The transition from the realm of nature to the spiritual world, already marked at the introduction of the fifth Seal and of the fifth Trumpet, is here again observable; but, as in the case of the sixth Trumpet, the spiritual world alluded to is that of the prince of darkness. With darkness he is smitten. That there is a reference to the darkness which, at the word of Moses, fell upon the land of Egypt when visited by its plagues can hardly be doubted, for the darkness of that plague was not ordinary darkness; it was "a darkness that might be felt."[433] More than darkness, however, is alluded to. We are told of _their pains and of their sores_. But pains and sores are not an effect produced by darkness. They can, therefore, be only those of the first Bowl, a conclusion confirmed by the use of the word "plagues" instead of plague. The inference to be drawn from this is important, for we thus learn that the effects of any earlier Bowl are not exhausted before the contents of one following are discharged. Each Bowl rather adds fresh punishment to that of its predecessors, and all of them go on accumulating their terrors to the end. Nothing could more clearly show how impossible it is to interpret such plagues literally, and how mistaken is any effort to apply them to the particular events of history. The sixth Bowl follows:-- And the sixth poured out his bowl upon the great river, the river Euphrates, and the water thereof was dried up, that the way might be made ready for the kings that come from the sun-rising. And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits, as it were frogs: for they are spirits of devils, working signs, which go forth unto the kings of the whole inhabited earth, to gather them together unto the war of the great day of God, the Almighty. (Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.) And they gathered them together into the place which is called in Hebrew Har-Magedon (xvi. 12-16). Probably no part of the Apocalypse has received more varied interpretation than the first statement of this Bowl. Who are these _kings that come from the sun-rising_ is the point to be determined; and the answer usually given is, that they are part of the anti-christian host, part of those afterwards spoken of as _the kings of the whole inhabited earth_, before whom God dries up the Euphrates in order that they may pursue an uninterrupted march to the spot on which they are to be overwhelmed with a final and complete destruction. Something may certainly be said on behalf of such a view; yet it is exposed to serious objections.