What Does Revelation 11:10 Mean in the King James?
And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The crowd’s celebration exposes its relief: the witnesses’ silencing feels like joy because their testimony has been torment.
THE MEANING
This verse names a joy with its cause still attached: people celebrate the prophets’ deaths because the prophets’ witness has been torment to them. Gifts pass from one to another, making the relief shared and public. Silencing a witness can feel like gladness when what that witness says remains unbearable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that relief after a truth-teller is silenced proves the truth-teller was the problem.
THE ROOT
ἐβασάνισαν
ebasanisan from basanizō
GROWS FROM
βασαν-
The word family reaches back to the touchstone used to test metal, and also names painful examination and torment.
“tormented” in this verse is ebasanisan from basanizō. The touchstone history opens an image of testing, while the verse’s word means torment. The witnesses’ testimony has become an ordeal for the crowd; its celebration reveals the relief of silencing what unsettles it.
ALSO GROWS
basanos: Touchstone; also a test or torment
βάσανος
This related word preserves the testing image beneath the verse’s language of torment.
basanistēs: Torturer, one who inflicts torment
βασανιστής
The related agent noun makes the word family’s violence concrete: the prophets are experienced as tormentors by those who hear them.
THE PATTERN
Truth that exposes what people defend can be experienced as torment, and its messenger treated as the threat.
And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the LORD: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,THE THREAD
The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:The same Greek verb for “tormented” appears here. Revelation uses it first for the witnesses’ effect on the earth-dwellers and later for the beast-worshipper’s torment, making the crowd’s celebration feel less like a final escape.
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