Good city life
22 and the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will be heard in you no more, and a craftsman of any craft will be found in you no more, and the sound of the mill will be heard in you no more, 23 and the light of a lamp will shine in you no more, and the voice of bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more, (Revelation 18:22-23a–ESV)
Good city life might be an odd title for this section on judgment. The angel who took up that heavy stone and heaved it into the sea that it might be gone forever told of things lost. The angel mostly concentrates on the lights and sounds of a city. Birds, animals and insects make up an ambiance of the forest. People activities are to make up the ambiance of a city. Somber are the moments when sound disappears. Think of what is often done to honor the dead. A moment of silence is provided.
In novels authors who wish to convey the presence of evil often describe a silence. It is how the people on a mission know that something with ill-intentions is among them.
Musicians – Gone
When I first read this I mostly saw that music was stilled, but that is the secondary loss. The angel says that it is the sound of musically inclined people that is lost. It is not as though the harps, flutes and trumpets were confiscated. The people were confiscated, judged, destroyed suddenly.
The violent disappearance of the inhabitants of the city will result in the loss of their music. If no one is there to play the orchestra falls ghostly silent.
Craftsmen – Gone
We do not live in a time of manufacturing guilds. Since the industrial revolution much of that has moved into factories and away from cities. In John’s time, though, cities would have been enclaves unto themselves. There would have been people to make clothes, and a blacksmith for pounding out farm tools, kitchen items, and maybe even idols. Others would have been announcers of events in the city life. sellers of seeds, supplies and implements of husbandry and farming would have had their shops. Much of what was needed would have to be made and mended locally. These would be the sounds of vitality.
The sounds of those people will be gone. There will not be a need for those things for the city will be destroyed and its people-life stilled.
Grocers – Gone
Bread is made from the grains of the earth, but before the grains can be used for that they must be prepared. The husks and shells and chaff must be removed and the starches and proteins collected. Since the dawn of man the grains of the earth have been grown and then processed. The fruits of the harvest are then taken to the table. Life has turned on the making of food. In John’s time water mills had been around for several hundred years. Animal and human powered mills with their rotating grindstones (millstone reference again) had been around even longer. These were part and parcel of an agrarian life.
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