Revelation begins (1:1, 19) with the announcement that God showed His bondservants what will soon “happen” or “become” (ginomai). It ends on the same note (22:6). What is it that happens?
Judging from the scattered twenty-six uses of the verb ginomai, the happening that God unveils is the happening concentrated in chapter 16. Other things are said to happen or become: the sun turns black and the moon turns red (6:12); the angel at the altar throws coals to the earth (8:5-7); seas become blood (8:8), as do rivers and streams (8:11); the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ (11:15).
But the uses of ginomai are clustered in chapter 16. The first bowl becomes a sore (16:2), the second turns the sea to blood (v. 3), and the third changes the springs to blood (v. 4). With the fifth bowl, the throne and kingdom of the beast become darkness (v. 10). The seventh bowl, though, is the happening of all happenings. The effects of the seventh bowl are announced with Genonen, “It happened” or “It is done,” and in 16:17-19, the verb is used six times, four times in verse 18 alone.
What happens when things happen? Flashes, sounds and thunders egenonto; a great earthquake egeneto, such as has not egeneto since men egenonto; the city egeneto into three parts. Babylon the great drinks the blood of the passion of God’s wrath.
This appears to be the specific happening that God reveals to His bondservants through John: The coming of God’s throne to earth, the shaking of the earth so that cities fall and mountains flee, the collapse of the harlot city Babylon. This is The Happening.
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