^8:11the name of the star is Wormwood.^[a] A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.

the name of the star is Wormwood.^[a]

The plant, Artemisia absinthium, is known as wormwood. From it, a dark green oil, which is very bitter, is produced. It is lethal in water as the rest of the verse shows.

A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.

There are two literal possibilities:

1. There is an "explosion" of the wormwood plant on the earth which, when the previous two trumpets judgment is completed, has been compressed or crushed to release the wormwood oil into a THIRD of the waters.


2. Since this is a star, the chemical composition, on impact, is such as to pollute the THIRD of waters and make them bitter. Consider that the Russian word, Chernobyl means Wormwood.

The symbolic view is that if this is the devil and his followers who are being thrown from heaven, then he brings bitterness and death.

This trumpet is a direct judgment upon mankind because many men died from the waters; the previous two trumpets were upon the earth itself with man involved as an "innocent" bystander.

^[a] Wormwood is a bitter substance.