What Does Revelation 16:13 Mean in the King James?
And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
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 word rendered “spirits” also means breath, so the verse pictures unclean force coming out of three mouths.
THE MEANING
Three unclean spirits, frog-like in appearance, emerge from the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet. What comes from these mouths takes form and moves outward; the verse binds the source of the utterance to the unclean character of what it releases.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A voice does not become clean simply because it comes from a powerful source.
THE ROOT
πνεύματα
pneumata
GROWS FROM
πνέω
pneō
to blow or breathe
“spirits” in this verse is pneumata. The noun grows from a word for blowing or breathing, keeping breath, wind, and spirit within one Greek word-family. Here, what comes from the three mouths is called pneuma: the verse portrays their utterance as an unclean animating force moving outward.
ALSO GROWS
pneuma: breath, wind, or spirit
πνεῦμα
This is the singular form behind the verse’s “spirits,” preserving the breath and wind resonance within that word.
pnoē: breath or blowing
πνοή
This related word makes the breath-image audible: what emerges from a mouth can be understood as a breath moving outward.
THE PATTERN
What comes from a mouth can carry life or defilement beyond the speaker.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.THE THREAD
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.John uses the same Greek word, pneuma, for both “wind” and “Spirit,” and the related verb for blowing. That shared word-family lets the “spirits” from Revelation’s mouths resonate as breath-like forces moving outward.
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