Revelation 16: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Seven angels are told to pour out seven bowls of God's anger on the earth. The first five bring painful sores, the sea and the rivers turned to blood, scorching heat from the sun, and darkness over the beast's kingdom; the people who are struck curse God and do not turn from what they are doing. The sixth dries up the Euphrates, and three frog-like spirits from the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet gather the kings of the earth to a place called Armageddon. The seventh brings a voice saying "It is done," an earthquake greater than any since people have lived on earth, the splitting of the great city, the cup of wrath given to Babylon, and a hailstorm.

Claim by Claim

1. 16:1
   • John heard a great voice coming out of the temple.
   • The voice spoke to the seven angels.
   • The voice told them to go.
   • The voice told them to pour out the bowls of God's wrath onto the earth.
2. 16:2
   • The first angel went and poured out his bowl onto the earth.
   • A foul and malignant sore broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast.
   • The sore also broke out on those who worshipped the beast's image.
3. 16:3
   • The second angel poured out his bowl onto the sea.
   • The sea became blood like that of a dead man.
   • Every living soul in the sea died.
4. 16:4
   • The third angel poured out his bowl onto the rivers and the springs of water.
   • The rivers and springs became blood.
5. 16:5
   • John heard the angel of the waters speak.
   • The angel said God is righteous.
   • The angel said God is the one who is and who was and who shall be.
   • The angel addressed God as Lord.
   • The angel said God is righteous because he has judged in this way.
6. 16:6
   • The angel said they had shed the blood of saints and prophets.
   • The angel said God had given them blood to drink.
   • The angel said they are deserving of this.
7. 16:7
   • John heard another speak out of the altar.
   • The speaker affirmed the judgment with agreement.
   • The speaker addressed God as Lord God Almighty.
   • The speaker said God's judgments are true and righteous.
8. 16:8
   • The fourth angel poured out his bowl onto the sun.
   • The sun was given power to scorch people with fire.
9. 16:9
   • People were scorched with great heat.
   • The people blasphemed the name of God.
   • God has authority over these plagues.
   • The people did not repent so as to give God glory.
10. 16:10
    • The fifth angel poured out his bowl onto the throne of the beast.
    • The beast's kingdom became darkened.
    • The people gnawed their tongues because of the pain.
11. 16:11
    • The people blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores.
    • The people did not repent of their deeds.
12. 16:12
    • The sixth angel poured out his bowl onto the great river Euphrates.
    • The water of the Euphrates was dried up.
    • The drying was so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared.
13. 16:13
    • John saw three unclean spirits that looked like frogs.
    • The spirits came out of the mouth of the dragon.
    • The spirits came out of the mouth of the beast.
    • The spirits came out of the mouth of the false prophet.
14. 16:14
    • The three spirits are spirits of demons.
    • The spirits work signs.
    • The spirits go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole inhabited world.
    • The spirits go out to gather those kings to the battle of the great day of God Almighty.
15. 16:15
    • A voice said, Behold, I come as a thief.
    • The voice said the one who stays awake and keeps his garments is blessed.
    • Keeping his garments prevents him from walking naked.
    • Keeping his garments prevents others from seeing his shame.
16. 16:16
    • He gathered them together into one place.
    • The place is called Armageddon in the Hebrew language.
17. 16:17
    • The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air.
    • A great voice came out of the temple of heaven, from the throne.
    • The voice said, It is done.
18. 16:18
    • There were voices, thunders, and lightnings.
    • There was a great earthquake.
    • No earthquake like it had occurred since people were on the earth.
    • The earthquake was extremely mighty and great.
19. 16:19
    • The great city was divided into three parts.
    • The cities of the nations fell.
    • Babylon the great was remembered before God.
    • Babylon was remembered so that God would give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
20. 16:20
    • Every island fled away.
    • The mountains were not found.
21. 16:21
    • Great hail fell out of heaven upon people.
    • Each hailstone weighed about a talent.
    • People blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail.
    • The plague of the hail was exceedingly great.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

16:1

A "vial" in 1611 was not a narrow tube but a wide, shallow bowl, the kind used in temple ritual to tip out its whole contents in one motion. The Greek word names that same broad dish, which is why modern versions say "bowls." The "temple" here is the heavenly sanctuary John has been describing, not a building in Jerusalem.

16:2

"Noisome" has nothing to do with noise. In 1611 it meant harmful or loathsome, from the same root as "annoy," and "grievous" meant severe. The mark and the image refer back to chapter 13, where people are marked on the hand or forehead to show whose side they are on, and a statue of the beast is set up to be worshiped.

16:3

"Every living soul" does not mean human beings. "Soul" here translates a Greek word used of any living creature, so the sense is every living thing in the sea. "As the blood of a dead man" points to blood that has congealed and gone foul rather than fresh blood.

16:4

A "fountain" in 1611 English meant a natural spring where water rises out of the ground and a stream begins, not an ornamental jet of water.

16:5

Jewish writing of this period often spoke of angels placed in charge of parts of the natural world, over fire, wind, or water; John's readers would have heard "the angel of the waters" as the angel appointed over them. "Which art, and wast, and shalt be" is a set formula for God's eternity, echoing the divine name given in Exodus. The Greek manuscripts differ at one point in this verse: some read "O Lord," others "O Holy One."

16:6

"They are worthy" is not praise. In 1611 "worthy" simply meant deserving, and could mean deserving of punishment as easily as of reward. The image of being made to drink blood is measure-for-measure language: what they poured out is what they are given to swallow.

16:7

In the Greek the altar itself speaks; KJV's "another out of the altar" supplies a voice. The altar was introduced in chapter 6, where the people killed for their testimony cry out from beneath it, so the answer comes from the place of the martyrs. "Even so" means simply "yes" or "agreed."

16:8

The Greek pronoun is ambiguous: the power to scorch may be given to the angel or to the sun. KJV's "him" reads it of the sun, which is a masculine noun in Greek.

16:9

"Blasphemed" in this chapter covers any speaking against God: cursing him, reviling him, insulting him aloud. It is broader than the modern narrow sense. "Repented not" uses "repent" in its older full sense of turning around and changing course, not merely feeling sorry.

16:10

"Seat" meant throne in 1611, and the Greek word is the ordinary one for a ruler's throne. The point is the beast's seat of government, not a chair.

16:12

The Euphrates was the great river of Mesopotamia and the eastern boundary of Roman territory. Beyond it lay Parthia, the empire Rome never conquered, whose cavalry Romans feared. Armies crossing from the east had to ford it, so a dried riverbed reads as an open invasion road.

16:13

Frogs were unclean animals under Jewish food law, so an unclean spirit shaped like a frog is a double insult. Frogs also swarmed over Egypt in the second of the plagues in Exodus, which this chapter's sequence of disasters repeatedly echoes.

16:14

KJV regularly says "devils" where the Greek has a plural word meaning lesser hostile spirits, demons, as distinct from the devil himself. "Working miracles" translates a word meaning signs: displays of power performed to prove a claim and win belief, not simply wonders.

16:15

This line breaks into the vision as a sudden first-person address, spoken by Christ, before the account resumes. "Watcheth" means stays awake, on guard. In this culture, being stripped and exposed in public was a matter of disgrace rather than merely of nakedness, so the picture is of someone caught off guard and humiliated.

16:16

"Armageddon" transliterates Hebrew words usually taken as Har Megiddo, the mountain or hill of Megiddo. Megiddo was a fortress town guarding the pass into the plain of Jezreel in northern Israel, and several decisive battles of Israel's history were fought on that plain. There is no actual mountain at Megiddo, so the name has been argued over since antiquity.

16:17

"It is done" is a single Greek verb in a tense that means the thing has happened and now stands finished.

16:18

"Voices" here translates a word for sounds or noises of any kind; in the storm language of this book it means the rumblings that accompany thunder, not speech.

16:19

"The great city" is left unnamed and readers have argued ever since over which city is meant. "Babylon" was the empire that destroyed Jerusalem and its temple in 587 BC; later Jewish and Christian writers used the name as a byword for whatever imperial power was doing the same in their own day, and John does not say outright which one he means. "Came in remembrance before God" is a Hebrew idiom: when God "remembers" something he acts on it, and it does not imply that he had forgotten. The cup of wine is a stock image from the prophets, where nations are made to drink and stagger like drunks.

16:21

A talent was a unit of weight, roughly seventy-five to a hundred pounds depending on which standard was in use, and it was the heaviest weight in common commercial reckoning. Hail falling on the enemies of God is an image from Exodus and from Joshua. "Exceeding great" means extremely great; "exceeding" was an ordinary intensifier in 1611.