Smoke of the furnace

When the fallen angel opens the pit, the smoke that comes out is like the smoke of a great furnace (Revelation 9:2; Gr. kapnos kaminou megales ).

Only two passages in the LXX use a similar phrase. Sinai smokes with the smoke of a furnace (Exodus 19:18), and according to Job Leviathan breathes out smoke like the smoke of a furnace (Job 41:20; LXX 41:12).

The link with Job is fairly evident: If Leviathan is a Satanic/demonic image, then it’s appropriate for the pit to breathe out smoke like Leviathan himself. But the Sinai reference is unusual in various ways. Sinai, after all, is a mountain, an anti-Abyss, and in Exodus the smoke of the mountain is the sign that Yahweh is present there. But the connection works. The pit is an inverted Sinai, a hole rather than a peak, its smoke full of locorpions who torment rather than full of cherubim who assist Israel. The abyss is where Sinai has gone, after having been thrown into the sea (8:8).