Revelation 9:1-12·~1 min

The Fifth Trumpet

When the fifth angel sounds, John sees a fallen star given the key to the pit of the Abyss. Once opened, smoke rises like a great furnace, darkening the air, and locust-like creatures emerge with scorpion-like power. They are forbidden to harm the vegetation and may only torment those who do not bear God's seal. Their five-month assault brings agony so severe that people seek death but cannot find it. The paragraph emphasizes both the intensity and the strict limitation of the first woe.

T¹hen the fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth, and it was given the key to the pit of the Abyss. ²The star opened the pit of the Abyss, and smoke rose out of it like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the pit. ³And out of the smoke, locusts descended on the earth, and they were given power like that of the scorpions of the earth. ⁴They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. ⁵The locusts were not given power to kill them, but only to torment them for five months, and their torment was like the stinging of a scorpion. ⁶In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, but death will escape them.

John then describes the locusts in composite battle imagery: they resemble horses prepared for war, wear crown-like forms, bear human-like faces, women's hair, lions' teeth, iron breastplates, and wings roaring like chariots. Their scorpion tails continue the picture of prolonged torment, and over them rules the angel of the Abyss, the destroyer. The first woe concludes with the warning that two more woes remain. The paragraph turns symbolic description into a portrait of ordered, horrifying, destructive power.

⁷And the locusts looked like horses prepared for battle, with something like crowns of gold on their heads; and their faces were like the faces of men. ⁸They had hair like that of women, and teeth like those of lions. ⁹They also had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the roar of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. ¹⁰They had tails with stingers like scorpions, which had the power to injure people for five months. ¹¹They were ruled by a king, the angel of the Abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek it is Apollyon. ¹²The first woe has passed. Behold, two woes are still to follow.

Section summaryThe fifth trumpet releases the first woe through the opening of the Abyss. A fallen star is given the key, smoke pours out and darkens the sky, and from the smoke come locust-like beings empowered like scorpions. Their commission is tightly limited: they are not to destroy vegetation but to torment only those who lack God's seal, and even then only for five months. The torment is unbearable, yet death does not arrive as relief. The locusts are described in layered, terrifying imagery and are ruled by the angel of the Abyss, named Abaddon or Apollyon. The section portrays a judgment of demonic oppression under divine restraint.

Role in the chapterThis opening section reveals the fifth trumpet as a limited but horrifying woe that torments the unsealed and exposes the demonic dimension of judgment.