Previously the prophet had seen four angels that had power to restrain the winds from blowing (ch. 7:1). They had worldwide power; the present four appear to be localized.

Most commentators who interpret the fifth trumpet as applying to the Saracens have seen the Turks in the sixth. Some of these identify the four angels as four sultanies of the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire, which they identify as Aleppo, Iconium, Damascus, and Baghdad. Others see in these angels the destructive forces that moved against the Western world.

Literally, “have been bound.” These angels have been restrained from their work of judgment until the sixth angel sounds his trumpet.

 Commentators who apply the sixth trumpet to the Turks generally give a literal interpretation to the Euphrates, in the sense that it was from the region of the Euphrates that the Turks entered the Byzantine Empire. But inasmuch as the names Sodom, Egypt (ch. 11:8), and Babylon (chs. 14:8; 17:5; 18:2, 10, 21) are used symbolically in the Revelation, other commentators hold that the Euphrates should also be understood symbolically (see on ch. 16:12). Some of these note that, to the Israelites, the Euphrates constituted the northern boundary of the land which ideally they were to occupy (Deut. 1:7, 8) and which, at the height of their power, they dominated, at least to some extent (see on 1 Kings 4:21). Beyond the Euphrates were the heathen nations of the north who repeatedly swept down and engulfed Israel (cf. on Jer. 1:14). According to this point of view the Euphrates here indicates a boundary beyond which God holds the forces that accomplish His judgment under the sixth trumpet.

 Still others connect the Euphrates with mystical Babylon. They point out that inasmuch as later in the Revelation the final apostasy is portrayed as mystic Babylon (ch. 17:5) and that particular attention is called to its sitting “upon many waters” (v. 1), and inasmuch as historical Babylon was literally situated upon the waters of the Euphrates (see Vol. IV, p. 796), the Euphrates is here symbolic of the domain of the power represented as mystic Babylon (cf. on ch. 16:12).