Revelation 9:19

19. Tails Another demoniac trait. See note on Revelation 9:10.

Had heads Alford, with justice, reprehends Elliot’s absurdly making these tails figure the “horse-tails” on the standards of the Turkish pachas. Indeed, a large share of the interpretations of the historical commentators may fairly be styled exegesis run wild. More taking, perhaps true, is the idea that the fire, smoke, and brimstone, here, are a foreshadowing of the effects of gunpowder. But they are really intended as infernal imageries correspondent to those in Revelation 9:1-2. The mouths of the horses breathed the direct destructions of war; the tails figured the resulting effects entailed by it. The tails of the horses became as serpents with biting heads at the end. A fit intimation of the devastation, poverty, demoralization, and barbarization, left behind by wars.