Tool Alpha
Echoes of Revelation
Revelation never quotes the Old Testament outright, yet no New Testament book refers to it more. See both texts side by side, why they don’t match, and what John does with them.
Revelation 9:3, locusts came out onto the earth
Locusts coming out onto the earth repeat the eighth plague of Exodus 10, the next step in the plague pattern the trumpets follow.
Revelation 9:3, in every translation this tool compares.
A remake can keep the plot of the old film and swap in a scarier monster. The fifth trumpet follows the plagues on Egypt, as the earlier trumpets did. In Exodus 10 Moses stretches out his hand, and locusts come up over the land. Here locusts come out of the smoke onto the earth. But these locusts are given the power of scorpions. They are no ordinary insects.
Locusts (akrides) coming onto the land or earth: epi ten gen in Exodus 10:12, eis ten gen in John. In both books the locusts come as God's judgment on people who will not turn.
In Exodus, Moses stretches his hand and the wind brings the locusts. In John they rise from the smoke of the Abyss. John adds the power of scorpions, which Exodus lacks. The verb shifts too: Exodus says let them come up, John says they came out. Beale and Keener say John has turned insects into something far worse, demonic powers.
The trumpets copy the order of the Exodus plagues: hail and fire, water to blood, darkness, now locusts. Beale says the pattern shows that God holds the reins of every plague. But this plague strikes people, not crops, and its agents come from the pit.
Not a swarm of ordinary locusts. The insects come from the Abyss and sting like scorpions. Every source here, MacArthur included, reads them as more than locusts.
Beale says the wording, locusts going out into the earth, rests on Exodus 10:12, which opens the locust plague, so the fifth trumpet is partly modeled on the plagues in form and theme. In the Septuagint Exodus 10:12 reads anabeto akris epi ten gen, let the locust come up on the land; John has exelthon akrides eis ten gen. Exodus 10:14 adds that there had never been such a swarm. Beale notes Wisdom of Solomon 16:9, where the Egyptians die from locust bites, and that the frogs of another plague become demonic spirits in Revelation 16:13. Keener says the plague recalls the eighth plague, transmuted into something far more terrifying with Joel's help. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, the ESV Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible each name Exodus 10, and the CSB Study Bible lists Exodus 10:1-20. Heiser reads Beale's note on Exodus 10:12 in his lecture. The grade is drawn here: the locust plague is uniquely traceable to Exodus, but the wording is not close enough to call it clear.
Heiser reads 9:3-10 as the release of the Watchers held in the Abyss. He begins by ruling out tanks and missiles, since these creatures may torment but not kill. Then he reads Beale at length on Exodus 10 and Joel to show how much of the scene comes from the Old Testament. To read it as black helicopters, he says, is to throw out the Old Testament John is using.
What are the locusts? Beale, Heiser and the ESV Study Bible read demonic spirits. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible and Keener allow that a human army, perhaps Rome's Parthian enemies, colors the picture. The ESV Study Bible also mentions readers who see real locusts described in symbols. MacArthur reads demons that take the outward form of locusts, whose sting may bring spiritual as well as bodily pain.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-9-1-21\/","n":"Revelation 9:1-21, the Abyss opened and the armies from the Euphrates","s":"At the fifth trumpet a fallen star is given the key to the Abyss, and from its smoke come locusts like horses with human faces, women's hair and scorpions' stings, under a king called Abaddon and Apollyon. At the sixth, four angels bound at the Euphrates are released with a cavalry of two hundred million that kills a third of humanity, yet the survivors do not repent.","r":"Revelation 9:1-21"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/gods-of-the-bible\/the-watchers-enochic\/","n":"The Watchers (Enochic)","s":"Angels who, in 1 Enoch, come down to earth, marry women, and teach humanity things it should not know.","r":"Daniel 4:13"}
- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 9:3
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 9:3
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:3-11
- ESV Study Bible, notes on Revelation 9:2-3 and 9:4-6
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 9:3
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references on Revelation 9:3
- Septuagint, Exodus 10:12 and 10:14, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 9:3
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 9: The Fifth and Sixth Trumpet Judgments, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 9:3
