Scripture quotations on this page are from the World English Bible (public domain), shown in quotation marks; all commentary is written by Scripture Trove. Source: Revelation 9 · Commentary
The first four trumpets of chapter 8 struck the natural world (earth, sea, fresh water, heavenly bodies), and the eagle in mid-heaven announced that the last three trumpets would be far more terrible — because they no longer strike nature but directly strike human beings. Chapter 9 records the fifth trumpet (the first woe) and the sixth trumpet (the second woe), depicting demonic locusts released from the abyss and a devastating army from the Euphrates River.
The core section of the seven trumpets judgment (8:6–11:19). The fifth and sixth trumpets constitute the first two of the "three woes," with the severity of judgment escalating from "one-third" natural disasters to direct attacks on humanity.
9:6 "In those days people will seek death, and will in no way find it. They will desire to die, and death will flee from them." (WEB)
Revelation 9:6（World English Bible）
9:20–21 "The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, didn't repent of the works of their hands, that they wouldn't worship demons, and the golden, and the silver, and the brass, and the stone, and the wood idols, which can't see, hear, or walk. They didn't repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts." (WEB)
Revelation 9:20–21（World English Bible）
Dear brothers and sisters, the most heartbreaking thing in chapter 9 is not the torment of the locusts or the slaughter of the army — it is those final two verses: "still did not repent."
God's judgment is not aimed at destruction but at awakening. It is like a parent telling a child, "If you keep going this way, you will get hurt": the warning is an expression of love. But chapter 9 confronts us with a despairing reality: even when faced with the most severe warnings, the human heart can still refuse to turn back.
This is not just "those people's" problem. Pharaoh grew more and more hardened through the ten plagues — not because he was uniquely wicked, but because there is a stubborn force within human nature that would rather cling to idols and die than bow before God. You and I both carry this tendency.
But this chapter also contains a hope that is easy to overlook: those who have God's seal on their foreheads — the locusts cannot touch them. If you belong to Christ, you have already been sealed. This does not mean you will not experience a world full of suffering, but it does mean the destroyer's authority cannot cross the line God has drawn around you.
After enduring such terrifying judgment, people "still did not repent." Can you understand this kind of hardness? In your own life, are there areas where you know you should change but keep putting it off?
The locusts cannot harm "those who have God's seal on their foreheads." What comfort does this offer Christians living in a difficult world?
Idols are described as dead things that "cannot see, cannot hear, cannot walk." In modern society, what are our "idols" — the things we pour our trust into that cannot truly respond to us?
9:1–2 "The fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from the sky which had fallen to the earth. The key to the pit of the abyss was given to him. He opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke from a burning furnace. The sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke from the pit." (WEB)
Revelation 9:1–2（World English Bible）
A "star" falls from heaven. In Revelation's symbolic language, "stars" can refer to angels or spiritual beings (cf. 1:20, where the seven stars are seven messengers; Isaiah 14:12, "How you have fallen from heaven, morning star"). There are three main schools of thought regarding the identity of this star: (1) The fallen angel view — this is an already-fallen spiritual being, possibly the same one Jesus refers to in Luke 10:18: "I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven" (Carson and Beale lean toward this view); (2) The commissioned angel view — this is a faithful angel sent by God to open the abyss, and "fallen to the earth" merely describes being dispatched downward (Mounce and Osborne partially support this); (3) The Satan himself view — but this is difficult to reconcile with chapter 20, where Satan is only then cast into the abyss. This commentary leans toward the fallen angel view: combined with 9:11's identification of the locust king as Abaddon/Apollyon, this star is very likely one of the leaders of the demonic realm. But the crucial detail is that the key was "given" (the Greek uses the passive voice — the classic "divine passive": the unstated agent is God). The release of evil forces operates under God's permission; the star did not force the door open on its own.
The Abyss (Greek ἄβυσσος, abyssos) appears seven times in Revelation (9:1, 2, 11; 11:7; 17:8; 20:1, 3) and designates the place where demonic forces are imprisoned (cf. Luke 8:31, where the demons beg Jesus not to send them into the abyss; Revelation 20:1–3, where Satan is thrown into the abyss for a thousand years). In Second Temple Jewish literature (such as 1 Enoch 21–22), the abyss specifically denotes "the deep pit where fallen angels are imprisoned awaiting judgment" — this is precisely the semantic register John employs.
When the pit is opened, thick smoke blots out sun and sky. Darkness spreads from the depths of the earth to the heavens above, echoing Exodus 10:21–23's ninth plague ("darkness that could be felt") and also reverberating with 8:12's fourth trumpet, where the heavenly bodies are darkened. The release of demonic forces is accompanied by the obscuring of light.
9:3–5 "Then out of the smoke came locusts on the earth, and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power. They were told that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those people who don't have God's seal on their foreheads. They were given power not to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a person." (WEB)
Revelation 9:3–5（World English Bible）
These "locusts" are not ordinary insects. Normal locusts devour vegetation, but these locusts are forbidden from touching grass or trees — they may only attack people who do not have God's seal (the seal from 7:3 now serves its protective function here). This functional inversion is a deliberate signal from John: this is no natural locust plague — it is a vision of the spiritual realm.
Notice the precision of the restrictions: "do not harm the green things" + "only those without God's seal" + "not permitted to kill them" + "only to torment them for five months" — four concentric limitations boxing the judgment into an exact boundary. The judgment has red lines set by God. This is one of Revelation's most important pastoral truths: evil never has autonomous authority to decide how much it does, to whom, or for how long — all of that is held in the hands of the slain Lamb.
"Five months" — John chose this specific duration for three reasons: (1) It corresponds exactly to the natural lifecycle of actual locusts from hatching to death (locust plagues in Palestine typically lasted from May through September), so John uses natural history to frame a supernatural vision; (2) Five months is not forever — this torment, though prolonged, has an endpoint; (3) Five months is significantly longer than "a week" or "a month," long enough to thoroughly break down psychological defenses while still leaving ample time for repentance.
The locust imagery echoes the locust army of Joel 1–2 ("their appearance is as the appearance of horses, and as horsemen, so they run" — Joel 2:4–5 is almost directly reused by John), but is invested with a demonic dimension: they emerge from the abyss, representing the assault of spiritual forces of evil against humanity. Interpretive approaches: Futurists see this as a literal supernatural disaster yet to come; preterists connect it to the Roman military advancing (particularly Parthian cavalry); historicists have identified the passage with the Islamic invasion of Europe (Dorsey's interpretation takes the locusts as Arabian horsemen) or the Mongol incursions (a terror burned into thirteenth-century European church memory); idealists see it as a recurring pattern throughout human history of "demonic deception and spiritual torment." This commentary leans toward moderate futurism with partial preterist elements: this passage will find its fullest fulfillment before the Lord's return, but it has already been partially rehearsed throughout history. The eighth plague of the Exodus was also a locust plague (Exodus 10:12–15), but those locusts consumed crops — these locusts attack people. End-times judgment far exceeds the Exodus in scale.
9:6 "In those days people will seek death, and will in no way find it. They will desire to die, and death will flee from them." (WEB)
Revelation 9:6（World English Bible）
This is the darkest sentence in all of Revelation — possibly darker than any martyrdom scene. When suffering reaches its peak, people cannot even flee into death; death is no longer an exit from suffering. The Greek original uses a powerful parallel structure: "seek / will in no way find / desire / flee from them" — four verbs lined up like blow after blow of a whip, depicting an ultimate despair in which a person actively pursues death and is actively rejected by death.
Job once said, "I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones" (Job 7:15); Jeremiah cursed the day he was born (Jeremiah 20:14–18); Jonah, in the belly of the great fish, said "It is better for me to die than to live" (Jonah 4:3, 8). But none of them were ever so coldly refused by death itself. This echoes Hosea 10:8: "They will say to the mountains, 'Cover us!' and to the hills, 'Fall on us!'" (also quoted by Jesus on the road to the cross, Luke 23:30). In the sixth seal, people beg the mountains and rocks to hide them (6:16); in the fifth trumpet, people seek death but cannot find it (9:6) — the escalation of suffering is systematic and progressive.
Pastoral truth: For those today who think "suicide brings release," Revelation issues a spiritual warning: death is not the endpoint of relief, because after death comes judgment (Hebrews 9:27). And for those who reject God and sever their relationship with eternity, even the fallback of "resting in death" will be closed off. This is not a threat — it is a cry of mercy: while there is still "today," turn back quickly.
9:7–8 "The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared for war. On their heads were something like golden crowns, and their faces were like people's faces. They had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like those of lions." (WEB)
Revelation 9:7–8（World English Bible）
9:9–10 "They had breastplates, like breastplates of iron. The sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, or of many horses rushing to war. They have tails like those of scorpions, and stings. In their tails they have power to harm men for five months." (WEB)
Revelation 9:9–10（World English Bible）
John uses an eight-fold simile to describe the appearance of these locusts. Not a single detail says "they are" something — only "like" (Greek ὁμοιώματα, homoiōmata). This language of "like" is itself a key technique of apocalyptic literature. The vision is not a code meant to be "decoded into modern military hardware" (don't rush to say "these are tanks, these are helicopters, these are chemical weapons") — rather, it is a poetic image whose symbolic tension must be felt. Each "like" reveals a dimension of evil:
Combined, these images point to a demonic force that is simultaneously attractive and destructive. They are not merely the embodiment of violence — they are destruction wrapped in a beautiful exterior, precisely as Paul says: "Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14). Joel 2:4 also says locusts "have the appearance of horses," but Revelation's locusts are far more terrifying than Joel's — they are supernatural beings that emerge from the abyss. This eight-fold composite form could never exist in the natural world, which is itself John's way of telling the reader: stop thinking of this as an ordinary disaster. This is the spiritual world made visible.
9:11–12 "They have over them as king the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is 'Abaddon,' and in Greek, he has the name 'Apollyon.' The first woe is past. Behold, there are still two woes coming after this." (WEB)
Revelation 9:11–12（World English Bible）
Proverbs 30:27 says, "The locusts have no king, yet they advance in ranks." That is a conclusion drawn from observing natural locusts in Old Testament wisdom literature. But these locusts have a king — further demonstrating they are no ordinary locusts.
John employs an extremely rare rhetorical device: he gives the king's name simultaneously in Hebrew and Greek. This kind of "bilingual naming" is exceptionally rare in the New Testament (the only other instance is 16:16, "Armageddon"), indicating the author wants both audiences (those with a Jewish background and those with a Greek background) to grasp the theological significance.
Abaddon (Greek Ἀβαδδών, Abaddōn, from Hebrew) — This word appears six times in the Old Testament (Job 26:6; 28:22; 31:12; Psalm 88:11; Proverbs 15:11; 27:20), used in parallel with "Sheol" to designate the deepest level of the underworld: the realm of destruction.
Apollyon (Greek Ἀπολλύων, Apollyōn) — literally "the one who is destroying," formed from the present participle of the Greek verb "to destroy."
The sharpest irony lies here: the Greek Apollyōn differs from the Greek sun god Apollōn (Apollo) by just one letter. The Roman emperor Domitian (reigning when John wrote) was a particular devotee of Apollo, associating himself with the sun god; coins bearing Apollo's image were stamped with Domitian's face, and his son was proclaimed "the new Apollo." John delivers a thunderbolt to his readers in a single sentence: your "god of light" Apollo is actually the Destroyer from the abyss. What you think is the savior of the cosmos is really the cosmos's executioner. This is Revelation's political theology: every imperial idol that crowns itself as god, once the shining mask is peeled back, is a spirit from the abyss.
John reminds his readers: the first woe has passed — two more, even more terrible, are still coming. This means the "seeking death but not finding it" we just witnessed is not yet the worst.
9:13–15 "The sixth angel sounded. I heard a voice from the horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, 'Free the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates!' The four angels were freed who had been prepared for that hour and day and month and year, so that they might kill one third of mankind." (WEB)
Revelation 9:13–15（World English Bible）
The voice issues from the four horns of the golden altar — the same altar to which the saints' prayers ascended in 8:3–4. This detail is extremely important: John deliberately traces the sixth trumpet's origin back to "the golden altar," forming a clear causal chain with 8:3–4. The martyrs' cry "How long?" (6:10) → the saints' prayers ascend to the golden altar (8:3–4) → the trumpet of judgment sounds forth from the golden altar (9:13). Your prayers ascend to the altar; judgment issues from the altar. This is Revelation's deepest theology of prayer.
The Euphrates River was ancient Israel's eastern boundary (Genesis 15:18, God's covenant with Abraham: "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates") and the location of Babylon and Assyria — Israel's most terrifying historical enemies. This river threads through the entire Bible's "enemy invasion" motif: (1) Genesis 2:14 — one of the four rivers flowing from Eden, a place of pre-Fall blessing; (2) Genesis 15:18 — the eastern border of the Promised Land, the boundary of the Abrahamic covenant; (3) 2 Kings 24–25 — from the Euphrates, Babylon came and took Judah captive; (4) Isaiah 8:7–8 — the prophet likens the Assyrian army to the Euphrates overflowing its banks and flooding the entire land.
In the Roman imperial context, the Euphrates was the frontier between Rome and the Parthian Empire. Parthian cavalry was the military force Rome feared most. In 53 BC at the Battle of Carrhae, Parthian horse-archers completely annihilated the seven legions led by Crassus (approximately 40,000 soldiers); the "Parthian shot" (shooting arrows while feigning retreat) became an indelible trauma in Roman military history. John's first-century readers, upon hearing "the great River Euphrates," would immediately think of Rome's most feared border threat.
The four angels are "bound" (the Greek uses the perfect passive participle, emphasizing a continuous state of having been bound), indicating these destructive forces had been restrained by God all along. They were not too weak to act — God simply did not permit them to act. Now, in God's precise timetable — "that hour and day and month and year" (the Greek stacks four temporal levels: hour-day-month-year, the most precise time expression in the entire New Testament) — they are released. This exact time-stamp emphasizes: judgment is not a random eruption but a preordained act within God's sovereign plan — not one second early, not one second late — all held in the grasp of the One "who was and who is and who is to come."
9:16–17 "The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million. I heard the number of them. Thus I saw the horses in the vision, and those who sat on them, having breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow; and the horses' heads were like lions' heads, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and sulfur." (WEB)
Revelation 9:16–17（World English Bible）
9:18–19 "By these three plagues were one third of mankind killed: by the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur, which came out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents, and have heads with which they harm." (WEB)
Revelation 9:18–19（World English Bible）
"Two hundred million" (literally "two myriads of myriads," i.e., 200,000,000) — this is the largest specific number in the entire New Testament. This figure far exceeds the scale of any ancient army (the Roman Empire at its peak had a total military strength of roughly 500,000; the Western Han dynasty of China at its zenith had approximately 1,000,000; the estimated total world population at the time was only 2–3 billion). This indicates it is not a literal human army but a symbolic, irresistible force of destruction — a kind of "count until your head spins" rhetorical hyperbole, plunging the reader into a spiritual terror of being swallowed by an overwhelming multitude of enemies.
John uses the four words "I heard the number" as a buffer. He does not say "I counted" or "I saw" — he says "I heard the number." This parallels 7:4's "I heard the number of those who were sealed": the precise figure was not visually observed but revealed from heaven.
Fire, smoke, and sulfur — these three pour forth from the horses' mouths, immediately evoking the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24, "the LORD rained sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah"), the most iconic image of God's judgment in the Old Testament (cf. Deuteronomy 29:23; Psalm 11:6; Ezekiel 38:22). The word "sulfur" (theion) in ancient Greek carried a connotation of "the divine," because the intense smell of burning sulfur led the ancient Greeks to consider it something sacred. John deftly exploits this double meaning, hinting that this destruction issues from God's holy wrath.
Tails "like serpents, and have heads" — the serpent imagery instantly takes the reader back to the serpent of Genesis 3. This destruction is fundamentally connected to that ancient serpent. All human destruction can ultimately be traced back to the bite of the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
Interpretive approaches: Futurists see this as a real supernatural army of the end times (perhaps demonically embodied warriors); preterists map the "eastern army of 200 million" onto invasions from the Parthian-Persian direction (including the sustained wars of the third-century Sassanid Empire against Rome's eastern frontier); historicists have identified this with the Mongol hordes sweeping westward in the thirteenth century ("innumerable cavalry from the East wielding gunpowder weapons") or more recent Islamic armies; idealists see it as a recurring historical pattern of "overwhelming violence surging from the east."
This army kills one-third of humanity. Combined with the one-quarter already killed under the fourth seal (6:8), by this point more than half the earth's population has suffered fatal strikes. The severity of judgment keeps escalating — yet the worst (the seven bowl judgments) is still to come. This itself declares: however many chances people have had to repent and refused, God has had that many occasions for patience and grief.
9:20–21 "The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, didn't repent of the works of their hands, that they wouldn't worship demons, and the golden, and the silver, and the brass, and the stone, and the wood idols, which can't see, hear, or walk. They didn't repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts." (WEB)
Revelation 9:20–21（World English Bible）
The most shocking thing in this chapter is not the horror of the locusts or the army — it is these two verses. This is chapter 9's true diagnosis. All the preceding scenes of catastrophe are merely the backdrop; the real tragedy stands here: after experiencing such devastating judgment, people still did not repent (the Greek uses the negative aorist: "the event of their changing their minds did not occur").
"Did not repent" is repeated twice in these two verses (end of v.20 and end of v.21) — a Greek rhetorical inclusio, like a verdict nailed to the ground with screws: human hardness of heart has reached an inconceivable degree.
John catalogs five sins of unrepentance, arranged in two categories:
(1) Religious sins: Worshiping demons (δαιμόνια, daimonia — this sentence tears away the spiritual facade of all idol worship; cf. 1 Corinthians 10:20, "the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God"); worshiping dead idols.
(2) Ethical sins: Murder; sorcery (φαρμακεία, pharmakeia — this word's root meaning is "drugs, poisons," referring specifically to witchcraft, abortifacient potions, and mind-altering spells associated with drugs and poisons; it is the etymological source of the modern English word "pharmacy"); sexual immorality; theft. These four violations correspond precisely to the second half of the Ten Commandments (the sixth, seventh, and eighth commandments; sorcery violates the first and second).
The entire catalog exactly corresponds to "violating both tablets of God's law": the first tablet, concerning the worship of God (violated by idolatry and sorcery); the second tablet, concerning love for neighbor (violated by murder, sexual immorality, and theft).
John has diagnosed the deepest human disease in the entire Bible: it is neither ignorance nor weakness — it is the free will's deliberate choice of rebellion. The idols they worship are deliberately described as dead things that "cannot see, cannot hear, cannot walk" (virtually quoting word-for-word Psalm 115:4–7: "their idols... have mouths but cannot speak, have eyes but cannot see, have ears but cannot hear"). This stands in biting contrast to the living God who "sees all things, hears prayers, and walks among the lampstands."
This reveals a tragic truth about judgment: the purpose of judgment is to call forth repentance, but the hardness of the human heart can withstand every warning. As Amos lamented: "I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in every town, yet you have not returned to me" (Amos 4:6–11, where the refrain "yet you have not returned to me" is repeated five times).
This is Revelation's piercing reminder to the modern church: material destruction cannot bring about repentance. Catastrophe itself has no saving power. Only the blood of the Lamb can soften the heart. The hope of the church's evangelism today does not lie in "the closer the end comes, the more people will believe" — it lies in the Holy Spirit, working through the cross, softening each individual heart.
| Original | Transliteration | Meaning | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἄβυσσος | abyssos | The Abyss — the place where demonic forces are imprisoned | 9:1–2, 11 |
| Ἀβαδδών | Abaddōn | Abaddon — Hebrew for "destruction/place of ruin" | 9:11 |
| Ἀπολλύων | Apollyōn | Apollyon — Greek for "the Destroyer" (present participle) | 9:11 |
| μετενόησαν | metenoēsan | Repented (used in negated form: "did not repent") | 9:20–21 |
| φαρμακεία | pharmakeia | Sorcery — root meaning "drugs/poisons"; drug-related witchcraft | 9:21 |
| στέφανοι | stephanoi | Victory wreaths (not royal crowns) — the locusts' counterfeit glory | 9:7 |
| ὁμοιώματα | homoiōmata | Likenesses — the "as if" language of apocalyptic symbolism | 9:7 |
| Element | Joel 1–2 | Revelation 9 |
|---|---|---|
| Locust form | Similes based on real locusts | Supernatural composite: horse + human + lion + scorpion |
| Target of attack | Crops, vineyards, vegetation | People (not vegetation) |
| Time limitation | Not specified | Five months |
| Leader | The LORD Himself leads the army (Joel 2:11) | Abaddon: the angel of the abyss |
| Response called for | "Return to me" (Joel 2:12) | People "still did not repent" (9:20) |
Joel's locusts brought repentance; Revelation's locusts fail to bring repentance — this is one of the tragic dimensions of end-times judgment.
"Apollyon" (Apollyōn, "the Destroyer") is strikingly similar in sound to the Greek sun god Apollo (Apollōn). This is very likely John's deliberate irony:
This reveals the core of Revelation's political theology: every imperial idol that claims divinity is, beneath the veneer, a spirit of the abyss. "Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14). First-century Christians in Asia Minor, living under an emperor who demanded worship and minted coins linking his face to Apollo's, would have heard this naming as both a liberation and a call to costly faithfulness.
"The Abyss" appears seven times in Revelation, forming a thread that runs through the entire book. It specifically designates the place where demonic forces are imprisoned, awaiting their final judgment:
| Passage | Event Involving the Abyss |
|---|---|
| 9:1–2 | A fallen star uses a "given" key to open the pit; locusts pour out |
| 9:11 | The angel of the abyss, Abaddon/Apollyon, rules as king of the locusts |
| 11:7 | The beast "comes up from the abyss" and kills the two witnesses |
| 17:8 | The beast "is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction" |
| 20:1–3 | An angel uses a key and a great chain to lock the dragon in the pit for a thousand years |
Several theological points emerge from this thread:
First — who holds the key? In 9:1, the key is "given" to the fallen star (divine passive: the one granting permission is God). In 20:1, an angel directly wields the key. And in 1:18, the risen Christ declares, "I have the keys of Death and of Hades." Evil can come out of the pit only because God temporarily loosens His grip — never because it breaks free on its own.
Second — the abyss is not the final destination. It is the "holding cell" for demonic forces. Their ultimate destination is the "lake of fire" (the second death) in 20:10, 14–15. The abyss is a temporary prison; the lake of fire is the permanent sentence.
Third — Second Temple Jewish literature (1 Enoch 10, 21) had already depicted the "deep" as a prison where fallen angels are locked up awaiting judgment. John works squarely within this imagery.
For persecuted readers, this thread is a firm assurance: the evil that torments you has a source, has chains, has an expiration date — and has a verdict that was determined long ago.
The "did not repent" of 9:20–21 echoes the hardening of Pharaoh's heart in Exodus. The parallels between the two:
| Exodus | Revelation 9 |
|---|---|
| Ten plagues escalating progressively | Seven trumpets escalating progressively |
| Pharaoh "hardened his heart and would not listen" (Exodus 8:15) | "Still did not repent" (9:20) |
| God hardened Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 10:1) | Judgment fails to soften the human heart |
| Final outcome: the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn | Final outcome: the seven bowls of total judgment |
Paul describes a similar progression in Romans 1:18–32: people refuse to acknowledge God → God "gives them over" → they grow harder and harder. The tragedy of judgment is not that God fails to provide opportunities, but that people refuse each and every opportunity.
The "did not repent" of 9:20–21 inevitably recalls Pharaoh's stubbornness in Exodus, but this history is worth reading carefully. In the Exodus narrative, "Pharaoh hardened his own heart" and "the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart" appear in alternation: during the first plagues, the text mostly says Pharaoh "hardened his own heart" (Exodus 8:15, 32); only later does it say "the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart" (from Exodus 9:12 onward). The sequence matters: the person first refuses again and again of his own volition, and only then does God "give him over" to walk the road he himself has chosen — this is precisely the logic of Romans 1:24, 26, 28, where three times "God gave them over."
Therefore Revelation's "did not repent" does not mean God predestined certain people for destruction or withheld from them the possibility of repentance. Quite the opposite: God's judgments provide opportunity after opportunity (the "five months" of torment still leaves room for turning back, 9:5) — it is people who, time after time, bolt the door shut from the inside. God is not the source of evil, nor does He force anyone into perdition. His "hardening" is a just response to prolonged rebellion, not an arbitrary selection.
This is precisely what grieves John so deeply: what can soften the human heart is never the intensity of disaster, but rather the blood of the Lamb and the work of the Spirit. Judgment reveals the state of the heart; only salvation renews it.
| Revelation Text | OT/NT Parallel | Connection |
|---|---|---|
| 9:1 — Star fallen from heaven | Isaiah 14:12; Luke 10:18 | "Morning star" falls / Jesus saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning |
| 9:1 — The Abyss | Luke 8:31; Revelation 20:1–3 | The prison of demonic forces |
| 9:3–4 — Locusts | Joel 1:4–7; 2:1–11 | Joel's locust vision: the prototype of end-times judgment |
| 9:4 — Seal of God protects | Ezekiel 9:4–6 | The mark on the forehead spares the faithful from judgment |
| 9:6 — Seeking death, cannot find it | Hosea 10:8; Luke 23:30 | Suffering beyond death; no escape |
| 9:11 — Abaddon | Job 26:6; 28:22; Psalm 88:11 | In the OT, "Abaddon" designates the place of ruin, parallel to Sheol |
| 9:14 — The Euphrates River | Genesis 15:18; Isaiah 8:7–8 | Israel's eastern boundary; the route of enemy invasion |
| 9:17 — Fire, smoke, sulfur | Genesis 19:24; Ezekiel 38:22 | The classic imagery of divine judgment (Sodom, Gog) |
| 9:20 — Worshiping idols | Psalm 115:4–8; Isaiah 44:9–20 | The prophets' classic satire on the emptiness of idols |
| 9:20–21 — Did not repent | Exodus 7–11; Romans 1:18–32 | Pharaoh's hardness / Paul on humanity's rejection of God |
| 9:21 — Sorcery (pharmakeia) | Galatians 5:20 | Listed among the "works of the flesh" |
| 9:13 — Voice from the golden altar | Revelation 6:9–10; 8:3–4 | Martyrs' prayers → altar → judgment: the causal chain of prayer |
| Character | Identity | Role in This Chapter |
|---|---|---|
| The fallen star | A spiritual being authorized to open the abyss | Releases the locust army — evil operates under God's permission |
| The locusts of the abyss | Symbolic of demonic power | Torment those without God's seal for five months |
| Abaddon/Apollyon | The angel of the abyss: the Destroyer | King of the locusts — evil forces are organized and led |
| The Euphrates army | End-times destructive force | Kills one-third of humanity |
| The survivors | Those who experience judgment but do not repent | Continue worshiping idols — the ultimate expression of human hardness of heart |
| Theme | What This Chapter Reveals | Canonical Connection |
|---|---|---|
| Evil operates under God's permission | The key to the abyss is "given" — Satan has no independent authority | Job 1:12; Luke 22:31 |
| Judgment calls for repentance | The purpose of disaster is not destruction but awakening — yet people can refuse | Amos 4:6–11, "yet you have not returned to me" |
| The emptiness of idols | "Cannot see, cannot hear, cannot walk" — a stark contrast to the living God | Psalm 115:4–8; Isaiah 44:9–20 |
| Human hardness of heart | Experiencing the most terrifying judgment and still not repenting — the blinding power of sin runs inconceivably deep | Romans 1:21–25; Exodus 7–11 (Pharaoh's heart) |
| The prayer-to-judgment chain | Martyrs' prayers ascend to the golden altar; the trumpet of judgment sounds from the same altar | Revelation 6:9–10; 8:3–4 |
| Escalation within divine restraint | Each trumpet is worse than the last, yet each operates within precise divine limits (five months, one-third, sealed people exempt) | The pattern of "one-fourth" → "one-third" → total (bowls) |
| Political theology | Imperial gods (Apollo/Domitian) are unmasked as spirits from the abyss | 2 Corinthians 11:14; Daniel 7 (beasts as empires) |