And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; (Revelation 8:10)
This has been interpreted as portraying the invasion and ravages of the Huns under the leadership of their king Attila, in the 5th century. Entering Europe from Central Asia about A.D. 372, the Huns first settled along the lower Danube. Three quarters of a century later they were on the move again, and for a brief period raised havoc in various regions of the tottering Roman Empire. Crossing the Rhine in A.D. 451, they were stopped by combined Roman and German troops at Chalôns in northern Gaul. After a short period of marauding in Italy, Attila died in A.D. 453, and almost immediately the Huns disappeared from history. In spite of the short period of their ascendancy, so rapacious were the Huns in their devastations that their name has come down through history as synonymous with the worst slaughter and destruction.
Lamp.
Gr. lampas, here probably meaning a torch (see on Matt. 25:1).
This judgment falls upon the sources of fresh water, as contrasted with the salt-water bodies affected under the previous trumpet (v. 8; cf. ch. 16:4).