The following Revelation 8 commentary (with minor edits) comes from THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST (Geer & Holda, 2006).

Revelation 8:

1-2 – seventh seal opens the seven trumpets; silence shows onlookers struck with awe

3 – golden = pure, divinity; censer = holds burning incense; incense = prayers (5:8); 

4 – prayers weighed when charting course of history

5 – earthquake = revolution

5-13 – foretells destruction of Roman Empire
This is the historicist interpretation wherein Revelation is seen as revealing the unfolding of major historical events that impact the church throughout history. See “Why I’m Not a Preterist” (Holda, 2020) for more on my viewpoint.

7 – first trumpet – hail, fire, blood, trees and grass burned (1/3 of world destroyed)

fulfilled: Goths (A.D. 409) descended upon Italy in savage fury, and left behind Burning Cities, and Scorched, Bloody, and desolate lands.  Goths were led by Alaric.  It was his policy to burn the orchards and vineyards, fill cultivated fields with stones and generally destroy agriculture.

8-9 – second trumpet – burning mountain thrown in sea; third of sea die, third of ships destroyed

fulfilled: Vandals (A.D. 422) swept across Gaul and Spain into Africa.  Built a Navy, and, for 30 years, fought the Roman Navy, which for 600 years had controlled the Mediterranean, and Drove it from the Sea. They reached and rebuilt Carthage by 429 and attacked Roman commerce from the sea, first the islands and the coast of Spain and finally sacked Rome in 455, loading their pillaged goods into their boats and carrying them off.

10-11 – third trumpet – “Wormwood” means bitterness, affliction, remorse in Hebrew and undrinkable in Greek; waters and rivers afflicted; many men died

fulfilled: Attila the Hun appears A.D. 440. Fights on banks of Danube; always fights on rivers. Head of 800,000. Defeated Roman armies with awful slaughter, successively, on River Marne, River Rhone, and River Po, so that these rivers actually ran with blood. Attila claimed to be son of Mars.  

12 – fourth trumpet – 1/3 of sun, moon, and stars darkened; third of day had no light

fulfilled:  Odeacer the Ostrogoth entered Rome and in 476 sat on the Imperial throne. An unlettered barbarian was now king of Rome. From that event in history most historians date the beginning of the dark ages. It was the end of civilization in the West, and the amenities accompanying it. There would no longer be an education system — no schools, no roads, no centralized commerce. The light of culture had surely gone out and the progress of systematic learning would not be rediscovered again in the West until the Renaissance of the 1500’s.

7-12 – prophesies fall of Rome, and dark ages that followed (during this time also the Crusades occurred)

* 1/3 – 1/3 earth, sea, rivers, stars destroyed

fulfilled: Rome fell in 3 parts.  First part: Western part fell A.D. 476 (prophesied by 8:7-12) (first 4 trumpets). This was the first 1/3. Second part: Asiatic and African Parts overrun by Muslims (5th trumpet). Third part: Eastern European Empire fell to Muslims (A.D. 1453) (6th trumpet).  

13 – 5th, 6th, 7th trumpets = 3 woes to come

(for more information: http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/barbars.htm)

Rev. 8:13 gives us strong warning about what Revelation 9 is about to reveal…