here: how can people go on trusting someone who, in the end, brings nothing but destruction? That question matters especially for the church, which already knows how the devil’s story ends.
The second and third bowls answer the silencing of God’s witnesses — us. God does not stand by silently; he takes revenge — not by killing the persecutors themselves, but by devastating what they depend on, forcing a reckoning. Read against the first plague in Egypt (the killing of the source of the Egyptian gods), the second bowl exposes the devil the same way: helpless and merely destructive.
The fourth and the fifth bowls take up a related theme: the hardening of the human heart. Given the choice, people would rather suffer than give God the glory — and that is exactly their choice, cursing God's name rather than repenting. Soon enough, unclean spirits gather the kings of the earth for battle rather than let them turn back — deception finishing the work hardened hearts began.
The sixth and seventh bowls finally set the stage for the destruction of the devil’s kingdom and everyone allied with it — gathering the armies and toppling Babylon here, with the actual defeat of those armies narrated later, in chapter 19. That’s the last stage in a sequence God has been building all along: first he calls people to stop pledging loyalty to the devil (the first bowl), then to listen to his witnesses (the second and third bowls), and then to soften and humble their hearts (the fourth and fifth bowls) so that they will not be deceived (the sixth bowl).
The sixth bowl
The sixth bowl deserves a closer look on its own.
The river Euphrates was dried up to make way for the kings of the East. It’s an ironic statement that foreshadows the story of Armageddon. According to the historian Herodotus, Babylon fell to the Persians (who came from the East) after they diverted the Euphrates River, which had served as the city’s natural defense. That account may or may not be historically accurate, but it was a common belief at the time Revelation was written — which is precisely why the image lands the way it does.
The three frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon and his companions echo, most directly, the second plague of Egypt — but they carry a second layer of background too. Frogs were the animal associated with Heqet, the goddess of fertility and birth, who was also credited with the power of resurrection — which makes them an apt symbol here as well, since this is exactly where the resurrected beast makes its claim to be unbeatable.
One more irony closes out the scene. The gathering of the armies at Armageddon is mirrored later by the gathering of the birds in chapter 19, and that parallel makes Satan’s defeat even more pointed: it leaves the impression that his assembled armies are ultimately undone by nothing more than birds.