Revelation 9 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
Around AD 95, during the reign of the emperor Domitian
Location
The shaft leading to the abyss, and then the region of the river Euphrates on the eastern edge of the Roman world
Audience
The seven congregations of Roman Asia, living in a province that feared invasion from the east
Situation
The fifth trumpet opens a smoking pit from which locusts with scorpion tails swarm out to torment people for five months without killing them. The sixth releases four angels bound at the Euphrates and a cavalry force of two hundred million, yet the survivors still refuse to change how they live.
Key Background
Locust plagues were a real and remembered catastrophe in the region, and the prophet Joel had already described an invading army as a locust swarm, complete with the sound of chariots, which is the picture being expanded here. Five months is roughly the natural lifespan and swarming season of a desert locust, so even the odd time limit is drawn from observation. The Euphrates was Rome's eastern frontier, the line beyond which the Parthian cavalry waited, so naming it as the source of a horse-borne army points at the specific invasion the province of Asia feared most.
The fifth blew his and I saw a that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The was given the key to the shaft of the
He opened the shaft of the Abyss, and smoke poured out of the shaft like smoke from a massive The sun and the sky were darkened by the smoke from the shaft.
Out of the smoke, descended onto the earth, and they were given power like the power that have on earth.
They were told not to damage the grass or any green plant or any tree — only the people who don't have God's on their foreheads.
They weren't allowed to kill them, only to them for And the they inflicted was like the agony of a scorpion's sting.
During those days, people will look for but won't find it. They'll long to die, but will from them.
The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like golden and their faces resembled human faces.
Their hair was like women's hair, and their were like
They had like iron and the sound of their wings was like the roar of many horse-drawn charging into battle.
They had tails with stingers like scorpions, and their tails had the power to torment people for five months.
They had a king over them — the angel of the Abyss. His name in Hebrew is and in Greek he's called
The first is over. Watch out — two more disasters are still coming after this.
The sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the four horns of the that stands before God.
It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Release the four angels who are bound at the great
So the four angels who had been prepared for this exact hour, day, month, and year were released to kill a of humanity.
The number of mounted troops was — I heard their number announced.
This is what the horses and their riders looked like in my vision: they wore breastplates of fiery red, dark blue, and yellow. The horses' heads were like lions' heads, and fire, smoke, and poured out of their mouths.
A third of humanity was killed by these three — the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur pouring from their mouths.
The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails. Their tails were like snakes with heads, and they used them to inflict harm.
The rest of humanity — those who weren't killed by these plagues — still didn't their or stop worshiping and made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which can't see, hear, or walk.
And they didn't stop their their their or their