Revelation 9:19

19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails [are] similar in appearance to snakes, having heads, and with them they cause injury.

Revelation 9:19 Meaning and Commentary

Revelation 9:19

For their power is in their mouth
In what proceeded out of their mouth, or seethed to do so; in their guns, and what came out of them:

and in their tails;
which may design their foot soldiers, which were as the tail to their horse, and who sometimes did great service; or their way of fighting when they fled, by casting up arrows into the air, which would fall upon the heads and horses of those that pursued them; or their ambushments, by which they destroyed many; or their perfidious violation of treaties; or it may be their tails may intend the doctrine of Mahomet, the false prophet, who is the tail, ( Isaiah 9:15 ) ,

for their tails [were] like unto serpents;
crooked, crafty, poisonous, and, pernicious:

and had heads;
every tail had a head to it; which may be understood of the officers of the foot soldiers, or of the priests and teachers of the Mahometan religion:

and with them they do hurt;
with their guns, the power in their mouth, they did hurt to the bodies of men; and with their false doctrines, their tails, they did hurt to the souls of men; the Ethiopic version here adds, "five months"; which seems to be taken from ( Revelation 9:10 ) .

Revelation 9:19 In-Context

17 And in this way I saw the horses in the vision, and those seated on them, who had fiery [red] and hyacinth-colored and sulphurous [yellow] breastplates, and the heads of the horses [were] like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire and smoke and sulphur.

18 By these three plagues a third of humanity was killed--by the fire and the smoke and the sulphur that came out of their mouths.

19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails [are] similar in appearance to snakes, having heads, and with them they cause injury.

20 And the rest of humanity who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, {in order not to worship} the demons and the gold and silver and bronze and stone and wooden idols, which are able neither to see nor to hear nor to walk,

21 and they did not repent of their murders or of their magic spells or of their sexual immorality or of their thefts.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "they injure"