Revelation 9:2

And he opened the pit of the abyss; and there went up a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

The smoke here, and the locusts, are the hellish teachings, influences, thought styles, intellectual delusions, etc., that darken the true light of Christ in the world. The perverted minds of sinful men mislead the whole world, promising happiness, but giving instead wretched and miserable torment.

This obscuration (by the smoke) is surely the diffusion on earth of evil thoughts and ideas, the spirit of falsehood and hate, hostility to truth, and enmity against God and man.[17]

The very air men breathe in their education, managing, governing, etc., is black murk. Hell spreads its pall over them. The light of truth shines, but men live in this hellish atmosphere.[18]

Now it is evident that this is a description of the way it is now, in this present dispensation of God's grace; and this awful blindness and debauchery of people is not natural. "It is demonically inspired."[19] "The picture taken as a whole symbolizes a very grievous moral and spiritual darkening by the forces of evil."[20] "The smoke is the evil influence of Satan which darkens men's minds."[21] The "sun" which is darkened thus is Jesus Christ, the only true light of our world. God uses even the work of the devil as warning and punishment for the wicked; but the blame for the torments which people suffer is not upon God; rather, it is upon the wicked themselves and upon Satan whom they follow.

[17] W. Boyd Carpenter, Ellicott's Bible Commentary, Vol. VIII (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959), p. 574.

[18] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 289.

[19] William Barclay, op. cit., p. 48.

[20] William Hendriksen, op. cit., p. 271.

[21] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 263.