Sunday School Notes: Revelation 9:3-6

³ And from the smoke came locusts to the earth, and power [or authority] was given to them like scorpions of the earth have power. ⁴ And it was told to them such that they shall not harm the grass of the earth nor every green plant nor every tree, except the men who do not have the seal of God upon the forehead. ⁵ And it was given to them such that they should not kill them, but in order that they shall be tormented for five months, and their torment [shall be] as the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man. ⁶ And in those days men shall seek death and they shall surely not find it, and they shall desire to die, but death flees from them.

We picked up from last time talking about the fifth trumpet. As I mentioned then, there are two parts to the discussion of this trumpet in Revelation 9. The first part (verses 1-6) talks about the calamity brought about by the trumpet, whereas the second part (verses 7-12) focuses on the locusts themselves, what they look like and who they serve.

As we discussed last time, the smoke from whence the locusts come is representative of judgment (see, for example, Sodom and Gomorrah). If the smoke is coming from the abyss, the implication seems to be that the abyss is either under judgment, or has undergone judgment already. If the latter, why would there be anything coming out? Of course, we should remind ourselves that this is a vision, so what John sees doesn’t have to correspond to actual time, and, indeed, may by symbolic of a larger reality. It’s equally possible that the smoke from the abyss is simply there to indicate to us that this abyss is not a good place–indeed, it is under God’s wrath. Hence, anything coming from the abyss can’t be good.

John sees locusts coming out from the smoke that rises up from the abyss. Again, the association of smoke with these locusts indicates the locusts are bad, even demonic–a fact that will be confirmed as we read on. The most obvious Old Testament parallel to this vision is Exodus 10:12ff, where the Lord sends a plague of locusts upon Egypt. We’ve already said more than once how much the Exodus plagues lie behind these visions, and that is clearly deliberate. Just as God judged the Egyptians for their godlessness and disobedience, so God will one day judge the earth.

But this isn’t a simple transfer of imagery from Exodus to Revelation. The Revelation locusts have their own agenda. In Exodus, the locusts savaged the greenery, leaving no plants or crops untouched. Here, the locusts are instructed to leave the greenery, and only harm people, specifically, those who don’t have the seal of God on their foreheads. One might object that, after the previous visions there isn’t much greenery left for the locusts to devour anyway, so why give the order to leave the greenery? In response, I would offer two suggestions. First, this objection assumes a chronological order to these visions which is not indicated in the text. For all we know, this vision takes place chronologically at the same time as the previous events, or even before. Second, John wants to draw our focus to the locusts’ activity. They are behaving in a manner contrary to what we might expect of locusts. Their interest is not in the fields and plants, but in people. Locusts don’t normally attack people, so the fact these locusts are sent to attack people should grab our attention. They might swarm like locusts, but they attack like scorpions.

Notice, too, that they don’t attack the sealed. We recall back in 7:4, John listed those who had been sealed in twelve groups of twelve thousand, corresponding to the twelve tribes of Israel. As we discussed back then, this is a picture of the church, the fulfillment (not replacement) of Israel, which is made up of people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation–including Israel. Indeed, if the 144,000 that were sealed were literally Israel, and only Israel, then only Israel would be protected from the locusts, and there would be believers among those crying out for death, tormented by the stings, which seems to contradict God’s promises to His church in chapters 2 and 3. We’ll discuss the torment of the stings in a moment, and hopefully that will clarify why this kind of torment would be impossible for any of God’s people.

John says the torment inflicted by the locusts lasts for five months. Is this another symbolic number? Whenever John gives a specific quantity, we can usually understand that number to have a deeper significance. I’m no entomologist, but it seems five months is about the life cycle of a locust. It’s also about the length of time it takes for crops to grow before being harvested. Traditionally, locusts don’t swarm for their entire five month lives, but they make occasional strikes. So a five month locust attack would be very severe. The fact that these locusts would know nothing else in their lives apart from attacking people indicates that these locusts were created for this purpose. All this gives us a picture of a relatively brief, but intense and deliberate, period of violence against a third of mankind.

The torment of the locusts is, John says, like a scorpion’s sting. The sting of a scorpion is not usually lethal, but those who have had the misfortune to encounter a scorpion’s tail will tell you it is excruciatingly painful. At first we might think that this is the torment: pain like a scorpion’s sting–especially since the locusts are told not to kill. However, John says the torment is like a scorpion’s sting. When we see that “like” we must ask ourselves: in what way? Certainly we shouldn’t dismiss the physical pain, but both the immediate context and other places in Revelation seem to point to something much deeper. First, verse 6 says that those stung will seek death and not find it. Again, it’s very possible that such intense pain could lead to suicidal thoughts, but most people who suffer a scorpion sting don’t react this way. So there is a sense of incredible mental and psychological anguish associated with this sting. We should also consider later in Revelation, where the word “torment” seems to be used to describe similar mental, psychological, and spiritual pain:

• 11:10: the two witnesses bring a torment upon the earth-dwellers that is evidently not physical.
• 14:10-11: Those experiencing God’s wrath are tormented with fire and sulfur, and the smoke of that torment is eternal. This could be describing a physical torment, but the eternal nature of it suggests something more profound.
• 18:7-10: At the fall of Babylon, her torment is described as being as great as her wealth. The “torment and mourning” here seems to point to a sense of psychological anguish, despair, and ruin.

One third of humanity will be so overcome with pain–maybe physical, certainly psychological and spiritual–that they will lose hope and any sense of self-worth. They don’t repent. They don’t seek Christ. Like Judas, their utter devastation leads them to suicide. But unlike Judas, death wants nothing to do with them. They must continue to live in anguish. This is part of their judgment. The fact that only one third of humanity go through this reminds us that this is not the final judgment, but part of a crescendo of judgments leading up to the final condemnation of sinful, rebellious mankind, and the spiritual forces behind mankind’s rebellion.

As for the sealed, they don’t suffer this anguish. They have hope, as promised them in the fifth seal. Whatever may happen to them physically, they are secure in Christ, covered by the blood of the Lamb. Christ has already paid the penalty for their sin, so they stand blameless before God. They don’t seek death because to live is Christ–even under the most dire of circumstances. But should death find them, they don’t run from it because to die is gain.

Next time we’ll at least start looking at these locusts in a bit more detail (9:7ff).