The Motif Searcher: one word across the Douay, the Latin, the Greek and the Hebrew.

Apocalypse 9:1

And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon the earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit.

Challoner: A star fallThis may mean the fall and apostasy of great and learned men from the true faith. Or a whole nation falling into error and separating from the church, not having the sign of God in their foreheads.

Challoner: The key of the bottomless pitThat is, to the angel, not to the fallen star. To this angel was given the power, which is here signified by a key, of opening hell.

Open Apocalypse 9:1 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →

The verse in its languages

Vulgate (Clementine): Et quintus angelus tuba cecinit : et vidi stellam de cælo cecidisse in terram, et data est ei clavis putei abyssi.
Greek New Testament (SBLGNT): Καὶ ὁ πέμπτος ἄγγελος ἐσάλπισεν· καὶ εἶδον ἀστέρα ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ πεπτωκότα εἰς τὴν γῆν, καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ ἡ κλεὶς τοῦ φρέατος τῆς ἀβύσσου·

Haydock's commentary

The fifth Angel....and I saw a star, &c. This again may be to represent the confusion of all things in antichrist's time, or it may signify the fall and apostacy of great and learned men from the Christian faith. Bossuet applies it to the fall of Theodotus, of Byzantium, towards the end of the second age; but certainly no great stress can be laid on such arbitrary applications, which it is no hard matter to invent, as may be seen by the different fancies we may meet with about the locusts, &c. (Witham)

Here is a description of the rise and progress of the reformation. This trumpet begins with announcing to us the fall of a star from heaven; a very just emblem of the apostacy of Luther, who in quality of a priest and religious man is styled a star, but renouncing his faith and vows, may truly be said to have fallen from heaven upon the earth. (Pastorini, hic.[here])

To him (i.e. to the Angel, not to the fallen star) was given the key of the bottomless pit, which properly signifies hell. (Witham)

From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.

The Fathers on this verse

St Cyprian Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews, Testimony LIX

In the Wisdom of Solomon: “All the idols of the nations they counted gods, which neither have the use of their eyes for seeing, nor their nostrils to receive breath, nor their ears for hearing, nor the fingers on their hands for handling; but their feet also are slow to walk. For man made them; and he who has borrowed his breath, he fashioned them. But no man will be able to fashion a god like to himself. For since he is mortal, he fashioneth a dead thing with wicked hands. …