Revelation 9:8-21

8 women's hair, the teeth of lions,

9 and iron breastplates. The sound of their wings was the sound of horse-drawn chariots charging into battle.

10 Their tails were equipped with stings, like scorpion tails. With those tails they were ordered to torture the human race for five months.

11 They had a king over them, the Angel of the Abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, in Greek, Apollyon - "Destroyer."

12 The first doom is past. Two dooms yet to come.

13 The sixth Angel trumpeted. I heard a voice speaking to the sixth Angel from the horns of the Golden Altar before God:

14 "Let the Four Angels loose, the Angels confined at the great River Euphrates."

15 The Four Angels were untied and let loose, Four Angels all prepared for the exact year, month, day, and even hour when they were to kill a third of the human race.

16 The number of the army of horsemen was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard the count

17 and saw both horses and riders in my vision: fiery breastplates on the riders, lion heads on the horses breathing out fire and smoke and brimstone.

18 With these three weapons - fire and smoke and brimstone - they killed a third of the human race.

19 The horses killed with their mouths and tails; their serpentlike tails also had heads that wreaked havoc.

20 The remaining men and women who weren't killed by these weapons went on their merry way - didn't change their way of life, didn't quit worshiping demons, didn't quit centering their lives around lumps of gold and silver and brass, hunks of stone and wood that couldn't see or hear or move.

21 There wasn't a sign of a change of heart. They plunged right on in their murderous, occult, promiscuous, and thieving ways.

Revelation 9:8-21 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO REVELATION 9

This chapter gives an account of the blowing of the fifth and sixth trumpets, and of the effects following upon them. The fifth angel blows his trumpet, and a star falls; the key of the bottomless pit is given to him, which being opened by it, out of it comes smoke to the darkening of the sun and air, and out of the smoke locusts, who have power like scorpions, Re 9:1-3; whose power is restrained from using it to the hurt of the grass, or any green thing or tree, only of those who had not the seal of God in their foreheads; but are permitted, though not to kill men, yet to torment them five months, which is worse than death unto them, Re 9:4-6. The shapes of these locusts, which are said to be like horses, are described by their heads, faces, hair, teeth, breastplates, wings, and tails, and are said to have a king over them, whose name is mentioned, Re 9:7-11. The blowing of this trumpet brings on one of the woes mentioned in Re 8:13, and the two other follow, Re 9:12. The sixth angel blows his trumpet, and a voice is heard from the horns of the altar, directed to the said angel, ordering him to loose four angels bound in the great river Euphrates, where they were prepared, for a determinate time, to slay the third part of men, and they were loosed accordingly, Re 9:13-15. The number of the army, under these angels, is given, Re 9:16, and the horses and horsemen are described; the riders by their breastplates of fire, jacinth, and brimstone; their horses' heads as heads of lions, fire, smoke, and brimstone, issuing out of their mouths, by which the third part of men are killed, Re 9:17,18. The reason of this slaughter is, because they had power both in their mouth and tails, which latter were like serpents, and had heads, with which they did mischief, Re 9:19; and yet such who were not killed by these plagues, but escaped, did not repent of their idolatry, murders, sorceries, fornication, and theft, Re 9:20,21.