Preparations

When the angels come out with their trumpets, they “prepare (hetoimazo) to trumpet them” (Revelation 8:6). It’s not clear what that means. A warm up, with old jazz standards first improvised by Jubal? Cleaning the mouthpiece or valves?

The more important point of the reference seems to be the way it fits into the theme of “preparation” in Revelation.

The verb hetoimazo is used seven times, and the various preparations climax in the revelation of the holy city, new Jerusalem, descending as a bride prepared for her husband (21:2; cf. 19:7), the center of a new heaven and earth (v. 1). The trumpets are the beginning of a sevenfold preparation of the new creation. After six moments of preparation, the sabbatical moment comes with the descent of the bride who has been made ready for her husband.

Before the bride appears, though, much of the preparation is preparation for battle. Locusts come up from the abyss “prepared for battle” (9:7); four angels are prepared for the hour and day when they can kill a third of mankind (9:15); with the sixth bowl, the Euphrates dries up and makes a way for the “kings of the east” to cross to fight the frog demons (16:12). The sky mother of chapter 12 flees into the wilderness under threat from the dragon, to a place “prepared” for her (12:6). All this prepared battle and combat is leading to the unveiling of the prepared bride. Perhaps the combat is the preparation of the bride.

The seven uses are organized in a roughly chiastic structure:

A. Trumpet angels prepare to sound, 8:6

B. Locusts like horses prepared for battle, 9:7

C. Angels prepared to kill, 9:15

D. The sky mother flees to a prepared place, 12:6

C’. The river dries so the kings of the east can cross, 16:12

B’. The bride is prepared, 19:7

A’. The prepared bride is revealed, 21:1

Several connections illuminate. The locusts in B have faces like men and hair like women, 9:7-8, infernal anticipations of the heavenly bride in B’. The angels (C) that prepare to kill are sometimes taken as demons, but the connection with the kings from the sunrise (C’) who fight the frog demons suggests otherwise. Both the angels and the kings are part of God’s army.

And this, finally, may circle back to help us understand the preparation of the trumpets. Among other things, trumpets announce the arrival – the parousia – of a king. In the chiasm, the prepared trumpets announce the eventual appearance of the prepared Queen of heaven, who is the glory of heaven’s king.