Revelation 9: Locusts From the Abyss

Before the locusts of the fifth trumpet do anything else, they’re given a list of things they may not touch: no grass, no tree, no green plant — only the people who don’t carry God’s seal on their foreheads (9:4). It’s an odd note to include in a scene otherwise built for horror. Whatever else this plague is, it isn’t indiscriminate; it has a target, and it has limits even the abyss can’t override.

Read it in the terminal: bible revelation 9

Torment, not termination

The locusts are given power to hurt for five months, explicitly not to kill (9:5). Scorpion tails, iron breastplates, faces described as almost human — the description reads less like an animal and more like an assembled machine of dread. But the restriction matters: this trumpet is measured cruelty, not annihilation. Annihilation is still being held back.

A king with a name

Most plagues in Revelation are anonymous forces. This one has a ruler, and John names him in both languages available to his readers:

“They have over them as king the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is ‘Abaddon,’ but in Greek, he has the name ‘Apollyon.’” — Revelation 9:11

Both names mean the same thing: Destroyer. The chapter wants its readers, in every tongue, to recognize exactly what they’re looking at.

Surviving without changing

The sixth trumpet kills a third of mankind through a monstrous cavalry, and then the chapter ends on its bleakest line: the survivors “didn’t repent of the works of their hands” (9:20). Judgment this large didn’t produce a single reported change of heart. That’s the harder plague to sit with.

Questions for study

1. Why might God set limits on the locusts’ power rather than letting them run unchecked?
2. What does it mean that a third of humanity could witness this and still not repent?
3. Where do you see “measured” rather than total judgment operating in your own life?

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