Revelation 9: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The fifth angel blows his trumpet, a fallen star opens the shaft of the deep pit, and locusts with scorpion-like stings come out of the smoke. They are told to harm only people who lack God's seal, and to torment them for five months without killing them. The sixth trumpet then releases four angels bound at the Euphrates, and an army of two hundred million mounted troops kills a third of mankind with fire, smoke, and sulfur. The chapter ends by saying the survivors still did not turn away from their idols, murders, sorceries, sexual immorality, and thefts.

Claim by Claim

1. 9:1
   • The fifth angel sounded his trumpet.
   • The narrator saw a star fall from heaven to the earth.
   • The key of the pit of the abyss was given to him.
2. 9:2
   • He opened the pit of the abyss.
   • Smoke rose out of the pit.
   • The smoke was like the smoke of a great furnace.
   • The sun was darkened by the smoke of the pit.
   • The air was darkened by the smoke of the pit.
3. 9:3
   • Locusts came out of the smoke onto the earth.
   • Power was given to the locusts.
   • Their power was like the power that the scorpions of the earth have.
4. 9:4
   • The locusts were told not to harm the grass of the earth.
   • They were told not to harm any green plant.
   • They were told not to harm any tree.
   • They were permitted to harm only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
5. 9:5
   • It was given to the locusts that they should not kill those men.
   • It was given that those men should be tormented for five months.
   • Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man.
6. 9:6
   • In those days men will seek death.
   • They will not find death.
   • They will desire to die.
   • Death will flee from them.
7. 9:7
   • The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared for battle.
   • On their heads were what looked like crowns resembling gold.
   • Their faces were like the faces of men.
8. 9:8
   • They had hair like the hair of women.
   • Their teeth were like the teeth of lions.
9. 9:9
   • They had breastplates like breastplates of iron.
   • The sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
10. 9:10
    • They had tails like scorpions.
    • There were stings in their tails.
    • Their power was to hurt men for five months.
11. 9:11
    • They had a king over them.
    • That king is the angel of the abyss.
    • His name in Hebrew is Abaddon.
    • In Greek his name is Apollyon.
12. 9:12
    • One woe is past.
    • Two more woes are coming after this.
13. 9:13
    • The sixth angel sounded his trumpet.
    • The narrator heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar.
    • The golden altar is before God.
14. 9:14
    • The voice spoke to the sixth angel, who had the trumpet.
    • The voice said to release the four angels.
    • The four angels are bound at the great river Euphrates.
15. 9:15
    • The four angels were released.
    • The four angels had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year.
    • They were released so that they would kill a third of mankind.
16. 9:16
    • The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million.
    • The narrator heard their number.
17. 9:17
    • The narrator saw the horses in the vision in this way.
    • The narrator saw those who sat on the horses.
    • The riders had breastplates that were fiery, hyacinth-blue, and sulfurous yellow.
    • The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions.
    • Fire came out of their mouths.
    • Smoke came out of their mouths.
    • Brimstone came out of their mouths.
18. 9:18
    • A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues.
    • The three plagues were the fire, the smoke, and the brimstone that came out of their mouths.
19. 9:19
    • The power of the horses is in their mouths.
    • Their power is also in their tails.
    • Their tails are like serpents.
    • Their tails have heads.
    • With their tails they inflict harm.
20. 9:20
    • The rest of mankind were not killed by these plagues.
    • They did not repent of the works of their hands.
    • They did not stop worshipping demons.
    • They did not stop worshipping idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood.
    • Those idols cannot see.
    • Those idols cannot hear.
    • Those idols cannot walk.
21. 9:21
    • They did not repent of their murders.
    • They did not repent of their sorceries.
    • They did not repent of their sexual immorality.
    • They did not repent of their thefts.

Words Worth Explaining

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

9:1

"Bottomless pit" translates the Greek word abyssos, the abyss: a deep place imagined below the earth and used in Jewish writing of the period as a holding prison for evil spirits. The Greek phrase is literally "the shaft of the abyss," picturing a well or mine shaft with an opening that can be locked. The King James "I saw a star fall" can be misread as an event John watches happening; the Greek participle is past, a star that had already fallen, and John sees it after the fall.

9:2

A furnace here is a large kiln or smelting oven, the hottest fire an ancient reader knew, giving off thick black smoke.

9:3

Locust swarms were a recognized catastrophe in the ancient Near East: millions of insects stripping every green thing and leaving famine behind. The point of the following verses is the reversal of that expectation, since these locusts are forbidden to touch plants and attack people instead. A scorpion's sting is savagely painful but, for the species common in that region, rarely deadly.

9:4

"The seal of God in their foreheads" refers back to the marking of God's servants earlier in the book. A seal was an owner's stamp pressed into wax or clay; slaves and soldiers were sometimes branded or tattooed to show whose they were.

9:5

Five months is roughly the span of a locust season in that part of the world, from spring hatching to the death of the swarm in late summer.

9:7

"Shapes" in 1611 English means overall appearance or form, not outline only.

9:9

"Breastplates" is armor worn over the chest. The comparison of locust wings to rushing chariots echoes the description of a locust plague in the book of Joel, which ancient readers would have known.

9:11

Abaddon is a Hebrew word meaning destruction or ruin; in the Hebrew scriptures it is used as a name for the place of the dead, alongside Sheol. Apollyon is a Greek word meaning destroyer. The two names say the same thing in the two languages.

9:12

"Woe" is a cry of grief or a pronouncement of doom, the sort of exclamation a prophet makes over a doomed city, stronger than the modern word "trouble."

9:13

The golden altar is the incense altar, described in Exodus as standing inside the sanctuary in front of the innermost room. Its four corners had upward projections called horns; blood was smeared on them in certain rituals, and a fugitive could claim protection by grabbing hold of them.

9:14

The Euphrates marked the eastern edge of Roman territory. Beyond it lay Parthia, whose mounted archers were the most feared cavalry known to a first-century reader, and an invasion crossing that river was a standing fear in the region.

9:15

The Greek phrase is genuinely ambiguous and has been read both ways: either the angels were held ready for one precise moment (the hour, day, month and year appointed for them), or they were released to kill over a stretch of time made up of those units. The King James wording preserves the ambiguity rather than settling it.

9:16

"Two hundred thousand thousand" is the King James way of writing two hundred thousand times a thousand, that is two hundred million. The Greek says "two myriads of myriads"; a myriad is ten thousand, and was also used loosely for a countless crowd.

9:17

Jacinth is a gemstone of a dark blue or smoky violet color, named from the hyacinth flower. "Brimstone" is the old English word for sulfur, which burns with a yellow flame and a choking stench. The three colors of the riders' armor match the three things coming out of the horses' mouths: fire red, smoke dark, sulfur yellow.

9:20

"Devils" in the King James is the regular translation of the Greek daimonia, demons, meaning malevolent spirits rather than a single devil. "Brass" in 1611 English means bronze, the copper and tin alloy used for statues and tools. "Repented not" means they did not change their minds and turn around, not that they felt no regret; the Greek word is about reversing direction.

9:21

"Sorceries" translates the Greek pharmakeia, which covered drugs, potions and spell-craft together, the same root that gives us the word pharmacy. "Fornication" translates porneia, a broad term for sexual conduct outside marriage of any kind, wider than the modern English word.